Numbers, time and money

16.1 Counting: from bir to milyon

Turkish numbers are regular. Ten words for the units, nine for the tens, and four for the big numbers make all the rest.

The rest are said as they are written, biggest first, each word on its own: on bir, eleven; yirmi beş, twenty-five; doksan dokuz, ninety-nine. There is no "and" anywhere in them.

yüz and bin don't take bir: a hundred is yüz, a thousand bin. A million is bir milyon.

Large numbers are grouped with dots, as in 3.500.000, and decimals take a comma: 2,5 is iki virgül beş, "two point five".

Telephone numbers are read in groups, each group as one number: 0532 417 28 90 is sıfır beş yüz otuz iki, dört yüz on yedi, yirmi sekiz, doksan.

16.2 Counting things: iki çay

After a number, a noun stays singular: iki çay, "two teas", üç kitap, "three books". The number already says there is more than one. kaç, "how many", takes the singular as well: kaç kitap?, "how many books?".

A waiter meeting you at the door asks how many you are. The answer is the number with kişi, "person", and the ending for "we":

tane, "piece", often goes between the number and the thing, in shops above all, and it can stand for the thing: Kaç tane?, "How many?", Üç tane, "Three".

A simit is a ring of bread covered in sesame, sold from carts on the street.

16.3 Numbers with endings

A number takes endings as any noun does, following its own last vowel: üçte, "at three", altıda, "at six", ona, "to ten". dört softens before a vowel, as kitap does: dördü, dörde.

Written in digits, a number takes an apostrophe before its ending, and the ending follows the number as it is said: 3'te for üçte, 4'e for dörde, 6'da for altıda, 1998'de for bin dokuz yüz doksan sekizde.

Turkish has a verb for being born, doğmak, and it takes the same past as any other.

Age is said with yaşında: yaş, "age", with -(s)I and -DA, and the n between them, as in evinde, "in his house". It is the same word whoever's age it is. The number goes before it, and the personal ending after:

16.4 The time: Saat kaç?

saat is "hour", and also "clock" and "watch". "What time is it?" is Saat kaç?, "the clock, how many?". On the hour, the answer is saat and the number: Saat üç, "It's three o'clock".

buçuk is "and a half", after a number. Half past twelve is yarım, "half", on its own: Saat yarım.

Up to the half hour, minutes are counted past the hour before. That hour takes -(y)I, and the verb is geçmek, "to pass": "it's passing three by ten". After the half hour, minutes are counted to the next hour, which takes -(y)A, with var: "there are ten to four". çeyrek is "quarter".

To say when something happens, the hour takes -DA: Saat kaçta?, "at what time?", saat üçte, "at three", üç buçukta, "at half past three". With minutes, geçiyor turns into geçe and var into kala, "remaining": üçü on geçe, "at ten past three", dörde çeyrek kala, "at a quarter to four".

In speech the clock has twelve hours, and the part of the day goes first when it isn't clear: sabah yedide, "at seven in the morning", akşam yedide, "at seven in the evening", gece on ikide, "at midnight". Noon is öğle, and the afternoon öğleden sonra, "after noon".

Timetables, the radio and anything official use the twenty-four-hour clock, read as two numbers: 19.30 is on dokuz otuz.

16.5 Prices: Kaç lira?

Turkey's money is the lira, written TL, for Türk lirası, and a lira is a hundred kuruş. Prices are written with a comma: 45,50 TL is kırk beş lira elli kuruş. To ask a price, say Ne kadar?, "how much?", or Kaç lira?, "how many lira?".

At the market, prices are given by the kilo: "the apple's kilo", elmanın kilosu, is "a kilo of apples". The opposite of pahalı is ucuz, "cheap".

yarım, "half", goes before a noun, and buçuk after a number: yarım kilo, "half a kilo", but bir buçuk kilo, "a kilo and a half". A percentage puts yüzde, "in a hundred", before the number: %20 is yüzde yirmi, as a shop window says %20 indirim, "20% off".

16.6 Days, months and dates

gelecek hafta is "the coming week", with -(y)AcAk; geçen hafta, "the week that passed", is from geçmek. Parts of the day need no ending to say "in": sabah, "in the morning", akşam, "in the evening". Of the seasons, summer and winter have words of their own for it, yazın and kışın; spring and autumn take -DA: ilkbaharda, sonbaharda.

Days and months are written with a small letter, except in a date. On a day, Turkish uses the day's name alone, or with günü, "day": pazartesi or pazartesi günü, "on Monday". In a month, it uses -DA: mayısta, "in May".

A date is the plain number and the month, with no "th": 29 Ekim, said yirmi dokuz Ekim. The year comes last: 29 Ekim 1923. To ask the date, Turkish asks "the month's how-many?":

29 Ekim is Cumhuriyet Bayramı, Republic Day: on 29 October 1923 the Republic of Turkey was declared.

16.7 First and second: -inci

-(I)ncI makes "first", "second", "third": -inci, -ıncı, -uncu or -üncü, and -nci, -ncı, -ncu or -ncü after a vowel. ORD, in the examples, stands for "ordinal", a number that gives a place in a row.

dört softens again: dördüncü. In digits, an ordinal is the number with a dot: 3. kat, "the third floor". Larger ones put the ending on the last word: yirmi birinci yüzyıl, "the twenty-first century".

Floors are counted from the ground: the ground floor is zemin kat, and birinci kat is the floor above it. A turning is taken "from" a street: sokaktan dönmek.

ilk is "first" too, and the more usual word for the first of something in time: ilk gün, "the first day", ilk kez, "the first time". son is "last".