You will distinguish a passive with an unnamed agent from an impersonal passive. The shelf in a painting report is still a subject; a report of working need not have one.
The idea
An intransitive verb such as gitmek or çalışmak can become an impersonal passive. No object becomes a subject, and the verb uses the third-person singular form. Case-marked complements remain: göle gidilir gives a destination. The aorist often describes a general practice or expectation; çalışıldı reports a past event. With a transitive verb, the object becomes the passive subject: Rafı boyadık becomes Raf boyandı. An unnamed agent alone therefore does not make a passive subjectless.
| Active | Passive |
|---|---|
| Rafı dün boyadık. | Raf dün boyandı. |
| Atölyede çalıştık. | Atölyede çalışıldı. |
Examples
- Bu patikadan göle gidilir.You get to the lake along this path.
- Bu odada sessizce çalışılır.People work quietly in this room.
- Burada geceleri yüksek sesle konuşulmaz.People are not to speak loudly here at night.
- Dün atölyede geç saatlere kadar çalışıldı.People worked until late at the workshop yesterday.
- Bu gürültüde nasıl uyunur?How can anyone sleep in this noise?
- Bu raf dün boyandı.This shelf was painted yesterday.
- Rafı dün boyadık.We painted the shelf yesterday.
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Watch out
Do not turn the generic “we” or “you” of a translation into Turkish agreement: gidiliriz cannot mean “one goes”. For “we go”, use gideriz. Nor does a negative aorist automatically state a legal ban: konuşulmaz may express an expectation or what is inappropriate in the situation.
Try it yourself
Choose the impersonal form: people get to the lake along this path.
Show answer or example answer
gidilir
gidilir: the route applies to unspecified travellers, so there is no first-person plural subject to justify a “we” ending. The active gideriz would describe our own journey.
Choose the subject of the passive: the shelf was painted yesterday.
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Raf
Raf: the shelf receives the paint and becomes the passive subject. The accusative in Rafı belongs to the object of the active sentence, so it drops here.
Choose the destination form: people get to the lake along this path.
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göle
göle: the lake is the destination, not something being moved or acted on. The verb still requires the dative for that destination after passivisation.
Use an impersonal passive in the past: people worked until late at the workshop yesterday.
Show answer or example answer
çalışıldı
çalışıldı: dün locates the activity in the past. The sentence reports that work took place without saying who did it; çalışılır would instead describe a general practice.
Practice round
Answer questions, then rebuild Turkish sentences and words where available. We keep your score.
Choose the impersonal form: people get to the lake along this path.
Choose the subject of the passive: the shelf was painted yesterday.
Choose the destination form: people get to the lake along this path.
Use an impersonal passive in the past: people worked until late at the workshop yesterday.
Tap the words in the right order.
Tap the words in the right order.
Tap the words in the right order.
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Write a general direction with gidilir and a past report with çalışıldı. Then turn a sentence about painting an object into a passive and identify which noun becomes its subject.