Duolinguists

Helpful Resources

I am learning Turkish

[Originally posted on 03/23/15 on the Duolingo Turkish for English speakers forum by Selcen_Ozturk]

The Turkish Suffix Dictionary

The Suffix Dictionary — yes, it exists! As you might have noticed, Turkish uses suffixes for almost everything. This website helps you decipher them.

Online Dictionaries

  • Turkish Dictionary (EN-TR): Entries include the case needed for verbs, vowel harmony exceptions, vowel loss, etc.
  • Tureng (EN-TR): Directly links to YouGlish (subtitled video clips of the word being used in context); also great for idioms, slang, synonyms, and modern jargon.
  • Sesli Sözlük (EN-TR): Dictionary with some in-context text examples, with translations; also a few word games and other tools.
  • Glosbe (EN-TR): Database of examples of the words used in context, taken from literature and film subtitles.
  • Türk Dil Kurumu Sözlükleri [aka TDK]: Monolingual (entirely in Turkish) dictionary collection from the Turkish Language Association (TDK).
  • Misalli Büyük Türkçe Sözlük [aka Kubbealtı Lügati]: Monolingual (entirely in Turkish) dictionary created by İlhan Ayverdi. This is the primary alternative to the TDK, and has much richer and easier to understand definitions and examples.
  • Pons (ONLY German-TR)
  • Nişanyan Sözlük: Monolingual (entirely in Turkish) etymology dictionary. No definitions, but if you want to know the history of every word — this is your source. [For etymologies in English, Wiktionary is your best bet.]

Grammar Explanation Websites

  • Manisa Turkish (formerly “Turkish Explained”) (formerly “turkishlanguage.co.uk”): Grammar explanations about almost every topic, and some info about daily language and life. [Tip: You will find dead-links to “turkishlanguage.co.uk/” pages all over the internet, but if you replace that part with “gravityturkish.com/manisa/” — you will usually find the updated version of the page.] (As of January 2023, the site will no longer load at that link. Until we find them again, the Web Archive appears to have most of the pages.)
  • Turkish Textbook — Turkish Basics — Turkish Lesson: Great grammar explanations with lots of clear examples. These are not complete courses, but excellent references.
  • LearnTurkish (P. Georgalas): There are also many useful grammar explanations here. There is also some cultural info. (Having found several mistakes on the site, we are no longer recommending it.)

Grammar Books

  • A Student Grammar of Turkish by Ketrez (published by Cambridge, also available as ebook): Excellent and complete reference, with a good index and a nice writing style. Includes exercises and answers.
  • Turkish: A Comprehensive Grammar by Göksel, Kerslake (published by Routledge, also available as ebook): The most detailed and thorough reference describing the entire language (but unless you are VERY interested linguistics, you will hate this book).
    • Turkish: An Essential Grammar by Göksel, Kerslake (published by Routledge, also available as ebook): The more user-friendly and easier to understand version! Suitable for any learner, this includes lots of notes about why to choose one form over another, and many reference tables, but no exercises.
  • The Delights of Learning Turkish by Kuzucu (also available as ebook): Self-study course book, with lots of dialogs, cultural notes, and exercises. Also available are a separate audio CD with recordings of all the dialogs in the book, and a “Companion” Workbook with more exercises.
  • The Classics: You won’t learn any modern usage from these, but they are classics for a reason!
    • Robert Underhill’s Turkish Grammar (1976)
    • Lewis V. Thomas’s Elementary Turkish (1967, revised by Itzkowitz 1986)
    • G. L. Lewis’s Turkish Grammar (1967; 2nd ed. 2000) and Teach Yourself Turkish (1968)
  • 500 Turkish Words in Context by Demir: Not exactly a grammar book, but valuable for understanding the structure of phrases.

Grammar and Culture Videos / Podcasts

Stories with Audio

  • Unofficial Duolingo Stories: A volunteer project to translate (with permission) the Duolingo collection of stories into more languages — over 100 stories in Turkish so far.
  • Masaldinle Hikaye: Simple and clear stories, with audio. Just remember, they were actually created for children, not language learners, so perhaps you find them boring or strange. Nevertheless, we think they are very useful for learners

Other Online Courses

Verb Conjugators

There are certain very common Turkish verbs that cause trouble for AI conjugators because they have irregular stems. The best way to test any conjugation tool is to see how it handles those verbs. After testing, we found that the very best options were ones that specialized in Turkish.

  • iMekMak (Android/iOS app): This is at the top of the list because it is the only one with ZERO errors in the tests. The basic version is free, but there is a one-time charge to unlock all of the tenses, participles, nouns, and gerunds.
  • Konjüsh (web): Only 1 error on a common verb (and it is obvious enough that it is unlikely to confuse learners); a few other errors on rare verbs. This is an open-source project, so maybe someone can fix it!
  • Honorable mention, Wiktionary (web): Avoids the AI-errors because it is written by people! But, it also contains human-errors, can be changed by anyone at any time, and there are many verbs that do not have conjugation tables. Still, it is easy to use and worth checking out.

The following are often mentioned as resources, so we are noting that we are specifically NOT recommending them, because they are not reliable for learners:

  • Verbix has major errors in nearly every verb tested – vowel harmony, irregular stems, etc. – even on verbs that do not need any special customization. Despite having a “report an error” system, the errors have not been corrected for 7+ years.
  • Cooljugator has nearly as many errors as Verbix, but it is also missing common verbs, like gitmek, and has limited conjugations for many others.

Other Useful Sites

[Updated by Danika_Dakika starting 03/01/22]

I am learning Turkish

Danika_Dakika

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