In Turkish, possession is shown by adding a suffix onto the noun. Possissive adjectives before the noun can also be used, but are mostly used for special emphasis. However, it is very important that these are learnt because it can make learning the suffixes easier.
These adjectives are :
Benim - My
Senin - Your (familiar or singular)
Onun - His/her/Its
Bizim - Our
Sizin - Your (formal or plural)
Onların - Their
Suffixes
Following vowel harmony, the suffixes change depending on what the last vowel was. This table shows which suffix should be used for which vowels, for example if the noun is 'el' (hand), the last vowel is an 'e' and therefore 'my hand' would be 'elim'.
The letters in brackets are only used if the last letter is a consonant, apart from 'onun-his/her/its' where the 's/ş' is used if the last letter is a vowel.
Examples
Look at the table and see if you can work out how these suffixes fit with the nouns.
my car - (benim) arabam
your house - (senin) evin
his garden - (onun) bahçesi
our friend - (bizim) arkadaşımız
your mother - (sizin) anneniz
their cat - (onlaryn) kedileri
For some words, adding a suffix starting with a vowel changes the last consonant of a noun. These letters that change are k-ğ, p-b, and ç-c. So, for the word 'köpek' (dog), 'my dog' would become 'benim köpeğim'. For the word 'Dolap' (cubard), 'your cupboard' would become 'senin dolabın'. Click here for more detail on consonant changes.
If the noun is a plural, the possessive suffix always comes after the plural suffix, for example 'my cars' would be 'benim araba-lar-ım'.
To learn how to say 'i have .......' or 'you have....' etc click here
