Survey of Time Clauses

English builds time clauses with a fistful of conjunctions — when, while, before, after, until, since, as long as — each followed by a fully finite clause: when you arrive, before I leave, after they finished. Turkish does almost none of this with a conjunction. Instead, each English temporal conjunction maps to a specific non-finite form — a converb (a verbal adverb) or a nominalization plus a postposition — built directly on the verb stem, with no separate "when" word and usually no tense inside the clause. The subordinate verb gives up its tense and personal endings; the timing relative to the main clause is carried by the suffix itself. This page is the master comparison: one connector at a time, with its exact form, the form it attaches to, and when to use it. Treat it as the hub from which the individual pages branch.

The big picture: one English word, one Turkish suffix

Here is the whole system at a glance. Each row is a different temporal relation, and the rest of the page walks through them in order.

-(y)IncA — "when / as soon as"

The default, all-purpose "when". Attach -(y)IncA straight to the verb stem (the buffer -y- appears after a vowel). It means "when / once / as soon as X happens" and is most natural when the two events follow one another closely. It is tenseless: the same gelince serves past, present, and future — the main verb decides.

A common reinforcement is to add -mAz (negative aorist) for a vivid "the instant X": gelir gelmez "the moment he arrives". For the deep dive, see the converb -(y)IncA.

-DIğI zaman / -DIğIndA — "when", with an explicit subject

When the "when" clause has its own subject that you want to spell out, the converb -(y)IncA gets awkward, and Turkish switches to a nominalized clause: the -DIK participle carries a possessive marking the subject, then either the noun zaman "time" or the locative -DA follows. geldiğim zaman / geldiğimde = "when I come / came"; geldiğin zaman / geldiğinde = "when you come". The two are interchangeable; -DIğIndA is a touch more compact and more frequent in writing.

The distinction from -(y)IncA is real but soft: -(y)IncA leans toward "as soon as / upon", while -DIğI zaman/-DIğIndA is a more neutral "at the time when", and it handles explicit, contrasting subjects more gracefully. See -(y)IncA vs -DIğI zaman for the fine line, and time clauses with zaman for the nominalized pattern.

-ken — "while / as / when"

For simultaneity — two things going on at once — Turkish uses the converb -ken (from the old word for "time"). It attaches to a tense/aspect stem, not the bare root: typically the aorist (giderken "while going"), the present (yaparken "while doing"), or even a noun/adjective (çocukken "when [I was] a child", küçükken "while little"). -ken does not harmonize — it is always -ken.

-ken also carries a "whereas / while in fact" contrastive sense (ben çalışırken sen uyuyordun "while I was working, you were sleeping"). For the full range, see the converb -ken.

-mAdAn önce — "before"

"Before" is built on the postposition önce "before / ago", but the verb it follows takes the special -mAdAn shape (negative-looking but here purely a "before"-converb): gitmeden önce "before going", yemek yemeden önce "before eating". Confusingly to English ears, the verb appears in this -mA- form, yet the meaning is positive. The subject, if different, is marked by a possessive on a fuller nominalization, but in everyday speech the bare -mAdAn önce dominates.

You can also drop önce and use -mAdAn alone for "without / before" (söylemeden gitme "don't leave without saying"); see the converb -mAdAn and önce / sonra postpositions.

-DIktAn sonra — "after"

The mirror image of "before": after uses the postposition sonra "after / later", and the verb takes the -DIK participle in the ablative: -DIK + -tAn + sonra → -DIktAn sonra. gittikten sonra "after going", yemek yedikten sonra "after eating". The ablative -DAn ("from") is the giveaway — literally "from the point of having done X, after".

Note the consonant detail: the -DIK ends in -k, and the ablative -tAn keeps it voiceless, so it surfaces as -DIktAn (e.g. çıktıktan, with the k kept). See önce / sonra postpositions for the pair.

-(y)AnA kadar — "until"

"Until" has no dedicated word in Turkish. It is built from the -An participle + dative + kadar ("up to"): gelene kadar "until X comes". An equivalent uses -(y)IncA + dative + kadar: gelinceye kadar, same meaning. Both mean "up to the point at which X happens" and very often pair with a command or a negative main clause ("don't stop until…", "wait until…").

This is dense enough — with the negative-clause pattern and the -(y)IncAyA kadar / -(y)AnA değin variants — to deserve its own page: see the "until" clause.

-DAn beri / -(y)AlI — "since"

For the starting point of a still-ongoing situation ("since X"), Turkish offers two routes. With a noun or time expression, use the ablative plus beri: sabahtan beri "since morning", 2010'dan beri "since 2010". With a verb, use the converb -(y)AlI (colloquially often reinforced as -DI ... -(y)AlI, e.g. geldi geleli "ever since he came"): geleli "since (he) came", taşınalı "since (we) moved". The clause names when something started; the main clause states how long it has held.

Note the apostrophe on proper-noun suffixes: İstanbul'a, 2010'dan — Turkish separates a case ending from a proper noun with an apostrophe.

-DIkçA — "as long as / the more … the more"

The converb -DIkçA (from -DIK + -çA) means "as long as / so long as / whenever / the more that X". It expresses a proportional or open-ended condition over time: yaşadıkça öğreniyorum "as long as I live, I keep learning"; konuştukça rahatladı "the more she talked, the calmer she got".

Common mistakes

Using a finite "when" clause as in English, instead of a converb:

Putting a tense on the subordinate verb (a "before/after" clause has no tense):

Confusing -mAdAn önce "before" with a real negative (it only looks negative):

Using -DAn sonra ("after") where the meaning is "until":

Mis-harmonizing or mis-shaping the suffix — e.g. wrong vowel on -(y)IncA:

Key takeaways

• Turkish time clauses are non-finite and tenseless; the main clause carries the tense. There is no "when/before/after" word before a finite clause.
• -(y)IncA = the all-purpose "when / as soon as"; -DIğI zaman / -DIğIndA = "when" with an explicit, spelled-out subject.
• -ken = "while / as" (simultaneity), attached to a tense stem or a noun; it never harmonizes.
• -mAdAn önce = "before" (the -mA- is a converb, not a negative); -DIktAn sonra = "after" (note the ablative -DAn).
• -(y)AnA kadar = "until" (no "until" word; built on the -An participle); -DAn beri / -(y)AlI = "since"; -DIkçA = "as long as / the more".