This, That, Here and There in Turkish

This and That

Want to learn how to say "this" and "that" in Turkish?

In Turkish, we use 'bu' for 'this'. We also interchangeably use şu for ‘this’ as well. “This” in Turkish depends on how close or far you are from what you're describing.

Imagine you are at the beach and want to describe what you see. If you want to talk about the sand "This is sand" would be "bu kümdür".

When talking about something farther like the water nearby, you would use 'şu', as in “şu denizdir” (this is a sea). If you are referring to something far like the sun, it would be appropriate to use ‘o’, so "that is the sun" would be “o güneştir”.

Here and There

Turkish is a logical language with few surprises and predictable structure unlike English. We'll build on what we've learned so far to learn about 'here' and 'there'.

Everything connects in Turkish. It is pretty much like building with LEGO bricks. We have seen that 'this' is "bu" or "şu" and 'that' is "o".Now to spice things up adding the suffix "rada" changes this to here and that to there.

When adding rada to this(bu) it becomes here (burada) or this(şu) becomes (şurada), by the same token there becomes there → orada (i.e that(o) + rada).

So if someone asks where they should sit, you can say either burada(here), şurada(here(near)) or orada(there(far)).

Burada vs Burası

What is the difference?

Burada → is used to describe a location point. Burası → refers to specific area or vicinity.

💡 If burada is a point, burası is an area.

I hope that has clarified things. See you in the next post!

Written by

Abbas Abdelila

@abbasabdelila