Adjectives & Degree of Comparison (daha, en) in Turkish
Adjectives and Comparisons (daha, en)
Turkish adjectives precede nouns without inflecting for gender/case; comparisons use ablative + daha (bigger than), and superlative uses en.
In Turkish, adjectives (sıfatlar) strictly precede the noun they modify and never inflect for gender, number, or case (güzel ev, güzel evler, güzel evde). When an indefinite article bir is used, it typically sits between the descriptive adjective and the noun: büyük bir şehir (a big city).
Degrees of comparison are formed analytically: 1. Comparative Degree: Formed by placing the comparative adverb daha (more) before the adjective, while the object of comparison takes the ablative case (-den / -dan): Ahmet Mehmet'ten daha hızlıdır (Ahmet is faster than Mehmet). In colloquial speech, daha is sometimes omitted if the ablative comparison is clear (Ahmet Mehmet'ten hızlı). 2. Superlative Degree: Formed by placing en (most) before the adjective: en büyük şehir (the biggest city), dünyanın en güzel yeri (the most beautiful place in the world). 3. Intensification (Emphatic Reduplication): Turkish creates vivid emphatic adjectives by taking the first consonant and vowel of an adjective and closing it with m, p, r, s: kırmızı → kıpkırmızı (bright red), temiz → tertemiz (spotlessly clean), mavi → masmavi (deep blue).
Learners coming from European languages often mistakenly place bir before the adjective (bir büyük şehir instead of the natural büyük bir şehir).
Examples
İstanbul, Türkiye'nin en kalabalık ve en büyük şehridir.
Istanbul is Turkey's most crowded and largest city.
Bu yeni bilgisayar eskisinden çok daha hızlı çalışıyor.
This new computer works much faster than the old one.
Sabah erkenden tertemiz sokaklarda keyifle yürüdük.
Early in the morning, we walked with pleasure on the spotlessly clean streets.
Bize çok ilginç ve faydalı bir kitap önerdi.
He recommended a very interesting and useful book to us.
Related terms
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