The suffix -CA is the closest thing Turkish has to a dedicated adverb-maker, but calling it "the Turkish -ly" badly understates it. It does at least four distinct jobs: it forms manner adverbs ("clearly, childishly"), it softens to "-ish/roughly," it names languages and styles ("in Turkish, in a friendly way"), and it builds the "in my view" set (bence, sence). On top of that, it has an unusual phonological habit: it pulls the stress backwards onto the preceding syllable. This page sorts out all four functions and the spelling.
The four written shapes
-CA is a single suffix that surfaces in four forms because of two regular rules:
- Vowel harmony picks a after back vowels (a, ı, o, u) and e after front vowels (e, i, ö, ü).
- Consonant hardening turns the c into ç after a voiceless consonant (p, ç, t, k, s, ş, h, f).
So the four shapes are -ca / -ce / -ça / -çe.
| Stem ends in… | Last vowel | Suffix | Example |
|---|---|---|---|
| voiced sound, back vowel | a/ı/o/u | -ca | kolay → kolayca (easily) |
| voiced sound, front vowel | e/i/ö/ü | -ce | güzel → güzelce (nicely, thoroughly) |
| voiceless consonant, back vowel | a/ı/o/u | -ça | açık → açıkça (clearly) |
| voiceless consonant, front vowel | e/i/ö/ü | -çe | Türk → Türkçe (Turkish) |
Bu soruyu kolayca çözdüm, hiç zorlanmadım.
I solved this question easily — I didn't struggle at all.
Açıkça söyle, dolambaçlı konuşma.
Say it clearly — don't talk in a roundabout way.
In açık ("open/clear"), the final -k is voiceless, so the suffix hardens to -ça: açıkça. Get this wrong and you write a non-word, so the hardening matters.
Function 1: manner adverbs
The most familiar use turns an adjective into a manner adverb — "in an X way." This overlaps with the bare-adjective strategy but foregrounds the manner more explicitly and often sounds a touch more deliberate or formal.
Çocuğa yavaşça yaklaştı, korkutmak istemedi.
She approached the child slowly — she didn't want to scare him.
Elini güzelce yıka, sonra yemeğe otur.
Wash your hands thoroughly, then sit down to eat.
Çocukça davranıyorsun, artık büyüdün.
You're behaving childishly — you're grown up now.
Notice that güzelce drifts from "nicely" toward "thoroughly/properly," and çocukça ("childishly") carries a faintly critical tone. -CA forms often acquire a settled, idiomatic meaning rather than being purely compositional.
Function 2: '-ish' and approximation
After some adjectives — especially size and quality scalars like büyük ("big"), uzun ("long"), soğuk ("cold") — -CA softens the meaning to "-ish, rather, somewhat," like English "-ish" on "biggish, longish." (For colours, Turkish prefers a different "-ish" suffix, -(I)msI: mavimsi "bluish" — not mavice.)
Büyükçe bir kutu getir, hepsi sığsın.
Bring a biggish box so everything fits.
Hava bugün soğukça, mont alsan iyi olur.
It's a bit cold today — you'd better take a coat.
Here -CA dials the adjective down rather than turning it into a manner adverb. Context tells you which reading is intended.
Function 3: languages and "in the manner of"
-CA is the regular way to name a language and to say "in (a language)." This is one of the first -CA words every learner meets, usually without realising it is -CA.
Türkçe biliyor musun? Biraz konuşalım.
Do you know Turkish? Let's talk a bit.
Bu kitabı İngilizce mi yoksa Almanca mı okudun?
Did you read this book in English or in German?
Türk → Türkçe, İngiliz → İngilizce, Alman → Almanca: the language name is the noun plus -CA. The same suffix also means "in the manner/style of a group," giving warm or characterising adverbs.
Dostça davrandı, bize çok yardım etti.
He behaved in a friendly way — he helped us a lot.
Kahramanca savaştılar, kimse geri çekilmedi.
They fought heroically — no one retreated.
dost ("friend") → dostça ("in a friendly way"), kahraman ("hero") → kahramanca ("heroically"). The "-like / -ly in the manner of" sense is alive and productive.
Function 4: the 'in my opinion' set
This is the use English speakers most often fail to recognise as -CA at all. Attach -CA to a personal pronoun and you get "according to me / in my view."
| Pronoun | -CA form | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| ben (I) | bence | in my opinion |
| sen (you) | sence | in your opinion |
| biz (we) | bizce | in our view |
| siz (you, pl./formal) | sizce | in your view |
| o (he/she/it) | onca / ona göre | (onca means 'that much'; for opinion use ona göre) |
Bence bu film fazla uzun, yarısında sıkıldım.
In my opinion this film is too long — I got bored halfway through.
Sence kim haklı, sen ne düşünüyorsun?
In your opinion who's right — what do you think?
Bizce en iyi çözüm bu, başka yolu yok.
In our view this is the best solution — there's no other way.
Note one wrinkle: the third person breaks the pattern. o + -CA does not give an opinion word — onca has drifted to mean "that much / all that" — so for "in his/her opinion" Turkish uses the postpositional phrase ona göre ("according to him/her") instead. Treat bence / sence / bizce / sizce as a fixed, must-know set, with ona göre filling the third-person gap.
Stress: -CA pulls the accent back
Turkish words are normally stressed on the final syllable. -CA is one of a small group of pre-stressing suffixes: instead of taking the stress itself, it throws the stress onto the syllable immediately before it.
| Word | Stressed syllable |
|---|---|
| açıkça | a-ÇIK-ça (not açık-ÇA) |
| bence | BEN-ce |
| kolayca | ko-LAY-ca |
| dostça | DOST-ça |
Bunu bilerek değil, bilmeden yaptım — açıkça söylüyorum.
I did this not deliberately but unknowingly — I'm saying it clearly.
If you stress the suffix itself, you'll sound off even when every letter is correct. The pre-stressing behaviour is shared with a few other suffixes (such as the question particle and certain converbs) and is covered with the other stress oddities on the stress-exceptions page.
Common mistakes
❌ Açıkca söyle.
Incorrect — after voiceless 'k', the suffix must harden to 'ç'.
✅ Açıkça söyle.
Say it clearly.
The stem açık ends in voiceless k, so the suffix is -ça, not -ca.
❌ Benim fikrime göre bu film çok uzun.
Not wrong, but wordy — the natural single word for 'in my opinion' is 'bence'.
✅ Bence bu film çok uzun.
In my opinion this film is too long.
"In my opinion" is the single word bence (and sence, bizce, sizce) — many learners never connect these to -CA and reach for clumsy paraphrases instead.
❌ Bu kitabı Türkçede okudum.
Incorrect for 'in Turkish' — 'Türkçede' is the locative ('in the Turkish language [as a subject]'), not the adverbial.
✅ Bu kitabı Türkçe okudum.
I read this book in Turkish.
To say you did something in a language, use the bare -CA form Türkçe, not the locative Türkçede.
❌ Çocukca davranma.
Incorrect — 'çocuk' ends in voiceless 'k', so hardening gives 'ç'.
✅ Çocukça davranma.
Don't behave childishly.
Again the hardening: çocuk → çocukça, not çocukca.
❌ Bunu güzelce yıka.
Right words, wrong stress if you stress the final syllable (güzel-CE) — -CA is pre-stressing.
✅ Bunu güzelce yıka.
Wash this thoroughly — with the stress on gü-ZEL-ce, the syllable before -CA.
Stress the syllable before the suffix, never the suffix itself.
Key takeaways
- -CA is a multifunctional suffix with four written shapes — -ca / -ce / -ça / -çe — chosen by vowel harmony (a/e) and consonant hardening (c→ç after voiceless).
- Its four jobs: manner adverbs (açıkça, yavaşça, güzelce, çocukça), '-ish'/approximation (mavice, soğukça), languages and "in the manner of" (Türkçe, dostça, kahramanca), and the opinion set (bence, sence, bizce, sizce).
- The opinion words bence / sence / bizce / sizce are -CA forms — recognise them as such.
- -CA is pre-stressing: the accent lands on the syllable just before it (a-ÇIK-ça, BEN-ce, gü-ZEL-ce), against the usual final-syllable rule.
- Hardening is a real spelling rule, not decoration: write açıkça and çocukça, never açıkca or çocukca.
Now practice Turkish
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Start learning Turkish→Related Topics
- Manner AdverbsA2 — How Turkish expresses 'how' an action is done — bare adjectives, reduplicated pairs like yavaş yavaş, and -(y)ArAk converbs.
- Adverbs and AdverbialsA2 — How Turkish builds adverbs and adverbials — bare adjectives, the -CA suffix, case-marked nouns, and converbs — with no productive '-ly' ending.
- Stress Exceptions and Pre-Stressing SuffixesB1 — Why Turkish stress sometimes lands off the final syllable — the place names, loanwords, pre-stressing suffixes, and unstressed enclitics that all follow one underlying logic.
- Adjectives Used as NounsB1 — Because Turkish adjectives and nouns share the same suffix slots, any adjective can stand in for the noun it modifies — güzel 'pretty' becomes güzeli 'the pretty one', and yaşlılar means 'the elderly'.