Turkish shows possession with a suffix on the thing owned: ev ("house") becomes evim ("my house"), evin ("your house"), evi ("his/her house"). The ending changes by person and obeys vowel harmony, while a possessor pronoun such as benim or senin is usually optional. Learn the six endings first; add the pronoun for emphasis or contrast.
Published 7 October 2026
In English, "my house" needs two separate words. Turkish can do the core job with an ending on the noun: ev is "house", and evim is "my house". The optional pronoun benim can add emphasis or contrast, but the -im on the end already identifies a first-person possessor. Once you know the six endings, you can mark possession on almost any noun you meet.
Turkish is an agglutinating language, which means it builds words by stacking meaningful endings onto a stem in a fixed order. The possessive ending is one of those pieces. Everything below is that one ending, shown person by person.
Here is the whole set, on a noun that ends in a consonant (ev, house) and one that ends in a vowel (araba, car). The parts in brackets, like (i) and (s), only appear in some cases — the next two sections explain exactly when.
| Person | Ending | ev → house | araba → car | English |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| I | -(i)m | evim | arabam | my … |
| you | -(i)n | evin | araban | your … |
| he / she / it | -(s)i | evi | arabası | his / her / its … |
| we | -(i)miz | evimiz | arabamız | our … |
| you (plural / polite) | -(i)niz | eviniz | arabanız | your … |
| they | -leri | evleri | arabaları | their … |
In these two examples the stem stays recognisable while the ending marks the possessor. Do not turn that into a rule that every written stem stays identical: before a vowel-initial ending, some final consonants soften, as the kitap → kitabım section below shows. The useful starting point is that Turkish marks possession on the end of the noun; a separate possessor pronoun is often unnecessary.
The i written in those endings is not always i. It follows vowel harmony — the rule that makes an ending echo the last vowel of the word. For the possessive endings this is the fourfold kind, so the vowel lands on one of four values: i, ı, u or ü. Here is "my" (-(i)m) across all four:
| Last vowel of the noun | Vowel in the ending | Example | English |
|---|---|---|---|
| e, i | i | ev → evim | my house |
| a, ı | ı | kız → kızım | my daughter |
| o, u | u | okul → okulum | my school |
| ö, ü | ü | göz → gözüm | my eye |
The same four-way choice runs through all the endings. Once vowel harmony is automatic for you, you are not really memorising six endings plus their variants — you are memorising six shapes and letting harmony pick the vowel.
Look back at the araba ("car") column. When a noun already ends in a vowel, Turkish avoids jamming two vowels together:
That third-person -s- is the one to watch, because it appears only after a vowel. After a consonant there is no -s- at all: ev gives evi, never "evsi".
One more sound change is worth knowing early, because it surprises learners. When a noun ends in p, ç, t or k and you add an ending that begins with a vowel, that final consonant often softens to b, c, d or ğ. This is called consonant softening.
| Noun | Softens to | With "my" | English |
|---|---|---|---|
| kitap (book) | kitab- | kitabım | my book |
| köpek (dog) | köpeğ- | köpeğim | my dog |
| ağaç (tree) | ağac- | ağacım | my tree |
It is not a universal rule, though. Many short, common words keep the hard sound: top (ball) → topum (my ball), at (horse) → atım (my horse). When you are not sure which way a word goes, a dictionary settles it — the TDK Güncel Türkçe Sözlük lists the softened form. And note the softening needs a vowel to trigger it: before "their" (-leri), which starts with a consonant, köpek stays hard — köpekleri.
You may have seen benim evim for "my house", with benim in front. That word is the possessor pronoun in the genitive case — the case that marks an owner. The important thing for a beginner is that it is usually optional: the suffix already says whose it is. Evim nerede? on its own is a complete "Where is my house?".
Each pronoun has a matching ending, and the two are a pair — if you do use the pronoun, its ending has to agree:
| Owner (genitive) | Matching ending | Together | English |
|---|---|---|---|
| benim | -(i)m | (benim) evim | my house |
| senin | -(i)n | (senin) evin | your house |
| onun | -(s)i | (onun) evi | his / her house |
| bizim | -(i)miz | (bizim) evimiz | our house |
| sizin | -(i)niz | (sizin) eviniz | your house |
| onların | -leri | (onların) evleri | their house |
So when do you keep the pronoun? For emphasis or contrast — when whose it is actually matters: Benim evim burada, senin evin orada. ("My house is here, your house is there.") Drop it the rest of the time and let the ending carry the meaning.
To say that one noun owns another — not "my" or "your" but "Ahmet's" — Turkish uses both halves of the pattern at once. The owner takes the genitive ending -(n)in, and the thing owned takes the third-person possessive you already know:
Ahmet'in evi — Ahmet's house (Ahmet + genitive -in, ev + -i)
öğretmenin arabası — the teacher's car (öğretmen + -in, araba + -sı)
Both words get an ending: the owner is marked as the owner, and the thing owned is marked as "his/her/its". This two-part construction is extremely common, and the genitive half is covered more fully in the guide to the Turkish cases.
The third-person forms carry a little ambiguity that is worth meeting now rather than being tripped up by later. Evi is "his/her/its house". Evleri can mean "their house", "their houses" or even "his/her houses" — the -ler- could be the plural of the house or the "their" of the owner. Context almost always makes it clear, and if you want to be unmistakable about "their house", you can add the owner word: onların evi.
Add the possessive ending for the person shown. Mind vowel harmony, the buffer -s- after a vowel, and softening. Answers below.
Answers: (1) kitabım — the ending "my" begins with a vowel, so the p softens to b; last vowel a gives -ım. (2) annesi — anne ends in a vowel, so the third person adds the buffer -s-; front vowel gives -si. (3) arabamız — vowel-final stem takes plain -mız ("our"), harmonised to the back vowel. (4) gözün — "your" is -(i)n; the rounded front vowel ö makes it -ün. (5) köpekleri — "their" is -leri, which starts with a consonant, so the k stays hard.
Six endings, one job: evim, evin, evi, evimiz, eviniz, evleri — my, your, his/her, our, your, their. They harmonise with the stem, add a buffer -s- in the third person after a vowel, and often soften a final p, ç, t or k. A possessor pronoun such as benim or senin is usually optional; the suffix already carries the person.
Possessive endings are one of the first things that make Turkish feel like it clicks, because they turn a pile of nouns into things that belong to someone. They lean on vowel harmony and stack in the fixed order described in how Turkish builds words; the genitive half of Ahmet'in evi belongs to the cases. If you are just starting out, begin with the beginner's roadmap.
Turkish is coming to Gora, where endings like these are taught through real phrases — "my house", "your car", "Ahmet's dog" — rather than as tables to memorise. See what is coming and join the launch list.