A Conversation With Turkish Police at the New Istanbul Airport

Speaking some Turkish to get you where you want to go at the airport or answering the simple questions of police would make you feel a lot safer. But not only that, finding your way and speaking with natives is fun and it will make you feel motivated.

Transcript

Polis: Kimlik ve pasaport, lütfen.
Yolcu: Evet, bir saniye… Hah! İşte buyurun.
Polis: İsminiz?
Yolcu: Elena Yılmaz.
Polis: Nerelisiniz Elena Hanım?
Yolcu: Yunanım. Ama Türkiye’de yaşıyorum.
Polis: Vizeniz var mı?
Yolcu: Evet var, işte.
Polis: Oturma izniniz var mı?
Yolcu: Hayır, yok, ama vizem var. Eşim Türk. Bu yüzden Türkiye’de yaşıyorum.
Polis: Peki, teşekkür ederim. Hoş geldiniz. Buyurun pasaport ve kimliğiniz.
Yolcu: Ben Teşekkür ederim.

Translation

Police: ID and passport, please.
Passenger: Yes, just a second…. Hah! Here you go.
Police: Your name?
Passenger: Elena Yılmaz.
Police: Where are you from, Mrs. Elena?
Passenger: I'm Greek. But I live in Turkey.
Police: Do you have a visa?
Passenger: Yes, there it is.
Police: Do you have a residence permit?
Passenger: No, I don't, but I have a visa. My husband is Turkish. That's why I live in Turkey.
Police: Okay, thank you. Welcome. Here's your passport and ID.
Passenger: I thank You.

Grammar Notes

I want you to pay attention to the vowels in the word ‘isim’. It became ‘isminiz’ when attached a suffix to ‘isim’. This phenomenon is called ‘vowel loss’.

The reason for this phenomenon is that it’s easier to say ‘isminiz’ than ‘isiminiz’ for natives.

In spoken Turkish, you hear ‘buyrun’ instead of ‘buyurun’. However, the correct writing of the word is ‘buyurun’.

Vizem var
I have visa
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As you know, the idea is to attach suffixes. -de/da is the suffix that indicates location.

This pattern is not the same for all the words indicating nations. For example,

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When attaching certain types of suffixes (-A, -DA, -DAn, -I, etc) to the proper nouns, an apostrophe separates the suffix with the word. For some suffixes (-lI, -lIk), you don’t need to use an apostrophe. We’ll be distinguishing these suffixes in the later lessons.

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-

-

Oturma iznim
Vizem
Kimliğim
My …

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-Im gives the meaning of “I am”.

-sIn gives the meaning of “you are”.

This topic and suffixes for each pronoun will be covered in detail in the video Verb ‘to be’.

Vocabulary