LingoflyHow to read in Turkish
A Latin alphabet with ı, ö, ü, ç, ş, ğ — eight vowels instead of five. The alphabet has 29 letters. The writing course covers 10 letters: the ones that read differently from the familiar Latin alphabet. The rest read the way they look. That is 2 steps, one a day.
Reads as it is written — but not everything sounds as it looks
Turkish has been written with Latin letters only since 1928. Before that it used different letters and ran from right to left. The new alphabet was made plain on purpose: one letter, one sound. Just one silent letter, ğ, which step two covers, and no pairs like sh or ch — you read exactly what is written.
There are 29 letters. Three letters you know are missing: q, w and x are not in the Turkish alphabet. In their place stand six of its own: ç, ğ, ı, ö, ş, ü.
The catch is that familiar letters can sound different. The c is not a k and not an s: it is the j of “jam”. And the y is the y of “yes”. Those two are the ones to watch.
- thank you — “teshekkyurler”
- tea — “chay”, not “say”
- no — “yok”, not “yoke”
Eight vowels instead of five
Turkish vowels are not just sounds — the whole grammar stands on them. The ending of a word bends to the last vowel of the stem (vowel harmony). To pick the right ending you have to know which row that vowel comes from.
There are two rows. Back — a, ı, o, u — sound deep in the mouth. Front — e, i, ö, ü — sit closer to the teeth. A word is almost always built from one row, and its ending comes from the same row.
That is why ı and i are two different vowels, not one letter with a dot and one without. kızım means “my daughter”; kizim is no word at all — as far off as “cup” is from “cap”.
| unrounded | rounded | |
|---|---|---|
| back | a, ı | o, u |
| front | e, i | ö, ü |
The letter that makes no sound
ğ (yumuşak g, the “soft g”) is the only Turkish letter with no sound of its own. Usually it stretches the vowel standing before it. Between front vowels it may also come out as a light y: değil is “de-il” or “de-yil”.
dağ (mountain) reads “daa”. öğrenmek (to learn) — “öö-renmek”. sağ (right) — “saa”.
So no word can begin with ğ: there would be nothing to stretch. And reading it as a hard g is a loud mistake — ağabey is “aabey”, never “agabey”.
- right (the direction) — “saa”
- to learn — “öö-renmek”
- rain — “yaamur”
What order to take the characters in
The writing course is split into 2 steps: one step is one lesson, a few characters at a time. Nobody takes the whole script at once out of mercy: 10 signs in an evening stay in memory for exactly that, an evening.
- Studying a little every day gets more into your head than spending the same total time in one sitting.checked many timesDonovan & Radosevich, 1999, Journal of Applied Psychology 84(5) · 63 studies compared, difference d = 0.46 — a sizeable figure for a learning effect.
- It is better to test yourself the next day than at the end of the same session. That is why a word comes back to you tomorrow.checked many timesAdesope, Trevisan & Sundararajan, 2017, Review of Educational Research 87(3) · g = 0.82 when tested a day or two later, against 0.56 on the same day.
Frequently asked
How many characters do you need to learn to read in Turkish?
10 signs. The writing course covers 10 letters: the ones that read differently from the familiar Latin alphabet. The rest read the way they look.
What to learn first: letters or words?
Letters, but there are few of them: 10 letters. Without them a word is read wrong — and remembered wrong.
How long does it take to learn to read in Turkish?
One step a day — 2 days. That is about recognizing characters, not understanding: you will start reading aloud before you understand what you read.