These hundred Turkish words cover pronouns, question words, the twenty verbs that do most of the work, everyday nouns, common adjectives and the small connecting words that hold sentences together. Each has its pronunciation, and stress falls on the last syllable. Learn the stems rather than the forms — the endings are shared across the language.
Published 13 August 2026
A hundred words is not very many, and in Turkish it goes a long way. Because the language builds meaning by adding endings to stems rather than by collecting separate words, a small core of stems covers a great deal of ground — and because Turkish spelling is near-phonetic, you can say every word on this page correctly the first time you read it.
These hundred are chosen for frequency and usefulness, not for a theme. They are the words that turn up everywhere: the pronouns, the question words, the twenty verbs that do most of the work, the everyday nouns, the adjectives you will reach for constantly, and the small connecting words that hold sentences together.
One pronunciation rule covers nearly all of them: the stress falls on the last syllable. Say ar-ka-DAŞ, not AR-ka-daş. That single habit does more for your accent than the vocabulary itself.
| Turkish | Say it | English |
|---|---|---|
| ben | ben | I |
| sen | sen | you (informal) |
| o | o | he, she, it |
| biz | biz | we |
| siz | siz | you (polite or plural) |
| onlar | on-LAR | they |
| adam | a-DAM | man |
| kadın | ka-DUHN | woman |
| çocuk | cho-JUK | child |
| insan | in-SAN | person, human |
| arkadaş | ar-ka-DASH | friend |
| anne | an-NE | mother |
| baba | ba-BA | father |
| aile | a-i-LE | family |
Learn these early. A question word plus one noun is already a usable sentence, and questions are how you get other people to teach you the language for free.
| Turkish | Say it | English |
|---|---|---|
| ne | ne | what |
| kim | kim | who |
| nerede | NE-re-de | where |
| ne zaman | ne za-MAN | when |
| nasıl | NA-suhl | how |
| neden | NE-den | why |
| kaç | kach | how many, how much |
| hangi | HAN-gi | which |
Turkish verbs are listed in the dictionary with -mek or -mak on the end, which is the equivalent of English "to". The stem is what is left when you remove it, and the stem is what all the endings attach to.
| Turkish | Stem | English |
|---|---|---|
| olmak | ol- | to be, to become |
| gelmek | gel- | to come |
| gitmek | git- | to go |
| yapmak | yap- | to do, to make |
| etmek | et- | to do (in set phrases) |
| demek | de- | to say |
| görmek | gör- | to see |
| bilmek | bil- | to know |
| istemek | iste- | to want |
| vermek | ver- | to give |
| almak | al- | to take, to buy |
| bakmak | bak- | to look |
| konuşmak | konuş- | to speak |
| anlamak | anla- | to understand |
| yemek | ye- | to eat |
| içmek | iç- | to drink |
| sevmek | sev- | to love, to like |
| çalışmak | çalış- | to work, to study |
| beklemek | bekle- | to wait |
| bulmak | bul- | to find |
Two worth flagging. Yemek is both the verb "to eat" and the noun "food" or "meal" — the same word does both jobs. And etmek almost never appears alone; it pairs with another word to make a set expression, as in teşekkür etmek, to thank.
| Turkish | Say it | English |
|---|---|---|
| su | su | water |
| ekmek | ek-MEK | bread |
| çay | chai | tea |
| kahve | kah-VE | coffee |
| yemek | ye-MEK | food, meal |
| ev | ev | house, home |
| oda | o-DA | room |
| kapı | ka-PUH | door |
| yol | yol | road, way |
| şehir | she-HIR | city |
| ülke | ül-KE | country |
| gün | gün | day |
| hafta | haf-TA | week |
| ay | ai | month; also moon |
| yıl | yuhl | year |
| saat | sa-AT | hour, clock, watch |
| zaman | za-MAN | time |
| para | pa-RA | money |
| iş | ish | work, job, business |
| okul | o-KUL | school |
Remember that Turkish adjectives never change. Büyük is büyük whatever it describes and however many there are.
| Turkish | Say it | English |
|---|---|---|
| iyi | ee-YEE | good, well |
| kötü | kö-TÜ | bad |
| büyük | bü-YÜK | big |
| küçük | kü-CHÜK | small |
| yeni | ye-NEE | new |
| eski | es-KEE | old (of things) |
| güzel | gü-ZEL | beautiful, nice, lovely |
| çok | chok | very, a lot, many |
| az | az | little, few |
| uzun | u-ZUN | long, tall |
| kısa | kuh-SA | short |
| sıcak | suh-JAK | hot |
| soğuk | so-UK | cold |
| kolay | ko-LAY | easy |
| zor | zor | difficult |
| doğru | doo-RU | correct, true, straight |
Güzel is worth a note: it is far broader than "beautiful". Food is güzel, weather is güzel, a film is güzel. It is one of the most useful words in the language.
These are the small words that turn vocabulary into sentences. They are unglamorous and they are the difference between listing nouns and speaking.
| Turkish | Say it | English |
|---|---|---|
| ve | ve | and |
| ama | a-MA | but |
| veya | ve-YA | or |
| için | i-CHIN | for, in order to |
| ile | i-LE | with |
| çünkü | CHÜN-kü | because |
| gibi | gi-BEE | like, as |
| sonra | son-RA | after, later |
| önce | ön-JE | before, ago |
| şimdi | shim-DEE | now |
| bugün | bu-GÜN | today |
| yarın | ya-RUHN | tomorrow |
| dün | dün | yesterday |
| burada | BU-ra-da | here |
| orada | O-ra-da | there |
| var | var | there is, there are |
| yok | yok | there isn't, none |
| evet | e-VET | yes |
| hayır | HA-yuhr | no |
| tamam | ta-MAM | okay, agreed |
| lütfen | LÜT-fen | please |
| teşekkürler | te-shek-kür-LER | thank you |
Var and yok deserve special attention — they carry the weight that English spreads across "there is", "there isn't", "have" and "don't have", and they appear constantly. They get their own page: var and yok.
More than in most languages, because of how Turkish works. Take ev from this list and you also have evim (my house), evde (at home), evler (houses), evimde (in my house) — all from endings you learn once and apply everywhere. The same applies to every noun and every verb stem here.
Combine that with var and yok, the question words and a few adjectives, and you can already produce a lot of real speech: Su var mı? (Is there water?), Çok güzel (Very nice), Anlamıyorum (I don't understand), Nerede? (Where?).
Learn the stems, not the forms. A hundred Turkish stems plus a small set of shared endings covers far more ground than a hundred words in French or German would.
Not as a list. Take five words a day and use each in one short sentence out loud — a real sentence about your own life, not a textbook example. A word you have said in a sentence about your own kitchen is a word you will still have next week; a word you have read in a column is not.
And say them with the stress at the end. Turkish spelling means you can read every word here correctly without hearing it first, which is a rare advantage — use it.
With these hundred words and the greetings, you have most of what a first month needs. Fifty everyday phrases puts them into situations, the numbers fill an obvious gap, and the roadmap sets out what comes next.
Turkish is coming to Gora, where words arrive inside sentences with native audio and come back on a schedule so they stick. See what is coming and join the launch list.