Spelling your name and phone number

The idea

Turkish is spelled with its own letter names, not the English ones. A vowel is named by its sound (a, e, ı, i, o, ö, u, ü) and a consonant is its sound plus e: be, ce, çe, de, ye, ve, şe. Only ğ is different, called yumuşak ge. So Elif is e, le, i, fe. Ask Adınız nasıl yazılıyor?, and after Telefon numaranız kaç? give the number digit by digit: sıfır, beş, üç, iki.

Examples

• Adınız nasıl yazılıyor?How is your name written?
• Adınızı buraya yazar mısınız?Could you write your name here?
• Soyadınızı harf harf söyler misiniz?Could you say your surname letter by letter?
• Adım Elif: e, le, i, fe.My name is Elif: E, L, İ, F.
• Telefon numaranız kaç?What is your phone number?
• Yıldız: ye, noktasız ı, le, de, noktasız ı, ze.Yıldız: Y, ı, L, D, ı, Z.
• Buğra: be, u, yumuşak ge, re, a.Buğra: B, U, Ğ, R, A.The soft g has its own name, yumuşak ge, because plain ge already means g.
• Işık: noktasız ı, şe, noktasız ı, ke.Işık: ı, ş, ı, k.The first letter of Işık is the dotless ı; say noktasız ı so nobody writes İ.
• Numaram sıfır beş üç iki, bir iki üç, dört beş, altı yedi.My number is 0532 123 45 67.
• soyadınızıyour surname (as the object)soyad·ınız-ınız / -iniz / -unuz / -ünüz: your (plural, polite)·ı-i / -ı / -u / -ü: marking the definite object

Watch out

Do not spell with the English names: y is ye, not "why", and j is je. Three letters need a spoken hint because they are easy to mix up on the phone: say noktasız ı (dotless) or noktalı i (dotted), and say yumuşak ge for ğ, or the other person writes a g.

Try it yourself

1. Write the Turkish name of the letter y.

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   ye

   ye: a consonant is named by its sound plus e, so y gives ye; the English "why" is not used.

2. Write the name of the letter ğ.

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   yumuşak ge

   yumuşak ge: ğ never starts a word and is called "soft g", because plain ge is already the name of g.

3. Write the digit 6 as a Turkish word.

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   altı

   altı: the word ends in the dotless vowel ı; with a dot, as alti, it would be a different letter and not a Turkish word.

4. Complete the spelling of Elif: write the name of the last letter, f.

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   fe

   fe: the last letter of Elif is f, a consonant, so its name is f plus e.

Use it today

Spell your own first name and surname aloud with the Turkish letter names, then read your phone number digit by digit. Mark every ı, i and ğ in your name.