oturmak or yaşamak: sit, reside or live

The idea

Use oturmak for the body: to sit down or be seated (Lütfen şu koltuğa oturun), and also for the home you live in: a floor, a building, a street (Biz üçüncü katta oturuyoruz). Use yaşamak for life itself: to be alive (Dedem hâlâ yaşıyor), to spend your life in a city or country (Kardeşim yurt dışında yaşıyor), and for animals and their habitats (Penguenler soğuk yerlerde yaşar). For a home address speakers often choose oturmak; for a whole city, country or way of life, yaşamak is the safer verb.

Examples

• Biz üçüncü katta oturuyoruz.We live on the third floor.Oturmak here means to live at an address: a floor, a building, a street. The pronoun biz may be dropped: Üçüncü katta oturuyoruz.
• Penguenler soğuk yerlerde yaşar.Penguins live in cold places.Yaşar is the aorist, the form for general facts about animals; it goes a little beyond the present continuous. Penguenler oturur would say that penguins sit.
• Lütfen şu koltuğa oturun.Please sit in that armchair.Here oturmak is a posture: to sit down. Oturun is the polite command, and koltuk softens to koltuğ- before the vowel of -a.
• Dedem hâlâ yaşıyor.My grandfather is still alive.Yaşamak also means to be alive. Dedem hâlâ oturuyor would say that he is still sitting or still living at the same address.
• Kardeşim yurt dışında yaşıyor.My brother or sister lives abroad.
• Çocuklar sınıfta sessizce oturuyor.The children are sitting quietly in the classroom.
• Dün akşam kafede iki saat oturduk.Yesterday evening we sat in the café for two hours.
• Nerede oturuyorsun?Where do you live?In conversation this asks about your home, not your chair. The answer names a place of residence, such as Ankara'da.

Watch out

The question Nerede oturuyorsun? is usually about where you live, not which seat you are in; answering Kafedeyim misses it. And oturmak cannot stand in for life itself: Dedem hâlâ oturuyor says that he is still sitting (or still living at the same address), not that he is alive, and Penguenler oturur would say that penguins sit.

Try it yourself

1. Choose oturmak or yaşamak and write it in the present continuous: the cat is sitting on the sofa.

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   oturuyor

   oturuyor: the cat is sitting on the sofa, which is a posture of the body, so oturmak; the last vowel of otur is u, so the ending is -uyor.

2. Choose oturmak or yaşamak and write it in the present continuous: my grandfather is still alive.

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   yaşıyor

   yaşıyor: being alive belongs to yaşamak, which oturmak cannot say; the stem yaşa- drops its a before -ıyor.

3. Write oturmak as the polite command: please sit down here.

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   oturun

   oturun: this is a request to sit down, so oturmak; the last vowel u gives the polite command ending -un.

4. Write yaşamak in the aorist, the form for general facts: bears live in the forest.

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   yaşar

   yaşar: a habitat is a matter of living, so yaşamak; the stem ends in the vowel a, so the aorist adds only -r.

Use it today

Write four sentences: where you live now, where your family lives, where you sat today, and one fact about an animal. Pick oturmak or yaşamak for each.