Present Continuous Tense (-iyor) in Turkish

The Present Continuous Tense (Şimdiki Zaman) uses the suffix -(I)yor. It is the most common present tense in spoken Turkish, expressing actions happening right now at the moment of speech as well as scheduled near-future events.

Formation rules: 1. Consonant stems: Take the 4-way harmonic vowel -ı / -i / -u / -ü before -yor: gel-mek → gel-i-yor, bak-mak → bak-ı-yor, koş-mak → koş-u-yor, gül-mek → gül-ü-yor. Notice that -yor itself never changes its vowel o. 2. Vowel stems ending in a/e: When a verb root ends in a or e, the broad vowel drops/narrows into a high vowel: başla-mak → başl-ı-yor, bekle-mek → bekl-i-yor, söyle-mek → söyl-ü-yor, anla-mak → anl-ı-yor. Stems in t undergo softening: et-mek → ed-i-yor, git-mek → gid-i-yor. 3. Personal Endings: Type 1 personal suffixes attach to -yor: gel-iyor-um (I am coming), gel-iyor-sun (you are coming), gel-iyor (he is coming), gel-iyor-uz (we are coming), gel-iyor-sunuz (you are coming), gel-iyor-lar (they are coming). 4. Negation: The negative suffix -me/-ma reduces to -mI-: gel-mi-yor (he is not coming), bak-mı-yor (he is not looking).

Learners frequently forget to narrow root-final a/e (e.g., mistakenly saying bekleyor instead of bekliyor).