Turkish postpositions are the words that come after their noun — senin için "for you," okula doğru "toward the school," yemekten sonra "after the meal." Their grammar is easy except for one thing: each postposition demands a particular case on the noun in front of it, and there is no way to derive that case from the meaning. için "for" wants a bare noun; göre "according to" wants the dative; sonra "after" wants the ablative. Get the case wrong and the phrase is broken, even if every word is correct. The single most useful move a learner can make is to stop guessing and instead memorize each postposition by the case it governs. This page is that map. For the postpositions themselves, see the postpositions overview.
The whole system in one table
There are really only three groups. Learn which group a postposition belongs to, and the case follows automatically.
| Case on the noun | Postpositions | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Bare (no suffix)* | için, ile, gibi, kadar | onun için "for him" |
| Dative (-(y)A) | göre, doğru, rağmen, karşı, dair, kadar "up to" | bana göre "according to me" |
| Ablative (-DAn) | önce, sonra, beri, dolayı, ötürü, başka, itibaren | yemekten sonra "after the meal" |
*The "bare" group is bare with ordinary nouns, but takes the genitive with personal/demonstrative pronouns — the one wrinkle, covered below.
Group 1: bare complement — için, ile, gibi, kadar
The largest and most everyday group takes the noun with no suffix at all. için "for / in order to," ile "with," gibi "like," and kadar "as much as / as ... as" simply follow the plain noun.
Bu hediyeyi annem için aldım.
I bought this present for my mother.
Bir aslan gibi cesur.
Brave like a lion.
Çay kahve kadar güçlü değil.
Tea isn't as strong as coffee.
Notice annem, aslan, kahve all stand bare — no case suffix before the postposition. This is why English speakers, expecting "for to my mother" or some marker, sometimes over-suffix here. With ordinary nouns, leave them plain.
The pronoun exception: bare-group postpositions take the genitive
Here is the wrinkle that the whole group hinges on. When the complement is a personal or demonstrative pronoun, the bare group switches to the genitive — the "my / your / his" form. So "for me" is benim için (from benim "my"), never ben için. "Like you" is senin gibi, "with us" is bizimle / bizim ile.
| Pronoun | Genitive |
|
|
|
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ben | benim | benim için | benim gibi | benim kadar |
| sen | senin | senin için | senin gibi | senin kadar |
| o | onun | onun için | onun gibi | onun kadar |
| biz | bizim | bizim için | bizim gibi | bizim kadar |
| onlar | onların | onlar için* | onlar gibi* | onlar kadar* |
*onlar "they" usually stays on its bare plural form here — onlar gibi — rather than the genitive onların.
Senin için her şeyi yaparım.
I'd do anything for you.
O da benim kadar yorgun.
He's just as tired as I am.
Group 2: dative complement — göre, rağmen, doğru, karşı
A handful of postpositions demand the dative -(y)A on the noun. The most important are göre "according to / for," rağmen "despite," doğru "toward," and karşı "against / toward." Think of them as pointing to something — the dative's core sense of direction.
Bana göre bu film fazla uzun.
In my opinion (according to me), this film is too long.
Yağmura rağmen yürüyüşe çıktık.
Despite the rain, we went out for a walk.
Tren istasyonuna doğru yürüdük.
We walked toward the train station.
In bana göre, the pronoun ben takes the dative bana — not the genitive. This is exactly why grouping by case matters: benim için but bana göre. Same pronoun, opposite suffix, because the postpositions belong to different groups. rağmen is the workhorse for "despite"; for its discourse uses see concession with rağmen.
Bütün uyarılara rağmen aynı hatayı yaptı.
Despite all the warnings, he made the same mistake.
Group 3: ablative complement — önce, sonra, beri, dolayı, başka
The third group demands the ablative -DAn "from." The temporal pair önce "before" and sonra "after" are the most common, joined by beri "since," dolayı / ötürü "because of," başka "other than / apart from," and itibaren "as of." The ablative's sense of a starting point "from" carries over naturally to "before / after / since."
Yemekten sonra biraz yürüyelim.
Let's take a short walk after the meal.
Toplantıdan önce kahve içtik.
We had coffee before the meeting.
Senden başka kimseye güvenmiyorum.
I don't trust anyone other than you.
Note yemekten, toplantıdan, senden all carry the ablative -DAn. Crucially, with pronouns this group also takes the ablative, not the genitive: "other than you" is senden başka, not senin başka. So we now have three different forms of sen depending on the group: senin için (bare/genitive), sana göre (dative), senden sonra (ablative). For the time uses specifically, see önce and sonra.
Üç günden beri ondan haber alamadım.
I haven't heard from him in three days.
Why there's no shortcut — and how to cope
Be honest with yourself: the governed case is arbitrary with respect to meaning. "Before" (önce) takes the ablative but "according to" (göre) takes the dative, and no semantic rule predicts this — it is a fact of each word's history that you simply learn. The good news is the inventory is small. You can fit the entire functional set on one mental shelf with three slots, and a postposition only ever lives on one shelf. So instead of asking "what case does sonra take?" mid-sentence, you front-load the work: memorize the three lists once, drill them, and after that the case is automatic.
A few words appear in more than one slot with different meanings: kadar takes the bare/genitive when it means "as ... as" (benim kadar "as much as me"), but the dative when it marks a limit "up to / until" (akşama kadar "until evening"). Treat these as two separate words that happen to share a spelling.
Akşama kadar burada bekleyeceğim.
I'll wait here until the evening.
Common mistakes
The headline error, in every group, is importing English's caseless 'for / after / like' and leaving the noun bare when it actually needs a case — or putting the wrong case.
❌ Sinema sonra eve gittik.
Incorrect — sonra takes the ablative: sinemadan sonra.
✅ Sinemadan sonra eve gittik.
After the cinema, we went home.
❌ Ben göre bu yanlış.
Incorrect — göre takes the dative: bana göre, not the bare pronoun.
✅ Bana göre bu yanlış.
In my opinion, this is wrong.
❌ Sen için aldım.
Incorrect — the bare group takes the genitive on pronouns: senin için.
✅ Senin için aldım.
I bought it for you.
❌ Yağmur rağmen çıktık.
Incorrect — rağmen takes the dative: yağmura rağmen.
✅ Yağmura rağmen çıktık.
We went out despite the rain.
❌ Senin başka kimse yok.
Incorrect — başka takes the ablative: senden başka.
✅ Senden başka kimse yok.
There's no one but you.
Key takeaways
- Every postposition governs a fixed case that you cannot guess from meaning — learn it as part of the word.
- Bare group (için, ile, gibi, kadar): plain noun, but genitive on pronouns — benim için, senin gibi.
- Dative group (göre, rağmen, doğru, karşı): noun + -(y)A — bana göre, yağmura rağmen.
- Ablative group (önce, sonra, beri, dolayı, başka): noun + -DAn — yemekten sonra, senden başka.
- The same pronoun changes shape by group: senin için / sana göre / senden sonra — proof that the case, not the meaning, is what you memorize.
Now practice Turkish
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Start learning Turkish→Related Topics
- Postpositions, Not PrepositionsA2 — Turkish 'prepositions' come after the noun — and each one lexically demands a particular case on its complement.
- Postpositions with Bare/Genitive: için, gibi, kadarA2 — The four most common Turkish postpositions take a bare full noun but a genitive pronoun — drill this and you'll never say *ben için again.
- Dative Postpositions: göre, doğru, rağmen, kadarB1 — göre, doğru, rağmen, karşı and 'until' kadar all govern the dative -(y)A — so 'according to me' is bana göre, not the genitive 'benim göre' that the other postpositions would lead you to expect.
- Ablative Postpositions: önce, sonra, beri, dolayıB1 — önce, sonra, beri and dolayı take the ablative -DAn (dersten sonra, sabahtan beri) — but önce/sonra switch to a bare time noun for durations (üç gün önce 'three days ago').