Use sürdürmek to describe keeping an activity or a state going. Research, talks and traditions make useful contexts because you can name both the continuing activity and those who maintain it.
The idea
Sürdürmek takes a direct object; a specific object has the accusative ending: araştırmayı sürdürmek. The stem sürdür- stays intact in sürdürüyorum, sürdürdüm and sürdürürüm. In sürdüreceğim and sürdüreceğiz, the future ending’s k becomes ğ before a vowel. Subject pronouns can be omitted when the ending identifies the person.
| Use / person | Form |
|---|---|
| Infinitive | sürdürmek |
| Present: I | sürdürüyorum |
| Past: I | sürdürdüm |
| Future: I | sürdüreceğim |
| Future: we | sürdüreceğiz |
| Aorist: I | sürdürürüm |
| Negative present: I | sürdürmüyorum |
| Present question: you (singular) | sürdürüyor musun? |
Examples
- Ekip araştırmayı sürdürüyor.The team is continuing the research.
- Yarın görüşmeleri sürdüreceğiz.We will continue the talks tomorrow.
- Bu geleneği hâlâ sürdürüyoruz.We still keep this tradition alive.
- Yağmura rağmen çalışmalarını sürdürdüler.They continued their work despite the rain.
- Bu tartışmayı sürdürmek istemiyorum.I do not want to continue this argument.
- Yeni sorular sorarak sohbeti sürdürürüm.I keep the conversation going by asking new questions.
- Toplantı iki saat sürdü.The meeting lasted two hours.
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
For “the meeting continues”, use Toplantı sürüyor. Toplantıyı sürdürüyoruz means that we are continuing the meeting. Do not transfer the dative from araştırmaya devam etmek: with this verb, say araştırmayı sürdürmek.
Try it yourself
Complete with the past tense: we continued the work yesterday.
Show answer or example answer
sürdürdük
sürdürdük: dün places the work yesterday; -dü marks the past and -k identifies us as the people who continued it.
Complete with the future tense: we will continue the talks tomorrow.
Show answer or example answer
sürdüreceğiz
sürdüreceğiz: yarın points to the future and the subject is “we”; the vowel in -iz softens the final k of -ecek to ğ.
Put araştırma (research) in the correct case: the team is continuing this research.
Show answer or example answer
araştırmayı
araştırmayı: bu identifies a particular research activity, so it is a definite direct object. After the final vowel, y joins the noun to accusative -ı.
The meeting is still going on. Choose the verb and use the present continuous.
Show answer or example answer
sürüyor
sürüyor: the meeting itself is continuing; nobody is named as keeping another activity going. The verb needed here is sürmek.
Practice round
Answer questions, then rebuild Turkish sentences and words where available. We keep your score.
Complete with the past tense: we continued the work yesterday.
Complete with the future tense: we will continue the talks tomorrow.
Put araştırma (research) in the correct case: the team is continuing this research.
The meeting is still going on. Choose the verb and use the present continuous.
Tap the words in the right order.
Tap the words in the right order.
Tap the words in the right order.
Keep your progress
Sign up for free to save your practice results in your account.
Sign up to saveI already have an accountUse it today
Write a short project update: say what your team is continuing now, what it continued yesterday and what it will continue tomorrow. Then describe how long one meeting lasted using sürmek.