iş (work): işe, işte, işten

The idea

İş means work, job, task or business. It ends in the voiceless consonant ş, and its last vowel i is front and unrounded. So the plural is işler, the four-way endings take i (işim, işi, işimiz) and the two-way ones take e: işe. After a voiceless consonant the locative and the ablative begin with t: işte, işten. Nothing softens: the ş stays, and after a consonant the dative needs no buffer letter.

Examples

• Babam yarın işe başlıyor.My father starts work tomorrow.
• Ablam bugün işte değil.My older sister is not at work today.The word ends in the voiceless ş, so the locative is -te, not -de: işte. The negative değil follows it.
• Akşam işten eve dönüyorum.I come back home from work in the evening.
• İşim bugün çok yoğun.My work is very hectic today.
• Bu işi birlikte yapalım.Let's do this job together.Here -i is the accusative, marking the object. The same spelling, işi, can also mean his or her work; bu and the verb show which.
• İşte anahtarın.Here is your key.As a separate word at the start of a sentence, işte means "here it is". It is spelled like the locative of iş, but it points at something.
• işlerimizdein our tasksiş·ler-ler / -lar: the plural suffix·imiz-imiz / -ımız / -umuz / -ümüz: our·de-de / -da / -te / -ta: in, at, on
• işindenfrom his or her jobiş·i-i / -si: his, her, its·nBuffer -n-: evinde, evinden, evine·den-den / -dan / -ten / -tan: from, out of

Watch out

By analogy with evde, learners write işde and işden; after the voiceless ş the forms are işte and işten. Keep the cases apart too: "I go to work" is işe gidiyorum (dative), while işte gidiyorum would put the going itself at work. And işte at the start of a sentence is a separate word meaning "here it is".

Try it yourself

1. Add the dative to iş (work): to work.

   Show answer or example answer

   işe

   işe: the last vowel i is front, and the dative after a consonant is just -e, so no y is added.

2. Add the ablative to iş (work): from work.

   Show answer or example answer

   işten

   işten: ş is voiceless, so the ablative starts with t, and the front vowel gives -ten.

3. Add the locative to iş (work): at work.

   Show answer or example answer

   işte

   işte: the voiceless ş makes the locative -te, and the ş itself does not change.

4. Add the ending for our to iş (work): our work.

   Show answer or example answer

   işimiz

   işimiz: the unrounded front i asks for i in the four-way ending, and after a consonant it is -imiz.

Use it today

Write three sentences about your day, using işe, işte and işten once each.