Which verbs take which case

The idea

Each Turkish verb decides the case of the noun it works on, and that case often differs from the English preposition. Dinlemek ('listen to') and beklemek ('wait for') take the accusative: müziği dinlemek, otobüsü beklemek. Bakmak and yardım etmek take the dative: kuşlara bakmak, anneme yardım etmek. Korkmak takes the ablative (köpekten korkmak), konuşmak the instrumental (babamla konuşmak) and kalmak the locative (evde kalmak). Learn each verb together with its case.

Examples

• Ben müziği dinliyorum.I am listening to the music.Dinlemek takes the accusative: müziği is the object, and there is no word for 'to'.
• Annem beni bekliyor.My mother is waiting for me.Beklemek takes the accusative, so 'waits for me' is just beni bekliyor, with no word for 'for'.
• Kedi köpekten korkuyor.The cat is afraid of the dog.
• Çocuklar kuşlara bakıyor.The children are looking at the birds.
• Ayşe babasıyla konuşuyor.Ayşe is talking with her father.
• Anneme yardım ediyorum.I am helping my mother.Yardım etmek takes the dative: the person helped is anneme, 'to my mother'. Annemi yardım ediyorum would be wrong.
• Hafta sonu evde kalıyorum.I am staying at home at the weekend.Kalmak takes the locative: the place where you stay is evde, in the locative.
• köpektenfrom the dogköpek·ten-den / -dan / -ten / -tan: from, out of
• kuşlarato the birdskuş·lar-ler / -lar: the plural suffix·a-e / -a / -ye / -ya: to, towards
• ailemlewith my familyaile·m-im / -ım / -um / -üm / -m: my·le-le / -la: with, by means of

Watch out

Do not copy the English preposition. The 'to' in 'listen to' and the 'for' in 'wait for' suggest a direction, but Müziğe dinliyorum and Otobüse bekliyorum are wrong: both verbs take the accusative, so say müziği dinliyorum and otobüsü bekliyorum. If the object is general and not a particular one, the ending drops: müzik dinliyorum.

Try it yourself

1. Add the case the verb needs: I am afraid of the cat.

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   kediden

   kediden: korkmak takes the ablative, and kedi ends in the front vowel i, so the ending is -den.

2. Add the case the verb needs: I am waiting for my mother.

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   annemi

   annemi: beklemek takes the accusative and has no preposition of its own; the last vowel e gives -i.

3. Add the case the verb needs: I am looking at the board.

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   tahtaya

   tahtaya: bakmak takes the dative ('look at'); after the vowel a a buffer y appears, so the ending is -ya.

4. Add the case the verb needs: I am talking with my grandfather.

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   dedemle

   dedemle: konuşmak takes the instrumental ('with'); the last vowel e gives -le, with no buffer after m.

Use it today

Write four sentences about your day, each with a different verb from the table. For every noun, say which case the verb asked for and why.