hiç, hiçbir, kimse: nobody, nothing, never

The idea

Turkish negative words such as kimse (nobody), hiçbir şey (nothing), hiçbir + noun (no ...) and hiç (never, at all) do not negate a sentence by themselves: the verb must be negative too, with -me-/-ma-, or yok instead of var. Kimse gelmedi, Hiçbir şey yemedim. Two negatives do not cancel out in Turkish. Hiçbir takes a singular noun (hiçbir öğrenci), and case endings go on the last word: kimseyi, hiçbir şeyden.

Examples

• Bugün kimse gelmedi.Nobody came today.The verb gelmedi carries the negation; kimse only names who. The same sentence with geldi is wrong.
• Buzdolabında hiçbir şey yok.There is nothing in the fridge.Yok is already the negative partner of var, so the verb needs no extra -me-: hiçbir şey yok.
• Ben hiçbir şey yemedim.I did not eat anything.
• Sınıfta hiçbir öğrenci konuşmadı.No student spoke in the classroom.Hiçbir is followed by a singular noun: öğrenci, not öğrenciler, even though several students are meant.
• Hiç param yok.I have no money at all.
• Ben İzmir'e hiç gitmedim.I have never been to İzmir.Hiç with a negative verb means "never"; the destination still takes the dative with an apostrophe: İzmir'e.
• Kimseyi görmedim.I did not see anyone.Kimse ends in a vowel, so case endings take a buffer y: kimseyi (object), kimseye (to).
• Kimseye söylemedim.I did not tell anyone.
• Hiçbir şeyden korkmuyorum.I am not afraid of anything.The case ending goes on the last word: şeyden. Hiçbir stays unchanged, and korkmak asks for -den.

Watch out

In English the verb after "nobody" is positive ("Nobody came"), so learners leave it positive in Turkish. Kimse geldi and Hiçbir şey yedim are wrong: the verb needs its own negative, as in Kimse gelmedi. Do not put a plural after hiçbir either: hiçbir öğrenciler is wrong.

Try it yourself

1. Make the verb negative: nobody came today.

   Show answer or example answer

   gelmedi

   gelmedi: kimse only names the person, so the negation has to come from the verb: gel- takes -me- and then the past ending -di.

2. Use the negative present continuous for I: I understand nothing.

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   anlamıyorum

   anlamıyorum: hiçbir şey demands a negative verb; before -yor the negative -ma- narrows to -mı-, and -um means "I".

3. Add the object ending to kimse: I did not see anyone.

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   kimseyi

   kimseyi: kimse ends in a vowel, so a y comes before the accusative, and the front vowel e gives -i.

4. Add the dative ending to kimse: I did not tell anyone.

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   kimseye

   kimseye: the same y after the vowel, and -e after a front vowel, because this time the person who is told is named.

Use it today

Write three true sentences about your week using kimse, hiçbir şey and hiç. Check that the verb is negative in each one.