Turkish Lessons for Beginners Online for Free

Master the Turkish alphabet and its specific sounds. Understand the logic of stress, learn how to greet people, and build your first phrases using demonstrative pronouns (bu, şu, o).

The main secret of the Turkish language! Learn the strict rules of harmony, how to form plurals, and ask simple questions using the mı/mi/mu/mü particle.

Learn to talk about yourself without verbs: “I am a doctor”, “We are married”. Master the essential words var (there is) and yok (there is not) to describe your surroundings.

Count to a million, express possession (“my house”, “your book”), and answer the questions “Where?” and “Who has it?” using the locative case.

Introducing verbs! Learn to talk about what is happening right now (-yor) and master the imperative mood for requests and commands.

Learn to link nouns (izafet): “the door of the house”, “school bag”. Master spatial postpositions (on, under, behind, in front of, inside).

Bring order to the case system. Learn to indicate direction (Where to? Where from?), the object of an action (Whom? What?), and the instrumental case (With whom? / By what means?).

Compare things (“bigger”, “smarter”, “the best”). Learn vocabulary for fruits and vegetables, and figure out how to haggle at a Turkish market.

Discover the past! Learn to talk about completed events while memorizing colors, clothing vocabulary, and role-playing a dialogue in a store.

Plan for the future, make firm promises, and express intentions. Read your first complex text about a visit to a fortune teller and learn airport vocabulary.

Learn to talk about habits, hobbies, and traditions (the Aorist). Make polite requests (“Could you pass a pen?”) and describe your daily routine in detail.

Consolidate your ability to talk about leisure. Understand how to turn nouns into verbs using the -lan/-len affix (age -> to get older, dust -> to get dusty).

The unique Turkish tense of rumors and fairy tales! Retell what others have said (“It turns out he...”). Learn to tell the time and order in a restaurant.

Assess your abilities (“I can do this”, “I won’t be able to come”). Highly useful practice: learn how to ask for and give directions in an unfamiliar city.

Give advice and express obligation (“You must study”). Master the “since when” structure and discuss the eternal problem of fathers and children.

Take the initiative: “Let’s go!”, “Let me ask!”. Master verbal nouns (“reading”, “waiting”) to make your speech smooth and fluent.

Move past primitive syntax. Learn to build relative clauses (“the person who reads”) and use the past tense without verbs (“yesterday I was at home”).

The beginning of storytelling. Describe past processes (“I was reading when the lights went out”) and emphasize words with reduplication (white as snow, completely empty).

Get nostalgic (“I used to walk here for hours”) and talk about actions that happened before another moment in the past (“the train had already left”).

Make excuses for ruined plans (“I was going to come, but...”). Get familiar with useful pronouns: “someone”, “no one”, “everyone”, “some”.

Link actions into one beautiful sentence: “he left laughing”, “did it without thinking”, “as soon as it started raining”. Your speech becomes seamless.

Learn to delegate: “to make someone laugh”, “to give someone a drink”, “to feed”. Study Turkish onomatopoeia (crunching, snoring, bubbling) and read a text about Churchill.

Master the passive (“the door is opened”, “the car is washed”) and complex clauses of reason (“due to the fact that...”) and concession (“despite the fact that...”).

Discuss mutual actions (“we are texting each other”, “they bumped into each other”). Read Turkish folklore about the witty Nasreddin Hodja.

Set real conditions: “If it rains, take an umbrella”. Master the reflexive voice (“to dress oneself”, “to rejoice”) through a funny story about an email.

Dream and regret the past: “If I had known, I would have passed the exam”. Read a dramatic and complex literary text about a dog attack.

The highest level of gossiping! Retell rumors in different tenses (“Turns out he is sleeping”, “They say they will get married”) and discuss the technology of 2050.

An adaptation of Andersen’s famous fairy tale. A great start for transitioning to lengthy texts without the overload of complex syntax (lots of simple past tenses).

A dramatic story about a boy who got lost in a hotel. Practice understanding gerund phrases, the passive voice, and the vocabulary of emotions (searching, panic, relief).

A humorous story about kids who took apart a TV to find the little people inside. Teaches how to understand indirect speech and everyday humor.

A profound Anatolian parable about a selfish mother with a boomerang effect. A deep cultural immersion, abundant in complex verb forms and idioms.

A funny story about a first-grader who confused right and left and looked for the right door by his vaccination scar. Great practice for navigation vocabulary.

A psychological story about childhood jealousy and a ruined dress. Dive into the vocabulary of emotions (guilt, envy) and complex syntax (a mix of -yordu and -mıştı tenses).

A school picnic is marred by a quarrel and a false accusation of theft. An important text for practicing conditional sentences, and the vocabulary of judgment and apologies.

Two deep plots in one text: a conversation with a mom about pacifism and rescuing a child on a cruise ship. Develops the skill of reading complex hypothetical conditions.

The beginning of a mini-series from the perspective of a girl named Selen. A funny dialogue about how to explain who Atatürk is to a child. A sea of irony and conversational clichés.

Selen and her sister play “house”, dressing up in their mom’s clothes and discussing “snoring husbands”. Practice subjunctive mood and lively dialogues.

Selen proves she wants to become an airplane and throws a tantrum in preschool. Great practice for cause-and-effect relationships (diye).

The finale of the course. A hyperactive boy comes to visit, destroying everything in his path. A brilliant example of applying all the complex grammar in a sarcastic narrative.