English has a scattered little army of "-ever" words — whatever, whoever, wherever, whenever, however, however much — each its own lexical item that a learner has to acquire one by one. Turkish does the same job with a single template: take the matching question word, add the conditional -sA, and close it with olsun ("let it be"). Once you see that ne olursa olsun "whatever happens," kim olursa olsun "whoever it is," and nereye gidersen git "wherever you go" are all the same construction, the entire English "-ever" set collapses into one pattern you can generate at will. This page shows you that template, its two variants, and why word-by-word translation from English fails here.
If the conditional suffix itself is still shaky, read the conditional -sA first; for the inventory of question words feeding the pattern, see wh-questions.
The core template: wh-word + -sA + olsun
The default, most frequent free-choice frame is [wh-word] + olursa olsun, literally "if it be [whatever], let it be." Olursa is ol- "be/become" + the conditional -sa → "if it is"; olsun is the third-person imperative of the same verb → "let it be." Stacked together they mean "no matter what it turns out to be." The wh-word slots in front and selects the meaning:
| Wh-word | Free-choice form | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| ne (what) | ne olursa olsun | whatever happens / no matter what |
| kim (who) | kim olursa olsun | whoever it is / no matter who |
| nere (where) | nerede olursa olsun | wherever it is / no matter where |
| nasıl (how) | nasıl olursa olsun | however it is / no matter how |
| ne kadar (how much) | ne kadar olursa olsun | however much it is |
| hangi (which) | hangisi olursa olsun | whichever one it is |
The whole phrase is concessive: it concedes every possibility and then says the main clause holds regardless. That is the unifying logic — you are sweeping across all values of the wh-word ("for any X whatsoever") and asserting the result is the same.
Ne olursa olsun, seni yalnız bırakmayacağım.
Whatever happens, I won't leave you alone.
Kim olursa olsun, kuralları herkes uygulamak zorunda.
Whoever it is, everyone has to follow the rules — no exceptions.
Fiyatı ne kadar olursa olsun, o bileti alacağım.
However much it costs, I'm going to buy that ticket.
The lexical-verb version: wh-word + verb-sA + olsun
So far ol- "be" filled both slots. But you can replace the inner olursa with any verb in the conditional, keeping olsun as the concessive closer. This lets the free-choice phrase be about a specific action, not just "being":
- ne yaparsan yap — "whatever you do" (yap-ar-san + yap)
- kim ne derse desin — "whatever anyone says, let them say it"
- nereye gidersek gidelim — "wherever we go"
Here the closing verb is a reduplicated imperative/optative echoing the inner verb. Ne yaparsan yap is literally "what-if-you-do, do (it)" — and idiomatically "no matter what you do." This second pattern is extremely common in speech and is the one English speakers most often fail to build, because nothing in English looks like it.
Ne dersen de, ben kararımı verdim, gidiyorum.
Whatever you say, I've made up my mind — I'm going.
Nereye gidersen git, kendinden kaçamazsın.
Wherever you go, you can't run from yourself.
Ne kadar uğraşırsan uğraş, bu lekeyi çıkaramazsın.
However hard you try, you won't get that stain out.
Note the structure of ne kadar uğraşırsan uğraş: inner uğraş-ır-san (aorist + conditional + "you") "however much you try," closed by the bare imperative uğraş "try!". The two copies of the verb are the giveaway that you are in this pattern. The reduplicated closer agrees in person with the inner verb only loosely — the imperative git, optative gidelim, etc., echo the subject.
The pattern is fixed — and that's the point
The single most useful insight for an English speaker is that all of English's "-ever" words map onto this one Turkish frame. You do not learn six new words; you learn one slot-filling rule:
| English | Turkish template |
|---|---|
| whatever happens | ne olursa olsun |
| whoever comes | kim gelirse gelsin |
| wherever you look | nereye bakarsan bak |
| whenever he calls | ne zaman ararsa arasın |
| however you do it | nasıl yaparsan yap |
| however much it costs | ne kadar olursa olsun |
Kim gelirse gelsin, kapıyı açma, tamam mı?
Whoever comes, don't open the door, okay?
Ne zaman ararsan ara, telefonum hep açık.
Whenever you call, my phone is always on.
A close cousin: her ne / her kim and -sA da
Two related strategies overlap with the olsun template and you will hear them constantly.
First, prefixing her "every" to the wh-word intensifies the sweep: her ne olursa olsun "absolutely no matter what," her kim "whoever at all," her nereye gidersen git. The her is optional emphasis — her ne olursa olsun is just a more emphatic ne olursa olsun.
Her ne pahasına olursa olsun, bu projeyi bitireceğiz.
At whatever cost, we will finish this project.
Second, the concession can be carried by -sA da "even if" instead of olsun (see concessive -sA da / -DA). Ne olursa olsun and ne olsa both reach "whatever happens," but -sA da keeps the "even though" flavor more strongly: Kim ne derse desin vs. Kim ne dese de both work. For learners, olursa olsun is the safest default; -sA da is the variant to recognize.
Hava nasıl olursa olsun, sabah koşusunu hiç aksatmıyor.
No matter what the weather's like, he never skips his morning run.
Common mistakes
❌ Ne olur, seni bırakmayacağım.
Wrong — bare 'ne olur' means 'please / I beg you', not 'whatever happens'. You need the full ...olursa olsun frame.
✅ Ne olursa olsun, seni bırakmayacağım.
Whatever happens, I won't leave you.
The most damaging error is dropping the second half. Ne olursa olsun needs both olursa (the inner condition) and olsun (the concessive closer); leaving one off either changes the meaning or breaks the structure.
❌ Her ne sen söylersin.
Word-by-word from 'whatever you say' — but there is no -sA conditional and no closer, so it's ungrammatical.
✅ Ne söylersen söyle.
Whatever you say (go ahead and say it).
English speakers translate "whatever you say" piece by piece and produce a flat indicative. The Turkish frame is wh-word + conditional verb + reduplicated imperative — there is no shortcut around it.
❌ Kim olsun olsun.
Wrong — the inner verb must be the conditional 'olursa', not a second 'olsun'.
✅ Kim olursa olsun.
Whoever it is, no matter who.
The two halves are not identical: the first is the conditional olursa ("if it be"), the second the imperative olsun ("let it be"). Doubling olsun is a classic slip.
❌ Ne yaparsan, ben gidiyorum.
Incomplete — without the closing reduplicated verb, this reads as a fragment ('whatever you do...'), not a finished concession.
✅ Ne yaparsan yap, ben gidiyorum.
Whatever you do, I'm leaving.
In the lexical-verb pattern you must echo the verb at the end (yap-...-yap, git-...-git). The reduplication is obligatory, not stylistic.
Key takeaways
- Turkish builds every English "-ever" word from one template: wh-word + conditional -sA + olsun.
- Default frame: [wh-word] olursa olsun "no matter what / who / how / how much."
- Lexical-verb frame: [wh-word] + verb-(I)rsA + reduplicated imperative (ne yaparsan yap, nereye gidersen git).
- olursa (conditional "if it be") and olsun (imperative "let it be") are different forms — don't double either one.
- Add her for emphasis (her ne olursa olsun); -sA da is the "even if" variant.
- Word-by-word translation from English always fails — generate from the template instead.
Now practice Turkish
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Start learning Turkish→Related Topics
- Concessive Conditionals: -sA de, -sA bileB2 — How adding de or bile to a conditional turns 'if' into 'even if', and how the fixed idiom ne … olursa olsun builds 'no matter what' on the same pattern.
- Question Words and Their UseA1 — The Turkish question words — kim, ne, nerede, ne zaman, neden, nasıl, kaç, ne kadar, hangi — and how they take whatever case the answer would need, in place.
- The Conditional -sA ('if')A2 — The verbal conditional -sA attaches to a bare verb stem for hypothetical and wish conditions — gelsem 'if I come', Keşke gelse 'if only he'd come' — and contrasts with the real/factual conditional -(y)sA, which attaches to a full tense (gelirse 'if he comes').
- Expressing the SubjunctiveC1 — Turkish has no dedicated subjunctive — how irrealis ‘that he go’, ‘were I to’, ‘lest’ is split across the optative, the conditional, and -mA nominalizations.