Grammar Rules in Turkish: Consonant Changing - ünsüz yumuşaması

Lesson Transcript

Herkese merhaba, hoşgeldiniz. ben Seda! Welcome to TurkishClass101.com

Nasılsınız? Havalar nasıl? Keyfiniz nasıl? Her şey yolunda mı?

Okay today in this video I will talk about “ünsüz yumuşaması”

consonant, softening.

Before I start I should talk about Turkish consonant system.

As you may remember we talked about vowels before and I will say this again but to understand

Turkish grammar Turkish not just grammar but Turkish logic. You need to focus on the sounds.

You have to learn the vowels, the consonants and their categorizations.

Consonants are the sounds that are formed by passing through

and some obstacles in the vocal track and in Turkish there are 21 consonants.

Okay let's say them together and this should be a consonant pronunciation practice as well.

It's b I will just say the sounds b, c, ç, d, f, g,ğ, h, another strong h sound it's it's coming from throat not not strong

j, k, l, m, n, p, r, s, ş, t, v, y, z.

Okay these are our consonants these are the sounds of Turkish consonants and these sounds are classified

in three categories in Turkish. Okay first one according to inflection points the second one

according to their continuity and discontinuity and the third is according to the situation of

vocal cords. Okay these are our main categories categories and the first one is consonants

according to the inflection points. We subdivide this category into four different categories.

Okay first we have the three categories and we subdivide the first category into four different

parts and this is according to their articulation. For articulation points meaning like their exit

and origin right where they occur in the vocal tract okay where the sounds occur.

For example the first one we have lip consonants lip, b, f, lip, m, again lip, p, again lip,

v, v, again lip and we have dental consonants meaning we use our teeth.

ç,

ş,

We use our feet for these sounds

and we have palatial consonants palatial means this part this part okay we have

g g g we have k k k okay and we have y y y for all these three we use our

palatial part and we have throat sounds. Turkish is not a strong throat sounding language we have

only two and they're very soft throat sounds we have ğ, yumuşak g, ğ and we have h but it's not like Arabic

okay it's not like it's not coming it shouldn't be coming strong it should be coming softly

h it's like like that okay okay our this was the four parts under the first category now let's

look at the second category okay the second category is consonant according to their

continuity and discontinuity in their pronunciation so what i mean is whether a sound is continuous

or not can be determined by placing a vowel before that sound for example when the vowel

a a is placed before for example the consonant ş the syllable formed can be extended form of

aşşşşşşşşşş therefore ş is a continuous consonant aşşşşşşşşşşş

you can make it like like make t long okay but for example this same cannot be done to the letter

the sound t. the syllable form the one vowel a is placed before t becomes at but you cannot become

make it long like aşşşş it's at you cannot make the sound longer it's “at” okay this is discontinuity sound

the other is a continuous so so the t sound as i said is a discontinuous consonant so let's see our

continuous consonant you can practice like

i will put a before them as well

Continuous consonants are:

af,

ağ,

ah,

aj,

aI,

am,

an,

ar,

as,

aş,

av,

something like that and these are our discontinuous consonants try to make them last longer

ab,

ac,

aç,

ad,

ag,

ak,

ap,

you cannot do it they are just they're just cut short okay so we finished our first category

we saw the four different parts we saw the second category with the continuous discontinuous

now our third category okay and for the third category consonants consonants

according to the situation of the vocal cords vocal vocal cords and these consonants are divided

into two categories according to whether they you know vibrate the vocal cords or not okay vibrate

so we have soft consonants and hard consonants soft consonants are formed by the vibration

of the vocal cords and hard consonants do not need to vibrate to form themselves so our soft

consonants are

ğ,

as you can see one consonant can be in different categories they can be soft they can be

continuous they can be hard they can be discontinuous so these are like have different

qualities okay and let's see our hard consonants they are

ç, see no vibration

ş,

No vibration at all

so I will put some kind of table here so it's more clear for you guys don't worry you don't have to

memorize them but this is the system so go come on back you know just come back time to time and

study it so after this long explanation about consonants what is consonant softening that was

our subject here is the rule when suffixes starting with vowels like

a-e-ı-i-o-ö-u-ü

When these suffixes with vowels are added to words, ending with “discontinuous hard” consonants

So what are these? (p, ç, t, k),

This letters the consonants at the end of the word soften and turn into

(b, c, d, g, ğ).

OK?

I know it is confusing. Let’s see.

In consonant softening;

consonant p turns into consonant b,

ç consonant turns into consonant c,

t consonant turns into d,

And the k consonant becomes softer by turning into a g or ğ I mean g or the soft g..

That’s it. This is the rule. Actually that is very basic.

but let's see

some examples so you'll understand it better for example çorap

means

Sock

Çorap

So it ends with hard consonant

When çorap takes suffix “ın”

It becomes

çorap+ın

normally you would think it will become çorapın but it becomes çorabın

let's see another one

Kapak

Lit

When kapak takes suffix “ı”

It becomes

Kapak + -ı not kapakı, kapağı

so let's see another one

kağıt

paper

When kağıt takes suffix “a”

It becomes

Kağıt + -a = not kağıta, it becomes kağıda

Denk

Equal

When denk takes suffix “i”

It becomes

Denk + -i = not denki, but dengi

We have a saying for example

Davul bile dengi dengine this is an idiom

Literally meaning

Even a drum to its equal

It means that

Everyone should be with his/her equal.

Anyway

Renk

For example

color

meaning color

When renk takes suffix “i”

It doesnt become

Renk + -i = Renki

It becomes rengi

this is just because it's easier for us to say when we soften these consonants

okay when we add the suffixes it's harder without changing them so till now we talk about the

consonant categories and we talk about the consonant softening rule and that's pretty

basic but we have of course exceptions and every rule unfortunately has exceptions so

what are the exceptions here let's go over them as well um proper nouns like names of the cities

people blah blah blah doesn't follow this rule in Turkish but in a written form for example

is not it's not shown in the text for example Kıvanç it's a male name

“Kıvanç’ın çantasını gördün mü?.”

I would say it like

that softening while speaking but in the written form it is not Kıvancın but Kıvançın.

okay I don't say Kıvanç’ın because it's harder for me to say it like that I say Kıvancın but I write Kıvanç’ın

because we put apostrophe after proper nouns and we don't change the consonants in writing

this is for all proper nouns what else monosyllabic words some of them do not follow this rule for

Example

İp

Kat

Saç

Çöp

Tek

these doesn't change because they are monosyllabic they have one syllable

and loan words the third exception is long words what are loan words loanwords it means that

words coming from different languages other languages like in Turkish we have French we

have English we have Arabic we have Persian words coming from those languages for example let's

think of examples saat coming from Arabic

Hukuk

Devlet

Millet

Sanat

these are long words and when you add suffixes starting

with vowels you don't soften the consonants at the end of these words so these were the exceptions

other than that rules are rules you know and don't worry you know how am I gonna know which one is a

loan word which one is you know it I know it's hard you cannot memorize it you need to listen

a lot and when you are reading especially when you are reading when you see a word and a suffix

you try to catch these consonant changes and in time you will get to

you know you'll get used to it and I hope it's a little bit clearer and I helped you a little

and try to practice in the comment section and help each other out and I hope you enjoyed this

video and if you want more content like this click the link somewhere in the description

and sign up for free at turkishclass101.com we have a lot of lessons pdf and you know

exams a lot of material in the site so go check it out and I will I think see you next time

have fun

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