Impersonal Passive of Intransitives | Turkish Grammar

Every English speaker learns that the passive needs an object to promote: "They built the bridge" → "The bridge was built." No object, no passive — you cannot passivize "they slept" into "it was slept." Turkish breaks this rule, and in doing so produces one of its most characteristically un-English structures: the *impersonal passive of an intransitive verb. Gidilir "one goes / people go," oturulur "one sits," gülünür "one laughs" — these have no subject at all, no agent, no patient. They are pure statements that an action happens, generically, and they are everywhere in signs, rules, instructions, and proverbs. This page shows how Turkish does the impossible and why this construction has no tidy English mirror.

The passive suffix that needs no object

Turkish forms the passive with -Il / -In / -n on the verb stem (the choice depends on the stem's final sound; see the passive -Il page for the full distribution). The standard transitive passive works just like English:

Bu köprü 1973'te yapıldı.

This bridge was built in 1973 (the bridge, the object of 'build', becomes the subject).

But Turkish allows the same suffix to attach to a verb that has no object to promote — an intransitive like gitmek "to go," oturmak "to sit," gülmek "to laugh." The result is a verb with literally nobody in the subject slot. It is always third-person singular (there is no subject to agree with), and it means "X-ing happens / one X-es / people X."

Buraya nasıl gidilir?

How does one get here? / How do you get here? (gidilir = 'is gone', impersonal — no subject).

Camiye girerken ayakkabılar çıkarılır, sessizce oturulur.

When entering the mosque, shoes are removed and one sits quietly (oturulur = 'is sat', impersonal).

The mental key: gidilir does not mean "it is gone" the way English would force it. It means "going is done (here, by people in general)." There is no "it." The verb describes the bare occurrence of the action, detached from any doer.

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Don't ask "who is the subject?" of an impersonal passive — the whole point is that there isn't one. Read gidilir, oturulur, çalışılır as "one goes / one sits / one works," a generic statement about what is done, not about any person.

How to build it on an intransitive

The suffix choice follows the ordinary passive rules, but because intransitive stems often end in vowels or in -l, the -n- and -In- allomorphs show up a lot. Vowel harmony applies throughout, and the aorist -Ir / -Ar tense (the natural tense for generic statements) is what you usually see on top.

Verb	Meaning	Impersonal passive (aorist)	Sense
gitmek	to go	gidilir	one goes
oturmak	to sit	oturulur	one sits
gülmek	to laugh	gülünür	one laughs
çalışmak	to work	çalışılır	one works
yaşamak	to live	yaşanır	one lives
uyumak	to sleep	uyunur	one sleeps
konuşmak	to speak	konuşulur	one speaks
başlamak	to begin	başlanır	one begins

Notice the required trio in action: gitmek → gidilir (with the regular d/t voicing of the stem before a vowel), oturmak → oturulur, gülmek → gülünür (the -n- passive after the -l stem, then harmonised aorist -ür).

Bu lokantada çok güzel yenir, herkese tavsiye ederim.

One eats very well at this restaurant — I recommend it to everyone (yenir = 'is eaten', impersonal).

Sınav haftası kütüphanede sabaha kadar çalışılır.

During exam week, people work in the library until morning (çalışılır = 'is worked', impersonal).

What it means: generic, normative, "the done thing"

The impersonal passive is not just "people happen to do this"; it very often carries a normative flavour — this is how it is done, this is what one is supposed to do. It is the natural voice of rules, etiquette, instructions, and cultural norms, because it states the action as a fact about the world rather than as a command to "you."

Büyüklerin yanında bacak bacak üstüne atılmaz.

One does not cross one's legs in front of elders (atılmaz = negative impersonal, 'is not done').

Çorba kaşıkla içilir, çatalla değil.

Soup is eaten with a spoon, not a fork (içilir = impersonal 'one drinks/eats').

Compare a true command, Otur! "Sit (you)!", with the impersonal Burada oturulmaz "One does not sit here / sitting is not allowed here." The command targets a person; the impersonal targets the action. That depersonalisation is exactly why public notices love it — Sigara içilmez "No smoking" literally "smoking is-not-done," not "you must not smoke."

Bu kapıdan girilmez, lütfen yan kapıyı kullanın.

One does not enter through this door; please use the side door (girilmez = impersonal 'is entered', negated).

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The negative impersonal in -mAz (girilmez, oturulmaz, geçilmez) is the standard language of prohibitions and norms on Turkish signs. It is softer and more general than an order: it says the action is simply 'not done', leaving 'you' unmentioned.

Adding a location, not a subject

An impersonal passive can take all the usual adverbials — place, time, manner — but it can never take a grammatical subject in the nominative, and it cannot take a "by"-agent (tarafından) the way a personal passive can, because there is no specific event with an agent to name. What looks like a subject is always a place, time, or other oblique.

Köye ancak yürüyerek ulaşılır, araba gidemiyor.

One can reach the village only on foot; a car can't get there (ulaşılır = impersonal 'is reached').

Bayramlarda akrabalara gidilir, el öpülür.

At religious holidays, one visits relatives and kisses their hand (gidilir, öpülür — generic custom).

Here köye "to the village" and akrabalara "to relatives" are datives, not subjects; bayramlarda is a locative time phrase. The verb stays stubbornly subjectless and singular.

Why English has no clean equivalent

English reaches for several different patches and none of them fits perfectly. "One goes," "you go" (generic you), "people go," "it is done," the agentless passive — each captures part of the meaning, but English cannot passivize the intransitive itself. "It is gone to the village" is ungrammatical; "*here is sat" is impossible. So English must switch strategies (to generic "you/one" or to a "there is + -ing" paraphrase) where Turkish simply keeps the verb and adds one suffix. German is closer (*Hier wird nicht geraucht "here is not smoked"), which is why German speakers grasp this faster than English speakers. For an English speaker the leap is conceptual: accept that a verb can be passive without anything being made the subject.

Common mistakes

❌ Bu köye yürüyerek ulaşılırım.

Incorrect — adding a 1st-person ending to an impersonal passive; it has no subject, so it must stay 3rd-person singular.

✅ Bu köye yürüyerek ulaşılır.

One reaches this village on foot (impersonal, always 3rd-singular).

❌ Burada sigara içilmez insanlar tarafından.

Incorrect — an impersonal passive cannot take a tarafından 'by'-agent; there is no specific agent to name.

✅ Burada sigara içilmez.

No smoking here / one does not smoke here.

❌ Assuming you need a transitive verb to make a passive in Turkish.

Incorrect — Turkish passivizes intransitives (gidilir, oturulur, gülünür) precisely where English cannot.

✅ Bu konuya çok gülünür ama aslında ciddidir.

People laugh a lot about this topic, but it's actually serious (gülünür, impersonal passive of the intransitive gülmek).

❌ Bu kapıdan girilmiyorsun.

Incorrect — mixing a personal 2nd-person continuous with an impersonal idea; for a generic prohibition use the impersonal -mAz.

✅ Bu kapıdan girilmez.

One does not enter through this door (the normative impersonal).

Key takeaways

Turkish can put the passive suffix -Il / -In / -n on intransitive verbs, producing a passive with no subject at all: gidilir, oturulur, gülünür, çalışılır.
The form is always third-person singular and means "one X-es / people X / X-ing is done," a generic, often normative statement.
It is the default voice of signs, rules, etiquette, and customs; the negative -mAz (girilmez, içilmez) is the standard wording of prohibitions.
It takes adverbials (place, time, manner) but never a nominative subject and never a tarafından agent.
English has no clean equivalent — it must switch to "one / you / people / it is done"; the conceptual leap is accepting a passive with nothing promoted to subject. (German Hier wird nicht geraucht is the closest parallel.)

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