Nouns and adjectives

6.1 The plural, and when Turkish leaves it out

-lAr makes a noun plural, as chapter 2 showed: evler, "houses"; kitaplar, "books". It starts with a consonant, so the word before it never softens: kitaplar, çocuklar, ağaçlar.

Turkish uses the plural less than English does. It leaves it out in three places.

After a number. The number has already said how many, and the noun stays as it is: iki kitap, "two books"; üç çocuk, "three children".

After a word of amount, in the same way: birkaç, "a few"; çok, "many"; kaç, "how many":

And when the number doesn't matter, as often after var and yok. Bahçede çocuk var says there are children in the garden, or a child: it doesn't say how many, since that isn't the point.

A noun with -lAr, on the other hand, is often a group both speakers know about, where English would say "the":

Some things English counts as plural are single in Turkish, since they are one object: pantolon, "trousers"; gözlük, "glasses"; makas, "scissors". Gözlük masada is "the glasses are on the table". With -lAr, gözlükler is more than one pair.

6.2 No "the", and bir as "a"

Turkish has no word for "the". A noun on its own can be "the" noun or a noun in general, and the sentence shows which. The first word of a sentence is usually something both speakers already know about, so a noun there is usually "the":

Something new, told for the first time, comes later in the sentence, and often with bir, "one", which also does the work of "a":

The two sentences above are about the same garden and perhaps the same cat. What changes is whether the cat is news.

bir is used less than "a". Saying what someone is, Turkish leaves it out: Zeynep doktor, "Zeynep is a doctor". It comes back when there is an adjective as well:

And where English says "a" but means "one", Turkish says bir, and means both:

There is one place where Turkish does mark "the": on the object of a verb, with the ending -(y)I. That is chapter 8.

6.3 Adjectives before the noun

An adjective goes before its noun, as in English, and never changes: it takes no plural and no ending. The endings go on the noun, at the end of the phrase.

Put the adjective after the noun, at the end of the sentence, and it says what the noun is: büyük ev is "the big house", and Ev büyük is "the house is big".

With bir, the adjective comes first, and bir goes between it and the noun: büyük bir ev, "a big house". Put bir first, bir büyük ev, and it is the number: "one big house".

Some everyday adjectives, in pairs:

English has one "old" where Turkish has two: eski for things, yaşlı for people and animals. Eski bir arkadaş is "an old friend", one known for years; yaşlı bir adam is "an old man".

An adjective can also stand for a noun, and take the noun's endings: hasta is "ill", and also "a patient"; genç is "young", and gençler "young people".

6.4 The order of a noun phrase

Everything that describes a noun comes before it, in a fixed order: first bu, şu or o, then a number, then the adjectives, then the noun, and last the noun's endings.

That is the order of English too, with one difference: the endings come at the very end, after the noun, where English puts its "in" at the very start. And the noun stays singular after the number, even with bu before it.

Two adjectives on one noun stand side by side, often with a comma: büyük, güzel bir ev, "a big, beautiful house". bir stays just before the noun.

6.5 daha and en: more and most

Turkish has no endings like English -er and -est. daha, "more", goes before an adjective to compare, and en, "most", to say that nothing goes further: daha büyük, "bigger"; en büyük, "biggest". They work the same with every adjective, long or short.

What a thing is compared with takes the ending -DAn, "from", which is the next chapter's: "colder than İzmir" is "colder from İzmir".

After a number, daha is "more" of the same thing, and comes after the noun: bir çay daha, "one more tea"; iki çay daha, "two more teas". After biraz, "a little", it comes before the noun: biraz daha su, "a little more water".

en goes with çok and az too: en çok, "the most", "at most"; en az, "the least", "at least".

6.6 çok and az: much and little

çok before an adjective is "very": çok güzel, "very beautiful"; çok sıcak, "very hot". Before a noun it is "a lot of", "many" or "much", and the noun stays singular: çok para, "a lot of money"; çok kitap, "many books".

With an adjective and bir, çok goes before the adjective: çok güzel bir gün, "a very nice day". And çok pahalı can be "very expensive" or "too expensive": Turkish uses çok for both, and the situation tells which.

az is the opposite, "little" or "few": az para, "little money"; az şeker, "not much sugar". The everyday word for "a little" or "some" is biraz, which goes before nouns and adjectives alike:

çok and az can also come at the end of a sentence, where they say what something is, as an adjective does:

hiç, "any", "at all", goes before the noun with yok to say there is none at all. In a question with var, hiç is "any":