Turkish Aorist Tense – Present Simple

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Watch this lesson to learn the Turkish Aorist Tense (Present Simple). Be sure to download the Course PDF and follow along with all the lessons.

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Positive – Aorist Tense

Starting with this lecture, we will learn how to conjugate verbs into whichever tense we want. We will start out with making Present Simple (Aorist) Tense sentences.

We learned “To Be” sentences to make statements without any action inside them. If we want to do an action, we need to start off with making Present Simple tense sentences. A typical English sentence would be written in the “Subject-Verb-Object” order, whereas in Turkish this order is changed to “Subject-Object-Verb”.

The Present Tense with the Aorist is used to talk about general facts, polite requests and questions, probable situations, uncertain plans, guesses, habits, likes, and dislikes. The basic rule for adding a tense conjugation to a verb is by erasing the infinitive suffix (mek/mak) from the end of the verb and adding the required tense suffix in addition to the personal suffix.

Infinitive Form	Root Form	Infinitive Form	Root Form
Okumak (to read)	Oku (read)	Yemek (to eat)	Ye (eat)

Forming Present simple tense with the “Aorist Suffix” requires that you to know the three ways of conjugating these verbs from their root form:

1. Verbs Ending With a Vowel (-r)
2. One Syllable Verbs Ending in a Consonant (-ar/-er)
3. Multi Syllable Verbs Ending in a Consonant (-ır/-ir/-ur/-ür)

Verbs Ending With a Vowel

For verbs that end with a vowel (regardless of their syllable count), we add the “-r” to the end of the root of the verb in addition to the personal suffix right after the “-r” vowel.

	a/ı	e/i	o/u	ö/ü
Ben	-rım	-rim	-rum	-rüm
Sen	-rsın	-rsin	-rsun	-rsün
O	-r	-r	-r	-r
Biz	-rız	-riz	-ruz	-rüz
Siz	-rsınız	-rsiniz	-rsunuz	-rsünüz
Onlar	-rlar	-rler	-rlar	-rler

Let’s see some examples:

• Ben yemek yerim
• I eat food. (Habit)

• Onlar futbol oynar
• They play football.

• O akşam uyur
• He sleeps at night.

• Biz maç izleriz
• We watch a match.

Consonant Ending – One Syllable

For verbs that have one syllable and end in a consonant, we add the “-ar/-er” to the end of the root of the verb in addition to the personal suffix right after this “present simple tense” suffix.

	a/ı/o/u	e/i/ö/ü
Ben	-arım	-erim
Sen	-arsın	-ersin
O	-ar	-er
Biz	-arız	-eriz
Siz	-arsınız	-ersiniz
Onlar	-arlar	-erler

Here are some examples:

• Ben kitap yazarım.
• I write books.

• O resim çizer.
• She draws pictures.

• Biz erken yatarız.
• We sleep early.

• Ayşe her gün yüzer.
• Ayşe swims everyday.

Consonant Ending – Multi Syllable

If a verb has more than one syllable and ends in a consonant, we add the “-ır/-ir/-ur/ür” to the end of the root of the verb in addition to the personal suffix right after it.

	a/ı	e/i	o/u	ö/ü
Ben	-ırım	-irim	-urum	-ürüm
Sen	-ırsın	-irsin	-ursun	-ürsün
O	-ır	-ir	-ur	-ür
Biz	-ırız	-iriz	-uruz	-ürüz
Siz	-ırsınız	-irsiniz	-ursunuz	-ürsünüz
Onlar	-ırlar	-irler	-urlar	-ürler

Let’s see some sentence examples:

• Ben araba kullanırım
• I drive a car.

• Ayşe evde oturur
• Ayşe sits at home.

• O hep düşünür
• He always thinks.

• Biz yabancı dil öğreniriz
• We learn foreign languages.

Negative – Aorist Tense

Unlike positive present simple tense sentences, it is actually a lot easier to make negative sentences. We only add either “-maz” or “-mez” right after the root of the verb in addition to the personal suffix, added right after the negative present simple suffix.

	a/ı/o/u	e/i/ö/ü
Ben	-mam	-mem
Sen	-mazsın	-mezsin
O	-maz	-mez
Biz	-mayız	-meyiz
Siz	-mazsınız	-mezsiniz
Onlar	-mazlar	-mezler

Here are some examples:

• Onlar bisiklet kullanmazlar
• They don’t use bicycles.

• Ben brokoli sevmem
• I don’t like broccoli.

• Aslı televizyon izlemez
• Aslı doesn’t watch television.

• Annem çalışmaz
• My mother doesn’t work.

Positive Aorist Questions

If you remember from our last lecture video, the question words were the “-mu/-mi/-mı/-mü” variations. These question words always come right after the verb. We don’t add a personal suffix to the verb here, only the positive present simple suffix. We add the personal suffix right after the question word. Let’s see how we add the question word with the personal suffix:

	a/ı	e/i	o/u	ö/ü
Ben	-mıyım	-miyim	-muyum	-müyüm
Sen	-mısın	-misin	-musun	-müsün
O	-mı	-mi	-mu	-mü
Biz	-mıyız	-miyiz	-muyuz	-müyüz
Siz	-mısınız	-misiniz	-musunuz	-müsünüz
Onlar	-lar mı	-ler mi	-lar mı	-ler mi

Let’s see some examples:

• Sen kitap okur musun?
• Do you read books?

• O resim çizer mi?
• Does he draw pictures?

• Siz okula gider misiniz?
• Do you go to school?

• Onlar kebap yerler mi?
• Do they eat kebap?

Negative Aorist Questions

If you want to make negative present simple tense questions, you need to include the “-mez/-maz” negative present simple tense suffix right after the root of the verb. The rest of the sentence structure stays the same as a positive present simple tense question.

	a/ı/o/u	e/i/ö/ü
Ben	-maz mıyım	-mez miyim
Sen	-maz mısın	-mez misin
O	-maz mı	-mez mi
Biz	-maz mıyız	-mez miyiz
Siz	-maz mısınız	-mez misiniz
Onlar	-mazlar mı	-mezler mi

Here are some sentence examples:

• Onlar futbol oynamazlar mı?
• Don’t they play football?

• Siz yemek yemez misiniz?
• Won’t you eat (food/dinner)?

• O hiç kitap okumaz mı?
• Doesn’t he read any books?

• Ali ödev yapmaz mı?
• Doesn’t Ali do homework?

You might have noticed that I’m also adding some adverbs into the sentences to make them sound less generic. Be sure to take notes of all the vocabulary you’ve seen in these lessons. You will see more of them in future lessons.

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