You will find the stressed syllable of a Turkish word and follow it as suffixes are added. No recording is attached to this lesson, so it teaches through spelling and syllable counting.
The idea
In an ordinary Turkish word the stress falls on the last syllable: ki-TAP, o-KUL, ar-ka-DAŞ. It is a gentle rise in pitch and length, not the hard push of English or German, and the other vowels stay clear instead of shrinking. A suffix adds syllables, and the stress moves to the new end: ki-tap-LAR, ki-tap-la-rı-MIZ, o-kul-DA.
| Word | Syllables | Stressed syllable |
|---|---|---|
| kitap | ki-tap | tap |
| kitaplar | ki-tap-lar | lar |
| okulda | o-kul-da | da |
| arkadaş | ar-ka-daş | daş |
| kitaplarımız | ki-tap-la-rı-mız | mız |
Examples
- Babam akşam evde.My father is at home in the evening.Each word is stressed on its own last syllable when said alone: ba-BAM, ak-ŞAM, ev-DE. How a whole sentence is stressed is a later page.
- Çocuklar sabah sınıfta.The children are in the classroom in the morning.
- Kitabım bugün masada.My book is on the table today.
- kitapbook
- kitaplarbookskitaplar-ler / -lar: the plural suffix
- kitaplarımızour bookskitaplar-ler / -lar: the plural suffixımız-imiz / -ımız / -umuz / -ümüz: our
- kitaplarımızdain our bookskitaplar-ler / -lar: the plural suffixımız-imiz / -ımız / -umuz / -ümüz: ourda-de / -da / -te / -ta: in, at, onSix syllables, one stress: it sits on the last one, da. Every earlier syllable, including mız, stays light.
- öğretmenteacher (m. or f.)Length does not change the rule: three syllables, and the stress is still on the last one, men, not on öğ-.
Read-aloud uses a synthetic Turkish voice available on your device. Voice quality and availability vary; it does not assess your pronunciation.
No Turkish device voice is available. You can still read the text.
Watch out
Do not stress the first syllable out of habit, as in Kİ-tap or O-kul: it sounds foreign, and it also hides the grammar, because the stress travels to each new ending. The last-syllable rule is a default: some small words are stressed earlier (şimdi, now, is ŞİM-di), and place names are covered in a later lesson.
Try it yourself
Type the stressed syllable of ki-tap (book).
Show answer or example answer
tap
tap: there is no suffix yet, so the stress sits on the last of the two syllables, and ki- stays light.
Type the stressed syllable of ki-tap-lar (books).
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lar
lar: the plural adds a syllable, so tap loses the stress and the new last syllable lar takes it.
Type the stressed syllable of o-ku-la (to school).
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la
la: the ending -a joins okul as o-ku-la, and the stress moves to la because the word now ends there, not at kul.
Type the stressed syllable of ar-ka-daş-la-rı-mız (our friends).
Show answer or example answer
mız
mız: arkadaş grows by three syllables, and the stress travels to the end of the whole word, the sixth syllable.
Practice round
Answer questions, then rebuild Turkish sentences and words where available. We keep your score.
Type the stressed syllable of ki-tap (book).
Type the stressed syllable of ki-tap-lar (books).
Type the stressed syllable of o-ku-la (to school).
Type the stressed syllable of ar-ka-daş-la-rı-mız (our friends).
Tap the words in the right order.
Tap the words in the right order.
Tap the words in the right order.
Tap the parts in order to build this word: books
Tap the parts in order to build this word: our books
Keep your progress
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Say kitap, kitaplar and kitaplarımız aloud, tapping the table on the stressed syllable. The tap should move to the right each time. Then do the same with three words from your own room.