Turkish Passive Voice: -il / -in / -n Explained
How the Turkish passive works — the suffix that promotes the object to subject and drops the doer, the three shapes chosen by the stem's last sound (a plain -n after a vowel, the -in family after l, the -il family after any other consonant), the four-way vowel harmony, agents with tarafından, and the impersonal passive of intransitive verbs like girilmez.
Ekle ·
The passive turns what an action is done to into the grammatical subject and drops the doer — 'the door was opened' rather than 'someone opened the door' — with a single suffix on the verb.
How the passive works
Turkish builds the passive with a suffix glued onto the verb stem, not with a helping verb like English 'be'. Where an active sentence names who does something, the passive drops that person and promotes what the action was done to: kapı açıldı is 'the door was opened' and ev satıldı is 'the house was sold'. The verb alone carries the change.
The thing that would be the object of an active sentence becomes the subject of the passive. kapıyı açtı — 'he opened the door', with kapıyı marked as the object — turns into kapı açıldı, 'the door was opened', where kapı now stands as the subject. The doer simply leaves the sentence.
Choosing the ending
Which shape the passive takes is fixed by the last sound of the stem. A stem ending in a vowel, like okumak, adds a single -n: oku- becomes okun-, giving okundu 'it was read' — the wrong okuldu, with an -l after the vowel, is never said, and aramak likewise gives arandı, not araldı. A stem ending in l, like bulmak, adds a vowel and then n so two l sounds never collide: bul- becomes bulun-, giving bulundu. A stem ending in any other consonant, like yazmak, adds a vowel and then l: yaz- becomes yazıl-, giving yazıldı.
| Stem | Passive stem | Past form |
|---|---|---|
| oku- | okun- | okundu |
| bul- | bulun- | bulundu |
| yaz- | yazıl- | yazıldı |
The vowel inside the ending
The two shapes that carry a vowel harmonise four ways with the last vowel of the stem, matching it for front against back and for rounded against unrounded. A back unrounded stem takes -ıl or -ın, a front unrounded one takes -il or -in, a back rounded one takes -ul or -un, and a front rounded one takes -ül or -ün.
| Last vowel | After a consonant | After an l |
|---|---|---|
| a · ı | -ıl | -ın |
| e · i | -il | -in |
| o · u | -ul | -un |
| ö · ü | -ül | -ün |
The plain -n that attaches after a vowel has no vowel of its own, so it stands outside this table: okundu and arandı carry just the -n, and the past-tense vowel follows straight after it.
Six worked forms
Each of these is a full passive in the simple past — read every one as 'it was ...', with no doer in sight.
| Turkish | Parts | English |
|---|---|---|
| açıldı | aç + ıl + dı | it was opened |
| satıldı | sat + ıl + dı | it was sold |
| yazıldı | yaz + ıl + dı | it was written |
| bulundu | bul + un + du | it was found |
| okundu | oku + n + du | it was read |
| arandı | ara + n + dı | it was looked for |
The active and the passive
Setting the two voices side by side shows what the passive removes. An active sentence names the doer and marks the thing acted on with the accusative ending: kapıyı açtı is 'he opened the door', with kapıyı as the object. The passive drops the doer, and that same thing loses its accusative ending and moves into the subject slot: kapı açıldı, 'the door was opened'. The house that sells in ev satıldı behaves the same way — no one is named as the seller.
| Turkish | Parts | English |
|---|---|---|
| açıldı | aç + ıl + dı | was opened — no doer named |
| satıldı | sat + ıl + dı | was sold — no doer named |
Bringing the doer back
When the doer does matter, the passive can still name it, with tarafından 'by' placed before the verb: kapı Ali tarafından açıldı is 'the door was opened by Ali'. Turkish leans on the passive precisely when the doer is unknown or beside the point, so an agent phrase with tarafından is far less frequent than the bare passive and belongs mostly to formal and written style.
| Turkish | Parts | English |
|---|---|---|
| açıldı | aç + ıl + dı | was opened (by Ali) |
The impersonal passive
An intransitive verb has no object to promote, so its passive names no subject at all and means 'one' or 'people in general'. girmek 'to enter' gives girilmez, literally 'it is not entered' — the standard wording for 'no entry' on a sign, often with buraya 'to here', as in buraya girilmez. gitmek 'to go' gives gidilir, as in nasıl gidilir 'how does one get there?'; its t softens to a d before the ending, which is why the stem shows up as gid-. You meet these forms constantly on signs and in directions.
| Turkish | Parts | English |
|---|---|---|
| girilmez | gir + il + mez | no entry / one does not enter |
| gidilir | gid + il + ir | one goes / how does one get there |
Frequently asked questions
- How is the Turkish passive formed?
- By adding a suffix to the verb stem, its shape set by the stem's last sound. After a vowel the stem takes a plain -n, as in okundu 'it was read'. After the consonant l it takes a vowel and then n, as in bulundu 'it was found'. After any other consonant it takes a vowel and then l, as in açıldı 'it was opened', satıldı and yazıldı. The vowel then harmonises with the last vowel of the stem.
- When does the passive use -il and when -in?
- It depends on the consonant the stem ends in. A stem ending in l takes the n-family, so bulmak gives bulundu, which keeps two l sounds from colliding. A stem ending in any other consonant takes the l-family, so yazmak gives yazıldı and açmak gives açıldı. Within each family the vowel harmonises four ways: -ıl, -il, -ul, -ül and -ın, -in, -un, -ün.
- How do you say who did the action in a passive sentence?
- Name the doer with tarafından 'by', placed before the verb: kapı Ali tarafından açıldı is 'the door was opened by Ali'. Turkish uses the passive mostly when the doer is unknown or unimportant, so this agent phrase is far less common than the plain passive and belongs to formal writing.
- What is the impersonal passive, like girilmez?
- It is the passive of a verb that has no object to promote, so it names no subject and means 'one' or 'people in general'. girmek 'to enter' gives girilmez 'no entry / one does not enter', and gitmek 'to go' gives gidilir, as in nasıl gidilir 'how does one get there?'. These forms are everywhere on signs and in directions.