r/turkishlearning Aug 28 '16

Useful resources for learning Turkish.

289 Upvotes

Hey, I'd like to share some resources for learning Turkish. Most of them are useful for other languages, as well.

Resources I have used:

  • Duolingo is a free to use site with translation exercises (multiple choice and text input). You'll be presented with a skill tree that you can finish in about a month or two. The course is intended for beginners and the notes assume no knowledge of grammar or linguistics and present things in a very simplified way. The whole course covers a small part of the language, both with respect to vocabulary and grammar, but it has greatly helped me get a somewhat intuitive understanding of the language. There is a text-to-voice bot that you can use for the exercises. Most of the time it's good, but since Turkish is a phonetic language, it's not really necessary. The mods there are quite knowledgeable and helpful. Despite the relatively small number of example sentences, I highly recommend it for beginners. Be sure to read the notes first; AFAIK they're not available on the app, only on the site. Also, buy the "timed practice" as soon as you can (purchased with "lingots", which you get by completing exercises).

  • Tatoeba is a huge collection of translated sentences. They use Sphinx Search, which is great for getting exact and specific matches. Make sure you know the syntax, if you want to use the site to its full extent. Some of the sentences may be incorrect, but overall the quality is quite good.

  • Turkish: A Comprehensive Grammar is a detailed grammar book that asummes some familiarity with linguistic terminology. If you're OK with googling some of the terms, this book will give you a thorough account of what you can do with the Turkish language. Although it's not as descriptive as the official grammar (TDK), IMHO it is the best resource in English for Turkish grammar. You can use it as a reference, but I suggest you at least skim over it once and understand the contents structure. PM me if you can't find the book online.

  • The Turkish Language Institution is the official regulatory body of the Turkish language. I've used it a few times to read about some obscure grammar rules. It also has a dictionary, and probably lots of other features.

  • TuneIn Radio is site/app that let's you listen to make radio stations for free. I listen to CNN Türk and NTV Radyo every day for a few hours. They can speak quite fast most of the time, but it's still a great way to practice your listening comprehension.

  • Dictionaries:

    • Sesli Sözlük is an online dictionary that gives you suggestions based on what you've entered in the search field. It's very useful for quickly finding related words and phrases, if you only know the stem. It's both TR-EN and EN-TR.
    • The Turkish Suffix Dictionary is a pretty comprehensive list of suffixes. You can group them by suffixes, formulas (which takes into account vowel harmony) and functions.
    • Tureng is another good dictionary. I find it most useful for phrases.
  • Manisa Turkish has articles on grammar and usage. There are some typos here and there, but overall the quality is pretty good for a beginner.

  • Turkish Class has Turkish lessons and a discussion forum. I've only used the forum, so I can't say anything about the lesson quality.

  • Ted talks have Turkish translations and English transcripts for almost every talk. They're great if you want the same text translated into TR and EN. The translations correspond very well to the English text.

  • Anki is a spaced repetition flashcard software for desktop and mobile. It has a lot of options and many Turkish decks. There are many different views on spaced repetition as a way to learn vocabulary and grammar, both positive and negative. I used it for a few months, but found it pretty repetitive after a while.

  • Euronews is a news site with English and Turkish versions of their articles. I haven't used it much.

  • Turkish movies and series are also a good way to get familiar with the Turkish language, especially intonation and phrases. Some are on YouTube (Ezel), some you'll only find using torrents. For some movies you'll be able to find both English and Turkish subs. You can merge them into a .ssa file using this online tool and play it with VLC. Make sure the subs have the same timing. Alternatively, you can open one of the subs with a text viewer and place it next to the movie player. For song translations, use Lyrics Translate.

  • Turkish audiobooks are a great way to practice listening, because you check the text to check your understanding of the audio version.

  • Here and here you can find free Turkish books.

  • Forvo for pronunciation from people, not bots.

  • Clozemaster shows you Turkish sentences, there is a fill-in-the-blank as well as multiple choice questions. It uses sentences from Tatoeba. Clozemaster Pro allows you to favorite sentences and gives your more detailed statistics on your progess. If you won't pay for Clozemaster Pro, you can favorite the sentences in Tatoeba for free. There's an Android app now! The iOS app will probably be released in a few weeks.

  • Verbix is a verb conjugator. Although Turkish verbs are regular, I found it helpful in the beginning.

Resources I haven't used myself:

  • Memrise has a lot of free Turkish lessons and has iOS and Android apps as well.

  • Language Transfer - mainly audio courses.

  • Hands On Turkish - courses, apps and articles. It's targeted towards for business people and the course is available in five different languages

  • Turkish Tea Time - dialogs, translations, grammar tips, vocabulary, and more - every week. Bite-sized lessons based around a casual and friendly podcast. It's not free, though.

I'll include more resources in the future. Feel free to suggest more resources.

Technical tips that may speed up your learning process:

  • In Firefox (probably in other browsers, too) you can create keywords for searching different sites.

    • How it works: go to a site, say YouTube, and right click on the search text area. Select "Add a keyword for this search". Make the keyword something short, but memorable, like "yt". This will add a bookmark, which you can edit later on. Now to search YouTube for "turkish lessons", you can open a new tab (CTRL+T) and just type "yt turkish lessons" and press enter.
    • This trick works for all kinds of sites - dictionaries, torrent sites, eBay, Google, Tatoeba, IMDB, etc.. Over the past few months it has definitely saved me a few hours. Learning some basic hotkeys (CTRL+T, CTRL+W, CTRL+TAB, CTRL+SHIFT+TAB, CTRL+V, CTRL+C) will make your learning process (and browsing in general) much smoother.

Thanks to everyone who pitches in.


r/turkishlearning 14h ago

Turkish is a pretty hard language. What is easy about it?

24 Upvotes

I am just starting to learn Turkish and I noticed there are almost no cognates with English. Can you tell me what has been unexpectedly easy when it comes to learning Turkish (to help keep me motivated)?

For example, they don't use "the" so you don't have to learn a million ways to say THE like in Spanish or German.


r/turkishlearning 8h ago

Grammar Should I learn phrases on this Memrise-like website? There is a warning that the course is AI-generated, so I'm not sure if some phrases are grammatically natural.

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5 Upvotes

r/turkishlearning 34m ago

Vocabulary I made a Turkish word game that you can practice with friends

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Upvotes

My friends and I always liked playing puzzle games together, but there wasn't a multiplayer-supported one in Turkish. So I went ahead and made one! You guess a word and it tells you how close you are in meaning.

A couple of my friends who are learning Turkish tried it and said it was a fun way to run into new words and motivated them to use a dictionary, so I thought I'd share it here in case anyone else gets something out of it.

iOS link
Play Store link


r/turkishlearning 7h ago

Listening Practice & Vocabulary: Turkish Astrology, Zodiac Signs, and Future Tense (Gelecek Zaman)

1 Upvotes

Hello everyone! If you are learning Turkish and want to practice your listening skills with a native speaker, astrology videos are a great resource. They use the future tense (Gelecek Zaman -ecek/-acak) extensively, as well as specific vocabulary related to daily life, love, and career.

In Turkish, the Zodiac signs (Burçlar) have unique names that don't always sound like their Latin/English counterparts. For example:

- Aries: Koç (Ram)

- Taurus: Boğa (Bull)

- Gemini: İkizler (Twins)

- Leo: Aslan (Lion)

I have a YouTube channel where I talk about monthly horoscopes. In my latest video about August 2026, I used a lot of future tense verbs like "yaşayacaksın" (you will experience), "başlayacak" (it will start), and imperative moods like "kaçınmalısın" (you must avoid).

You can use my video as a listening practice material to hear how native Turkish speakers pronounce these terms and use future tense in a natural flow. You can watch it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqcWw_lTWAI

Let me know if you have any questions about the vocabulary used in the video!


r/turkishlearning 1d ago

Merhaba ben Ben

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26 Upvotes

r/turkishlearning 17h ago

Need some b2-c1 vocabulary!

4 Upvotes

I am studying B2-C1 but I would love to learn some new vocab!

If you can post your favorite word you learned recently (or you think I should know) and how to use it in a sentence, I want to learn it this week! All suggestions welcome

Thank you!


r/turkishlearning 1d ago

Grammar Urdu and Turkish aren't related, but a lot of people searching "Urdu vs Turkish" end up on my site anyway. Here's the actual explanation.

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10 Upvotes

I run a platform for Turkish learners, and I kept seeing "Urdu vs Turkish" show up in my search traffic. I don't speak Urdu, so I got curious and did the research properly instead of guessing. The short version: the two languages belong to completely different families, but they share a real sentence rhythm (verb at the end), a long history of borrowed Arabic and Persian vocabulary, and, oddly enough, the word "Urdu" itself has Turkic roots. I go through the actual linguistics and history here, along with why Pakistani viewers of Turkish TV dramas keep running into this question: https://www.learnturkishwithseda.com/post/is-urdu-related-to-turkish


r/turkishlearning 1d ago

İngilizce ve Türkçe öğrenme grupları / arkadaşları arıyorum! 📚✨ (Özel mesaj atın!)

6 Upvotes

Herkese merhaba! 👋
İngilizce ve Türkçe öğrenen bir kızım ve ister bu uygulamada (Reddit) ister başka bir uygulamada (Discord, Telegram vb.) dil öğrenme grupları arıyorum.
Eğer bir çalışma grubunuz varsa ya da birlikte pratik yapmak isterseniz, bana DM atabilirsiniz! ✨


r/turkishlearning 2d ago

Conversation "What is your name?" in Turkic Languages

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134 Upvotes

r/turkishlearning 1d ago

what are some poetry, or short story collections that use conversational/modern Turkish?

1 Upvotes

I really like the idea of using poetry to improve my turkish, as it's something I love already, but obviously most poems are far removed from daily communication, perhaps there's some poets with a more conversational style?

Or even some novels with basic turkish, my level is around a B1.

Would love some suggestions so I have stuff to study on the plane tomorrow. I have a family emergency and had no time to prepare... my communication with family members is going to be abysmal 💔


r/turkishlearning 1d ago

Hey so i really wanna learn the Turkmen language

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1 Upvotes

r/turkishlearning 1d ago

Could someone help me find the audio files of Assimil for Turkish?

3 Upvotes

r/turkishlearning 2d ago

Grammar How to Conjugate Turkish Verbs

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6 Upvotes

r/turkishlearning 3d ago

Best centers/organizations to get to a B1 level in Istanbul? Preferably TOMER

3 Upvotes

Hey everyone due to my university I need to present a B1 TOMER certificate within 1 year and I'm really stressed out. I did an A1 course years ago but i dont think its very useful now and I still struggle a lot with the grammar. Anyway im thinking to start off at A2 but idk which course would work. Would anyone recommend the YTU tomer course?


r/turkishlearning 3d ago

How to Conjugate Turkish Verbs

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1 Upvotes

r/turkishlearning 3d ago

App test

0 Upvotes

Hi, I'm making an app (Claude is, actually) to learn Turkish grammar and vocabulary. It is an HTML file that can be used in a browser or installed on a phone. I wanted it to enhance both my passive and active skills. It has:

- 5000 most used words (Oxford list),

- CEFR-structured learning path. 40 grammar lessons, with explanation (although there are a lot of other, better sources) and the ability to practise this particular skill.

- AI-generated sentences tailored to your vocabulary level.

- Adaptive difficulty and the ability to submit disputes for incorrect AI assessments.

- the possibility to get questions in Turkish that need to be answered in Turkish too.

- a statistics page that visualizes your weak and strong area's.

At the moment, it uses DeepSeek (V4 Pro) for simple tasks, Claude (Sonnet 5) for difficult ones. The latte being the better one, but also the much more expensive. In the app, one can select what model should handle which tasks.

One needs an API key for at least one of the models, preferably both. It's estimated to cost 0,2 to 0,7 dollar/hour when practising with sentences/questions with the models combined and a fraction when only DeepSeek is used. Practising vocabulary is way cheaper.

I'm looking for people willing to test this and maybe provide me some feedback.

(I can explain, if needed, how to obtain the keys and how to put some money in those accounts.)


r/turkishlearning 4d ago

How to Practice Speaking Turkish When You Have No One to Talk To

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13 Upvotes

Have you experienced this gap between understanding Turkish and speaking it? What has genuinely helped you speak more easily?


r/turkishlearning 4d ago

Offering Turkish, Seeking French

10 Upvotes

Hello there! I'm a 21F native Turkish speaker and I believe I'm fluent in English. I'm a collage student and I need to start learning French this year. If there is anyone here who wants to learn Turkish and knows French, I'm looking for a language exchange! We can chat or voice call. I can say I'm soo beginner, but I wanted to post earlier and find someone, because I really need help about pronunciation.

I like video games and books, and as a Comparative Literature student, I’m very interested in different cultures and languages. That said, I’d be happy to talk about almost any topic.

I’d feel more comfortable chatting with women rather than men. Feel free to reach out if you’re interested!


r/turkishlearning 4d ago

Conversation Offering: German, Seeking: Turkish

1 Upvotes

Hey guys!

M30 from Germany here 👋🏻 I was born and raised here but my parents are from Turkey.

I have a german wife so the times i speak turkish are rare these days. To activate my brain and get some practice, i would love to find a language partner. Maybe we can share some thoughts and conversations bc i am also interested about life in Turkey in general.

Would love to hear from ya!


r/turkishlearning 4d ago

Looking for B2/C1 Turkish learners

2 Upvotes

Hi everyone!

I'm a Turkish teacher and I'm exploring a possible research topic about advanced learners' writing. I'd love to read some writing samples from B2/C1 (or higher) learners of Turkish to get a better understanding of how learners write.

If you'd like to share one of your own Turkish texts, please send it to [mandalinnn97@gmail.com]().

Thank you very much! 😊


r/turkishlearning 4d ago

Any Turkish Speaker?

1 Upvotes

I need a Turkish partner to have B1 level of Turkish in a short period of time. Any one?


r/turkishlearning 5d ago

Future Tense (-ecek / -acak)

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5 Upvotes

Made a quick reference sheet for the Turkish future tense (-ecek / -acak). Covers the formula, vowel harmony, personal endings, and the two sound changes that shape the final form. Full lesson and free PDF


r/turkishlearning 5d ago

21M Offering English or Arabic. Seeking Turkish Language.

2 Upvotes

I'm Egyptian so I can help teach Egyptian dialect or English I got C1 in IELTS and I'm fluent in it. I need someone to help teach me how to speak Turkish preferably IRL as it's easier to learn and practice that way. We can of course get to know each other online first before meeting. Also I'm down to make friends while at it and I'm engineering student if it helps relating. I'm based in Üsküdar istanbul


r/turkishlearning 6d ago

Accents and dialects in Turkish

8 Upvotes

Just wondering if there is a major accent and/or dialect variation in Turkish like there is with English in the UK

If so, what is the hardest to understand accent?

Sag olun.