Turkish/Asking Questions
< TurkishDon'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.
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?/Niye? - Why?
- Hangi? - Which?
- Hangisi? - Which one?
- Kim? - Who?
- Kimin? - Whose (is it)?
- Kime? - To whom?
- Nasıl? - How?
- Ne kadar? - How much?/How many?
- Ne kadar zaman kaldı? - How long left?
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/niye 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?
- Hangisi senin? - Which one is yours?
- 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.
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-, a -mü- or a -mu- in between the -yor- and the suffix (-yum, -sun, etc.), depending on the vowel harmony, as so:
Sen gidiyor musun? - 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.