Future Tense: Gelecek zaman -acak -ecek

When looking at the future tense of verbs in Turkish, the English will equivalent suffix is -AcAk where A is either a or e consistently.

-AcAk, where A → a | e, => -acak or -ecek

The difference in future tense between English and Turkish is

• Will comes before the verb in English, while in Turkish -acak or -ecek comes after the verba added as a suffix to the root verb. For example,

….will come…. → ….gelecek.

….will do…. → …..yapacak.

….will travel… → ….gezecek.

….will achieve… → ….başaracak.

📌 One thing to keep in mind 🧠 is when the last letter of the root verb is a vowel, as in the verb uyumak(to sleep), the root is uyu + acak, we have a condition of two vowels coming next to each other u and a. To accomodate this ‘y’ comes in between as a mediator making ….will sleep… → uyuyacak.

More examples,

….will call… → ….arayacak.

….will invite… → ….davet edecek.

….will watch… → ….izleyecek.

….will try… → ….deneyecek.

….will renew… → ….yenileyecek.

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There are two verbs that are exception.

- demek(to say)

- yemek(to eat)

In these two cases the future tense of the verbs e of the root is dropped and replaced by i.

When i becomes the last letter of the root, we have a situation where i + ecek, resulting in ie two vowels coming consecutively. We add separator y in between them.

Vowels coming next to each other in Turkish is kind of like the same pole of magnets facing each other. They push each other.

…will say…. → diyecek

….will eat…. → yiyecek

💡 Fun fact:

Even the very word "future" in Turkish origins from the verb gelmek(to come). The future being what will come. -Gelecek.

It is a case of nouns derived from verb roots by adding a suffix, we will learn about it in the future :) .

Thanks for reading!

Written by

Abbas Abdelila

@abbasabdelila