Turkish/Contents/Lesson Three - Asking Questions...

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Don't worry about the length of the lesson this time. Unlike last lesson, this will just be a short, basic grammar lesson teaching you how to form questions in Turkish.

[edit] Question words

Before we can start asking questions, let's learn some question words:

• Ne? - What?
• Nerede? - Where?
  • Nereden? - From where?
  • Nereye? - To where?
• Ne zaman? - When?
• Neden? - Why?
• Hangi? - Which?
• Kim? - Who?
  • Kimin? - Whose (is it)?
  • Kime? - To whom?
• Nasıl? - How?
  • Ne kadar? - How much?
  • Ne kadar zaman kaldı? - How long left?

[edit] Incorporation

Let's try and incorporate these words into sentences.

• Senin adın ne? - What is your name?
• Kumanda nerede? - Where's the remote?
  • Nereden geldin? - Where did you come from?
  • Nereye gidiyorsun? - Where are you going (to)?
• O evden ne zaman çıktı? - When did he leave the house?
• Sen neden kurabiyeyi kurabiye kavanozundan çaldın? - Why did you steal the cookie from the cookie jar?
• Bugün hangi elbiseyi giyineceğim? - Which dress am I going to wear today?
• O kim? - Who is that?
  • O kimin? - Whose is that?
  • O hediyeyi kime gönderiyorsun? - Who are you sending that present to?
• Onu nasıl göndereceksin? - How are you going to send it?
  • O ne kadardı? - How much was it?
  • Evden çıktığına kadar ne kadar zaman kaldı? - How long left until you leave the house?

Some of these examples are of the perfect (past) tense. We'll touch on those later.

[edit] Conditional questions

In other words, a question which could be answered either with a positive or a negative response (e.g. Did you go shopping yesterday?).

In Turkish, it's a little different.

Let's use the verb gitmek-to go as an example for this demonstration.

Sen gidiyorsun is you're going.

All you do to make it are you going? is this:

You add a -mı-, a -mi- or a -mu- in between the -yor- and the suffix (-yum, -sun, etc.), depending on the vowel harmony, as so:

Sen gidiyormusun? - Are you going?

However, it's different with some other people. Let's conjugate it fully:

to go	gitmek
Am I going?	(Ben) gidiyor muyum?
Are you going?	(Sen) gidiyor musun?
Is he/she going?	(O) gidiyor mu?
Are we going?	(Biz) gidiyor muyuz?
Are you (pl.) going?	(Siz) gidiyor musunuz?
Are they going?	(Onlar) gidiyor mu?, (Onlar) gidiyorlar mı?

As you can see, the pattern applies to almost all cases, except for he/she, because it doesn't have a suffix. Therefore, all we do is add a mı, mi or mu afterwards, but as a separate word.

Now that we've covered all of this, let's continue on to the next lesson. We'll learn more about questions later on.