The Turkish alphabet has 29 letters in the Latin script. It drops q, w and x, and adds ç, ğ, ı, ö, ş and ü. Dotted i and dotless ı are separate letters with separate sounds and separate capitals. The letter ğ makes no sound of its own — it lengthens the vowel before it. Learn these once and you can read any Turkish word aloud.
Published 23 July 2026
Turkish uses a Latin alphabet — the same shapes you are reading now — which means that unlike Russian, Greek or Arabic, there is no new script standing between you and the language. What there is instead is a short list of adjustments: three letters English has that Turkish does not, six letters Turkish has that English does not, and one pair of letters that causes more beginner confusion than everything else combined.
The whole job is an afternoon. And it is worth doing properly on day one, because Turkish spelling is honest in a way English spelling is not: learn the letters once and you can read any Turkish word aloud correctly, including words you have never met and words nobody has taught you.
Here is the complete alphabet in Turkish alphabetical order, with the nearest everyday English sound. Where a sound has no real English equivalent, the note says so rather than pretending.
| Letter | Sounds like | Example |
|---|---|---|
| A a | a in father, but short | araba — car |
| B b | b in bed | baba — father |
| C c | j in jam — not k, not s | cam — glass |
| Ç ç | ch in church | çay — tea |
| D d | d in door | deniz — sea |
| E e | e in bed | ev — house |
| F f | f in fish | fil — elephant |
| G g | hard g in go, never j | gel — come |
| Ğ ğ | no sound of its own — lengthens the vowel before it | dağ — mountain |
| H h | h in hat — always pronounced | hava — air, weather |
| I ı | dotless — a duller sound, near a in about | ısı — heat |
| İ i | dotted — ee in meet, short | iş — work |
| J j | s in measure | jeton — token |
| K k | k in kite | kapı — door |
| L l | l in letter | limon — lemon |
| M m | m in moon | masa — table |
| N n | n in nose | ne — what |
| O o | o in more, short | okul — school |
| Ö ö | as in German schön — no English equivalent | göz — eye |
| P p | p in pen | para — money |
| R r | a light tap of the tongue, as in Spanish pero | renk — colour |
| S s | s in sun, never z | su — water |
| Ş ş | sh in shop | şeker — sugar |
| T t | t in table | tuz — salt |
| U u | oo in book | uzun — long |
| Ü ü | as in German über — no English equivalent | üç — three |
| V v | v in very | var — there is |
| Y y | y in yes — always a consonant | yol — road |
| Z z | z in zoo | zaman — time |
Note the order: dotless I ı comes before dotted İ i. That is not a typo, and it matters if you ever use a Turkish dictionary or index.
Turkish has two separate letters that English writes as one. They are not stylistic variants and they are not optional. They are different letters making different sounds, and swapping them changes words.
Dotted i is the bright vowel you already know — the ee of meet, kept short. Dotless ı is made further back in the mouth with the lips relaxed; the nearest everyday English sound is the unstressed a in about or the e in open. Say ee, then pull your tongue back and let the sound go dull without rounding your lips. That is ı.
The capitals follow the same logic, which surprises people:
| Lower case | Capital | Note |
|---|---|---|
| i (dotted) | İ (dotted) | the dot survives capitalisation |
| ı (dotless) | I (dotless) | this is the one that looks like English capital I |
So İstanbul is written with a dot on the capital. An English keyboard writing Istanbul is, in strict Turkish terms, writing a different first letter — which is why you will sometimes see Turkish text look slightly wrong after passing through software that does not know the difference.
Worth ten minutes now: kız (girl, daughter) and kiz are not the same, and ısı (heat) and işi (his or her work) sit a long way apart.
The letter ğ, called yumuşak g or "soft g", is the one that looks most alarming and turns out to be the least trouble. In standard modern Turkish it has no consonant sound of its own. Its job is to lengthen the vowel in front of it.
So dağ (mountain) is said roughly daa, with a held vowel, not dag with a hard g on the end. Yağmur (rain) is nearer yaamur. Between two vowels it often does little more than let them run together.
Two facts make it easy to handle. It never begins a word — so if you think you are looking at a Turkish word starting with ğ, you have misread it. And it never doubles as a hard g; that job belongs to plain g, which is always hard as in go, never soft as in gem.
Ç, Ş, Ö and Ü are the four letters people find most intimidating on a menu, and two of them are sounds English already makes constantly.
Ç is simply ch, as in church — so çay is "chai", which is also roughly what it means. Ş is simply sh — so şeker is "sheker", sugar. Turkish just gives each of those a single letter instead of a two-letter combination, which is arguably the more sensible arrangement.
Ö and Ü are genuinely new if you have never learned German or French, but they are learnable in a minute each. For ü, say ee and then round your lips as if whistling, without moving your tongue. For ö, say e as in bed and round your lips the same way. Both are front vowels wearing rounded lips — that is the whole trick, and it is the same trick twice.
Turkish has no Q, W or X. Nothing is missing as a result — the sounds those letters would carry are written with letters Turkish already has. A w sound is written v; an x sound is written ks; a q sound is written k. Borrowed words are simply respelled to fit, which is why taxi arrives as taksi and television as televizyon.
This respelling habit is a quiet gift to a beginner. A surprising number of international words are sitting in Turkish in phonetic disguise, and once you can read the alphabet you start recognising them on sight: otobüs, bilet, restoran, müzik, ofis, plaj.
Here is the payoff, and it is larger than it sounds. Because Turkish spelling is very close to one letter, one sound, finishing this page means you can read aloud correctly a word you have never seen and do not understand. That is not true of English, where though, through and tough share a spelling pattern and no sound. It is barely true of French. In Turkish it is nearly always true.
Practically, that means street signs, menus, packaging and station announcements become available to you immediately — you will not always know what a word means, but you will know how it sounds, which is exactly what you need to ask someone or look it up. It also means every new word you meet in the app or in a book goes straight into your mouth, correctly, from the first encounter.
Learn the 29 letters, get the two i's straight, and remember ğ lengthens rather than sounds. After that, Turkish spelling never lies to you again.
Read these aloud before checking. All of them are ordinary words, and every one is spelled exactly as it is said.
Answers: (1) chee-CHEK — flower. (2) UH-duhr — a city in eastern Turkey; both vowels are the dull dotless ı, and the ğ stretches the first one. (3) gö-ÜS — chest; the ğ lets the two vowels run together. (4) shee-SHE — bottle. (5) oo-CHAK — aeroplane. If you got the first, fourth and fifth cleanly, the system has already clicked.
The alphabet is step one of a short sequence. Step two is vowel harmony, which explains why endings change shape, and it depends entirely on knowing which vowel is which — so this page has to come first. The pronunciation guide goes further into stress and the sounds English does not have, and the beginner's roadmap sets out the whole order.
Turkish is coming to Gora, where you meet letters inside real words with native audio rather than as a chart to memorise. See what is coming and join the launch list.