yedi
“yedi” — seven in Turkish. Numeral, level A1, topic — numbers and counting. Matches a form of the verb yemek: yedi is "he ate". Only its place in the sentence tells them apart — one of the first listening traps in Turkish. In a live sentence: “Bir haftada yedi gün var” — There are seven days in a week. You can hear how it sounds right here. One of 51 words in the set “numbers and counting” in the Turkish course.
In short
| Written in Turkish | yedi |
| Translation | seven |
| Part of speech | numeral |
| Level | A1 |
- yediseven
Why it looks that way
Matches a form of the verb yemek: yedi is "he ate". Only its place in the sentence tells them apart — one of the first listening traps in Turkish.
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.
- Bir haftada yedi gün varThere are seven days in a week
Nearby words: numbers and counting
A price, the change, a house number, the time you agreed on, the floor. Numbers are the first thing you have to catch by ear — and the first thing people say fast.
- bironeAlso does duty as the article "a": bir kahve is "a coffee, please".
- ikitwoThe root of ikinci ("second") and ikiz ("twin"). After a number the noun stays singular: iki kitap, not kitaplar.
- üçthreerounded ü plus ç like "ch" in "church": EWCH
- dörtfourThe voiceless t at the end voices before a vowel: dört becomes dördüncü ("fourth"), dörde ("to four"). Every word ending in p, ç, t, k behaves this way.
- beşfiveş is "sh". Both a number and a school grade: Turkish schools grade from one to five, and beş is the top mark.
- altısixı — dotless, a hushed sound between "uh" and "e": al-TUH
- sekizeightThe root of sekizinci ("eighth") — the root as-is plus -inci. Stress on the last syllable: se-KÍZ, like almost everything in Turkish.
- dokuznineThe final rounded u drags its lip-tail along: dokuzuncu ("ninth"), dokuza ("to nine"). Harmony decides the whole ending, not just one letter.
- ontenFrom here numbers simply add up: on bir is "eleven", yirmi bir is "twenty-one".
- kilokiloThe full kilogram almost never appears in speech: at the market people say bir kilo.
Test yourself
Five questions from the same set — “numbers and counting”. Recalling a spelling from meaning is harder than knowing a familiar word on sight, and therefore more useful.
- How do you say “seven” in Turkish?
Matches a form of the verb yemek: yedi is "he ate". Only its place in the sentence tells them apart — one of the first listening traps in Turkish.
- How do you say “eight” in Turkish?
The root of sekizinci ("eighth") — the root as-is plus -inci. Stress on the last syllable: se-KÍZ, like almost everything in Turkish.
- How do you say “three” in Turkish?
From it, üçüncü ("third"): the tail -üncü is chosen to match the rounded front ü — harmony runs through the whole word.
- How do you say “kilo” in Turkish?
The full kilogram almost never appears in speech: at the market people say bir kilo.
- How do you say “six” in Turkish?
ı is dotless and voiceless. A homonym to boot: altı also means "the bottom, beneath" — masanın altı, "under the table".
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 “seven” in Turkish?
«yedi». In a live sentence: “Bir haftada yedi gün var” — There are seven days in a week. You can hear how it sounds right on this page. Numeral, level A1, from the set “numbers and counting”.
Why does this word look the way it does?
Matches a form of the verb yemek: yedi is "he ate". Only its place in the sentence tells them apart — one of the first listening traps in Turkish. 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.