Lesson 9 — On, under, opposite: where things are

1Where exactly? Words for place

Back in Lesson 2, Deniz hunted for his key: masada? cepte? çantada? One ending, -da, and the whole search came down to “on” and “in”. But what if the key’s fallen under the table? Or it’s behind the door? Today you get the full set: on, under, in front of, behind, next to, between, opposite. And the good news comes first: in Turkish these aren’t prepositions at all. They’re ordinary nouns — “top”, “bottom”, “front”, “back”. And gluing nouns together is exactly what you learned last lesson.

You’ve met one of them already: Lesson 6’s üst kat, Sevim teyze’s floor — “the top floor”. Look at the pictures and listen to each word together with its second form. What that second form is doing, the next section explains.

Two more: right and left. You know sağ from Sağ ol, where it means “alive, healthy”. It’s the very same word — it just has two meanings. And karşı from Lesson 5, “the other shore”, “opposite”, gets put to full use today.

2Masanın altında: how it sticks together

Remember the first kind of izafet — Ayşe’nin arabası, “Ayşe’s car”? It’s the same thing here. Masanın altı is literally “the table’s bottom”. Now add Lesson 2’s -da, “where?”. After the “its” ending, though, an n slips in first — Lesson 7’s rule. So it’s not altıda but altında.

By the way, alt + ı gives altı — yes, the same as “six”. Masanın altı is not six tables. Nobody ever mixes them up: next to a table it’s the underneath, next to a count it’s six.

Spot iki evin, not evlerin? After a number the noun stays singular — Lesson 3’s rule holds here too.

So why içinde, when there’s -da? Çantada is “in the bag”, and usually that’s plenty. Çantanın içinde is “inside the bag” — for when inside is the point, say, because you’ve already turned everything around it upside down.

In Lesson 5, place came with three cases: where, where to, and where from. They work the same way here — only the last ending changes.

English juggles “under”, “under” again and “out from under”; Turkish just swaps the very last ending. And bakmak, as you’ll remember, always wants -a.

When whose doesn’t matter, or is obvious, the word takes the case straight on, no owner: önde, arkada, ortada, sağda, solda — “at the front”, “at the back”, “in the middle”, “on the right”, “on the left”.

One last thing: now and then you’ll hear üzerinde instead of üstünde. Same meaning — use whichever you like.

3Yanımda: next to me

These words do most of their work with people: next to me, opposite you, behind him. Same build — benim, senin, onun where masanın was — and the possessive endings are the ones from Lesson 7. And just like there, you can drop benim and senin: the ending already says “my”.

Recognise the ambiguity from Lesson 7? Yanında is both “next to you” and “next to him”, exactly like evinde. When it matters which, say senin yanında or onun yanında.

Yanımda has an everyday meaning too — “on me”, “with me”. And karşı and arka work with people just like yan:

And with -a it becomes “to someone”. Anneannemin yanına gidiyorum — “I’m going to my grandma’s”, literally “to my grandma’s side”. It’s just what you say when you’re off to see someone.

And now your reward for this section: a rhyme every Turkish child knows. In saklambaç — Turkish hide-and-seek — whoever is “it”, the ebe, counts against a wall with their eyes shut. And before opening them and setting off to search, they say this:

It’s there to catch the clever ones who hide right behind the seeker: everything around them is declared “caught” in advance. Four words from this lesson with the “my” ending — that’s the whole rhyme. Say it out loud and point as you go: front, back, right, left.

4North, south, east, west

The compass points attach in exactly the same way. Ankara’nın batısında is “west of Ankara” — literally “in Ankara’s west”. Nothing new, just four more words.

Two of them come with a lovely story. Doğu is from doğmak, “to be born, to rise”: the east is where the sun is born — the same root as doğum günü. And batı is from batmak, “to sink, to set”: it’s where the sun goes down.

The in-between ones are written as one word: kuzeydoğu, güneybatı. The ending looks at the last piece, so it’s kuzeydoğusunda — just like doğusunda.

You know Rize, by the way: it’s where Lesson 3’s tea grows. And the sketch below shows what’s where. Not a map — just the compass directions.

5Which way? Asking for directions

Everything so far comes together in the most useful conversation you’ll have on the street. The way, the road — yol. It’s the root of Lesson 7’s yolculuk and Lesson 5’s İyi yolculuklar. Asking is easy: Lesson 6’s Affedersiniz, the place, and nerede?

The answer will very often come in the present tense — “you go straight on, you turn right” — the way you’d talk someone through a plan. That’s simply how people give directions in Turkish. The imperative, “go!”, “turn!”, is next lesson; for now, -yor is all you need.

And an old friend with a new meaning: dönmek. In Lesson 6 the plate boş dönmüyor — it “doesn’t go back empty” to Sevim teyze. Out on the street, dönmek means “to turn”.

Say each line out loud, have a go at understanding it — and only then open the translation.

Sokağın sonunda — recognise it? Son from Lesson 3, “last”, plus the same old izafet: “at the end of the street”. And in ilk sokaktan, -dan means “by way of”: you turn off by the first street. Ilk is from Lesson 3 as well.

7Dialogue: right or left?

Saturday, a street round the corner from home. Ayşe and Can are heading back when a woman with a big bag stops them. They both know the way perfectly — just not the same way.

8Reading

Last lesson, little Efe decided Deniz wasn’t his “uncle” but his “big brother”. And big brothers get asked to play. Today Efe is at his grandma’s again, one floor up; Deniz is downstairs; and another grandma is on her way from İzmir.

9The lesson’s new words

Everything new from today, in the order it turned up. Karşı isn’t here — it’s been yours since Lesson 5. Sağ is, though: “alive” you knew, but “right” is new.

10Say it yourself

No options here — you build the answer. Read the cue, say it in Turkish out loud, and only then check. Got it wrong? Great — the miss is what sticks. Peeking first doesn’t help: that trains recognising, not speaking.

11Check yourself

Six items: what’s where, how “under the table” sticks together, and which way to turn. A miss still shows you the right answer, so there’s no shame in guessing.

12Homework

Place words are best learned with your hands: point, touch, stack things on top of each other. Everything below is out loud. If altında and arkasında keep swapping places at first, don’t worry — it happens to everyone.