Learning Turkish for Your Partner and Their Family

If you're learning Turkish for a partner and their family, start with the Turkish of family life: greetings, the polite siz form for parents and older relatives, a word for each family member, holiday wishes and the handful of questions every phone call opens with. It's a small set, and it lets you join in long before your grammar is solid. Three months of steady work gets you through a visit or a short call with relatives who slow down for you. Following a fast conversation at a crowded dinner table takes much longer.

What to learn first

Spend the first weeks on what you'll say at the door, at the table and when you get lost. Most of these are fixed expressions, so you can use them correctly before you could ever build them yourself.

Ask your partner which of these their family actually uses. A phrase you heard from your mother-in-law will stick better than one from a list.

Siz or sen with your in-laws

Use siz with your partner's parents and anyone of their generation until they tell you otherwise. Sen is the singular, familiar "you"; siz is the plural and also the polite form for one person. The question comes up again and again on Turkish learner forums, and native speakers there mostly agree that siz is never wrong with an in-law. Plenty of people keep it for life.

The address is often uneven. Older relatives will usually call you sen, and often kızım (my daughter) or oğlum (my son), while you keep siz. You don't have to match it. If they want you to switch, they'll say so.

With siblings and cousins around your age, sen is normal from the start. An older sister-in-law is often abla with sen. On a group call, siz also works as the plural, so it's correct either way.

Family words: anne, kayınvalide, abla, yenge and the rest

Turkish has a separate word for nearly every in-law, and some depend on who is speaking: a görümce is a husband's sister, from the wife's point of view only. The definitions below follow the Turkish Language Association's dictionary (TDK Güncel Türkçe Sözlük).

You'll talk about your kayınvalide and talk to her as anne, or by whatever she asks for. Other older relatives get their first name followed by a title: Ayşe Teyze, Hasan Amca, Elif Abla. A first name on its own usually sounds rude from a younger person. If you've married in, your partner's nieces and nephews will probably call you yenge or enişte.

Draw your partner's family tree and write each person's name with the word you'll use for them. A dozen words go in much faster when each one has a face.

Bayram and family visits

The two big family holidays are Ramazan Bayramı, also called Şeker Bayramı, and Kurban Bayramı. Both follow the lunar calendar, as TDK notes, so their dates move earlier each year. Families visit their oldest relatives first, often on the first morning, and younger people greet them with el öpmek, which TDK defines as touching the back of an elder's right hand to your lips and then to your forehead.

Save el öpmek for people clearly older than you. Daily Sabah's guide to bayram etiquette warns that offering it to someone only slightly older can cause offence.

• You: İyi bayramlar, anne! Elinizi öpeyim.
• Mother-in-law: Sağ ol kızım, senin de bayramın kutlu olsun. Hoş geldiniz!
• You: Hoş bulduk.
• Father-in-law: Gel, otur bakalım. Çay mı içersin, kahve mi?
• You: Çay lütfen, sağ olun.

The parents use sen with you, and you answer with siz. A son-in-law would hear oğlum instead of kızım.

Phone calls with relatives

Calls are harder than visits. You lose faces and gestures, the sound drops, and three people may talk at once. On the other hand, they follow a pattern. Most family calls open with hal hatır sormak, asking after everyone's health, and close with greetings to people who aren't there. Learn the opening and the closing by heart and the middle gets easier to follow.

You'll also hear Yemek yediniz mi? (Have you eaten?), Annenler nasıl? (How are your folks?), Ne zaman geliyorsunuz? (When are you coming?) and, from elders, Allah'a emanet ol (Go with God).

• Mother-in-law: Alo, kızım, nasılsın?
• You: İyiyim anne, sağ olun. Siz nasılsınız?
• Mother-in-law: İyiyiz, çok şükür. Emre nerede?
• You: Hâlâ işte, akşam gelecek.
• Mother-in-law: Yemek yediniz mi?
• You: Daha yemedik, şimdi hazırlıyorum.
• Mother-in-law: Tamam, Emre'ye selam söyle. Allah'a emanet ol.
• You: Söylerim. Siz de herkese selam söyleyin. Ellerinizden öperim.

Practise it with your partner playing the parent, and ask them to change one line each time so you have to listen.

A realistic 3-month plan

Three months won't make you fluent. The US Foreign Service Institute puts Turkish in Category III and estimates about 44 weeks, or 1,012 class hours, for an English speaker to reach professional working proficiency (FSI, Foreign Language Training). Three months can get you close to CEFR A1, which the Council of Europe's global scale describes as simple interaction when the other person speaks slowly and is ready to help. Relatives who want to talk to you usually are.

The plan assumes about 30 minutes a day plus one or two lessons a week.

Month 1: sounds and survival

Learn the alphabet and how vowel harmony works, so suffixes stop looking random. Say the first two tables above aloud every day and make the family-tree sheet. Add the present continuous (-iyor) for Ne yapıyorsunuz? (What are you doing?) and short answers to it.

Month 2: you and your day

Add the past tense (-di), yes/no questions with mı, numbers, days and food, then the bayram phrases. Once a week, make a short scripted call or send a voice message to a relative, with your partner next to you but not translating.

Month 3: real speed

Add the future (-ecek) and polite requests with -abilir misiniz? Prepare a two-minute story about yourself, your job and how you met your partner, because someone will ask. Take one call on your own and hand the phone over only when you have to.

Your partner makes a good practice partner and the best guide to their own family. Leave grammar explanations to a teacher unless your partner enjoys them. Learners on Turkish forums report the same thing repeatedly: native speakers rarely know why a suffix works the way it does, and lessons between partners can get tense. A fixed Turkish hour at home works better.

For a longer timeline, see how long it takes to learn Turkish. If you have children, Turkish for bilingual children covers keeping their Turkish strong. If you're moving to Türkiye together, Turkish for living in Turkey covers the landlord, the bank and the neighbours.

Frequently asked questions

Should I call my mother-in-law anne?

Many Turkish people do after marriage, and some mothers-in-law ask for it. Others are happy with their first name plus Hanım or Teyze. Ask your partner what their family expects, or ask her with Size nasıl hitap edeyim?

Is it rude to use sen with my partner's parents?

It can sound too familiar, especially early on. Start with siz and wait for them to suggest sen. If they never do, that's normal too.

Can I learn enough Turkish in three months to talk to my in-laws?

Enough for greetings, a visit, bayram wishes and a short call with people who slow down for you. A fast group conversation at the table takes far longer.

Should my partner teach me Turkish?

Practise with your partner every day, and get grammar explanations and a structured plan from a teacher. Keeping the two apart stops language practice from turning into an argument.

Ceylan, our teacher, is a native Turkish speaker with an MA in Teaching Turkish and eight years of teaching. She teaches every level from A1 to C2, one-to-one or in groups, online, and explains in Turkish or English. Take the free level test to see where you are, then request a free trial lesson and tell us which family situations you want to practise first, from the first visit to the Sunday phone call. We answer every request within 24 hours.