Turkish cases

The 5 Turkish cases are mainly used to express a possession, location, direction or time. This is similar with the English prepositions (to, at, on, in, from...) which do not exist in Turkish. Noun endings are changed depending on the correct case. Note that this is a difference with Latin languages, where the declension happens in the adjectives, pronouns and articles.

The five Turkish cases

1. The nominative case
2. The accusative case
3. The dative case
4. The locative case
5. The ablative case

Have a question?

Take online language lessons with a professional teacher

1. Native & verified teachers
2. Free trial lesson
3. Learning materials included

Eyyup C.

Hilal D.

Hande B.

Ezgi H.

Huzeyfe A.

Bahar C.

Esra C.

Özlem V.

Pelin C.

Oğuzhan Ç.

Sign up for free

1. The nominative case

Nouns in the nominative case usually act as the subject or the indefinite object and they can be found as an answer to the questions 'kim?' (Who?) and 'ne?' (What?) in the parts of a sentence.

Example

• Çocuk ağlamaya başladı.
• The child started to cry.

2. The accusative case

 The accusative is formed by adding one of the ‘-i, -ı, -u and -ü' suffixes to the end of a noun. The accusative case signs the definite object of a verb and can be found as an answer to the questions ‘kimi?’ (who?) and ‘neyi?’ (what?)

Example

• Köyü ziyaret ettiler.
• They visited the village.

3. The dative case

The dative is formed by adding the '-e' or '-a' suffix to the end of the noun. The word that should be in the dative case can be found as an answer to the questions 'neye?' (to what?), 'kime?' (to whom?) and 'nereye?' (to where?)

Example

• Babama doğum günü için hediye alacağım.
• I will buy a present to my father for his birthday.

4. The locative case

The locative is formed by adding the '-de' or '-da' suffix to the end of the noun. The word that should be in the locative case can be found as an answer to the question ‘nerede?’ (‘Where?’). 

Example

• Arkadaşım evde bekliyor.
• My friend is waiting at home.

5. The ablative case

The ablative is formed by adding '-den' or '-dan' suffix to the end of the noun. The word that should be in the ablative case can be founf as an answer to the questions "nereden? (from where), kimden? (from whom), neden? (from what?) ''

Example

• Yemek tarifini annemden aldım.
• I got the recipe from my mother.

Overview of the declension of a noun

Turkish cases are formed by adding the suffixes to the end of the noun. Except the nominative case, each case has one or more specific suffixes. The following table presents an exhaustive summary of all endings.

 Please take a look at the next lessons to get to know the rule in more depth. You can also find exercises about each case!