sığdırmak
“sığdırmak” — fit in in Turkish. Verb, level B1. ğ stretches the ı: sı-I-dır-mak. In a live sentence: “Bütün kitapları tek çantaya sığdırdım” — I fitted all the books into one bag. You can hear how it sounds right here. A word from the everyday Turkish course, level B1.
In short
| Written in Turkish | sığdırmak |
| Translation | fit in |
| Part of speech | verb |
| Level | B1 |
- sığdırmakfit in
How to pronounce it
ğ stretches the ı: sı-I-dır-mak
Why it looks that way
sığmak is to fit, -dır- makes it transitive: "make it fit". Valize sığmıyor — it will not fit into the suitcase.
A word with a story stays in memory longer than one learned as a “spelling — translation” pair: memory holds on to meaning, not to a string.
In a live sentence
A single word almost never appears alone in conversation. A sentence shows where it fits and what stands next to it.
- Bütün kitapları tek çantaya sığdırdımI fitted all the books into one bag
How not to forget this word
Reading a word and remembering it are different jobs. A day later, little survives of a single reading — and that is not bad memory, that is how memory works.
- This has been tested on foreign words too. The difference shows up most when you test yourself a few days later rather than straight away.checked many timesKim & Webb, 2022, Language Learning 72(2) · 48 experiments, 3,411 participants, 98 comparisons.
- Recalling beats re-reading. Covering the translation and trying to remember it does more than reading it ten more times.checked many timesAdesope, Trevisan & Sundararajan, 2017, Review of Educational Research 87(3) · 188 experiments, 272 comparisons. g = 0.61; against plain re-reading 0.51, against passive review 0.93.
- An answer you worked out yourself sticks better than one handed to you.checked many timesBertsch et al., 2007, Memory & Cognition 35(2) · 86 studies, 445 comparisons, d = 0.40.
Frequently asked
How do you say “fit in” in Turkish?
«sığdırmak». ğ stretches the ı: sı-I-dır-mak. In a live sentence: “Bütün kitapları tek çantaya sığdırdım” — I fitted all the books into one bag. You can hear how it sounds right on this page. Verb, level B1.
Why does this word look the way it does?
sığmak is to fit, -dır- makes it transitive: "make it fit". Valize sığmıyor — it will not fit into the suitcase. A word with a story stays in memory longer than a “spelling — translation” pair: memory holds on to meaning, not to a string.
Can I hear how it sounds?
Yes, right on this page: click the word and it will play. The sound works on any phone, and nothing needs to be installed.