Telling someone your age is one of the first things you do in a new language, yet Turkish builds it in a way that surprises English, French, and Spanish speakers alike. There is no verb "to be" and no verb "to have" in sight. Instead, age is literally a place you are standing in: you are at a certain age. Once you see that, the construction for age, height, and weight all fall out of the same logic — the locative case plus a copular ending. This page shows you how.
The core idea: age is a location, not a possession
In English you are a number of years old. In French and Spanish you have years (j'ai vingt ans, tengo veinte años). Turkish does neither. It says you are at an age. The noun yaş means "age," and the construction is:
yaş + third-person possessive -ı + locative -nda + copular ending
So yaşında breaks down as yaş-ı-nda — "at its age." The possessive -ı links the number to yaş (literally "the age of twenty"), and the locative -nda places you there. Then a copular personal ending says who is at that age.
Ben yirmi yaşındayım.
I'm twenty years old.
Kardeşim henüz çok küçük, daha beş yaşında.
My little brother is still very small — only five.
The third-person form (beş yaşında, "is five") takes no extra ending in everyday speech, exactly as predicate nouns drop the zero copula. The other persons add the familiar present copula endings: -yım/-sın/-ız/-sınız.
| Person | Form | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| ben | yirmi yaşındayım | I'm twenty |
| sen | yirmi yaşındasın | you're twenty |
| o | yirmi yaşında | (s)he's twenty |
| biz | yirmi yaşındayız | we're twenty |
| siz | yirmi yaşındasınız | you're twenty (formal/plural) |
| onlar | yirmi yaşındalar | they're twenty |
Notice the buffer -y- in yaşında*yım and yaşında**yız: the locative ends in a vowel (-a), and Turkish slips in a *y before the vowel-initial endings -ım/-ız. This is the same buffer you meet everywhere a vowel meets a vowel.
Asking someone's age
The question word is kaç ("how many"), and it slides straight into the same frame: kaç yaşında = "at what age." Add the copular ending for the person you are addressing.
Kaç yaşındasın?
How old are you?
Kaç yaşındasınız?
How old are you?
The first is informal sen; the second is the polite or plural siz — and you should default to -sınız with anyone you would not address by first name. To ask about a third person, use the bare form with a possessive subject.
Kızınız kaç yaşında?
How old is your daughter?
Oğlum bu ay sekiz yaşında oldu.
My son turned eight this month.
That last example shows the verb olmak ("to become") doing the work of "to turn / to become" a certain age — sekiz yaşında oldu, "became eight." Turkish reaches for olmak whenever the age is a change of state rather than a steady fact.
Putting age into other tenses
Because yaşında is a predicate, you change its tense the way you change any nominal predicate — with the copular endings and their past form -(y)dı.
O zamanlar daha on beş yaşındaydım, hiçbir şey bilmiyordum.
Back then I was only fifteen — I didn't know anything.
Seneye otuz yaşında olacağım, inanamıyorum.
I'll be thirty next year — I can't believe it.
For the future you cannot just stack a future ending on a noun, so Turkish brings in olmak again: otuz yaşında olacağım, "I will be thirty." The pattern is regular: present = bare copula, past = -(y)dı, future = olmak + -acak.
Height: boyu + measure + locative
The same locative-of-a-possessed-noun trick gives height. The noun is boy ("height, stature"), and the frame is [number + unit] boyunda — boy-u-nda, "at its height of…". You are, once more, standing at a measurement.
Ağabeyim neredeyse iki metre boyunda.
My older brother is nearly two metres tall.
Bir doksan boyunda, basketbol için biçilmiş kaftan.
He's one ninety tall — perfect for basketball.
In casual speech Turks often drop metre and just say the centimetre count: bir doksan ("one ninety," i.e. 1.90 m). To ask, use kaç again.
Boyun kaç? — Bir yetmiş beş.
How tall are you? — One seventy-five.
Here Boyun kaç? ("what is your height?") is the everyday question; the fuller Boyun ne kadar? exists but sounds stiffer in conversation.
Weight: kilo with a verb, or ağırlığında
Weight works a little differently. The unit kilo usually behaves like a plain quantity that pairs with a verb — most often gelmek ("to come [to]") or çekmek ("to pull, to weigh"), or simply with olmak.
Bavul tam yirmi kilo geldi, fazlasına para ödedim.
The suitcase came to exactly twenty kilos — I paid extra for the overweight.
Bebek doğduğunda üç buçuk kiloydu.
The baby was three and a half kilos when she was born.
For a more formal, descriptive register — labels, reports, encyclopedic prose — the parallel of boyunda exists: ağırlığında ("at a weight of…"), from ağırlık ("weight").
Müzedeki heykel yaklaşık iki ton ağırlığında.
The statue in the museum weighs about two tons.
Other measurements in the same frame
Once you have yaşında and boyunda, you can read a whole family of "at a measurement" descriptions: depth (derinliğinde), length (uzunluğunda), width (genişliğinde). They all take a possessed measurement noun plus the locative.
Yüz metre uzunluğunda bir tünelden geçtik.
We went through a tunnel a hundred metres long.
İki yaş arasındaki çocuklar bu odaya alınmıyor.
Children between two years of age aren't admitted to this room.
Common mistakes
English, French, and Spanish habits all leak into Turkish age, so these errors are worth drilling.
❌ Yirmi yıllarım var.
Incorrect — using 'have' for age, transferred from French/Spanish.
✅ Yirmi yaşındayım.
I'm twenty years old.
Turkish never says yıllarım var ("I have years"). Age is a place you stand, not something you possess.
❌ Ben yirmi yaşın.
Incorrect — bare yaş with no possessive, locative, or copula.
✅ Ben yirmi yaşındayım.
I'm twenty years old.
You must include all three pieces: possessive -ı, locative -nda, and the copular ending -yım.
❌ Yirmi yıl yaşındayım.
Incorrect — yıl ('year') doesn't belong here; the noun is yaş.
✅ Yirmi yaşındayım.
I'm twenty years old.
Don't translate "years old" word for word. The single noun yaş already means "age in years"; adding yıl is redundant and wrong.
❌ Kaç yaşındasın, anneanne?
Incorrect register — using informal sen with a grandmother.
✅ Kaç yaşındasınız, anneanne?
How old are you, grandma?
This one is not grammar but register: with elders and strangers use the -sınız form. (formal)
❌ İki metre uzunum.
Incorrect — uzun ('tall/long') can't take a measurement directly.
✅ İki metre boyundayım.
I'm two metres tall.
To attach a number to "tall," you need the boyunda frame; the bare adjective uzun will not host a measurement.
Key takeaways
- Age is locative + copula: yaş-ı-nda
- personal ending. You are at an age, never having years.
- The frame is fixed: drop a number into … yaşında + copula (on yaşındayım, kaç yaşındasın?).
- Use olmak for changes of age (sekiz yaşında oldu) and for the future (otuz yaşında olacağım).
- Height copies the pattern: [number] [unit] boyunda; casual speech drops metre (bir doksan boyunda).
- Weight prefers a verb in speech (üç kiloydu, yirmi kilo geldi); reserve … ağırlığında for formal description.
- The buffer -y- appears before -ım/-ız because the locative ends in a vowel.
Now practice Turkish
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Start learning Turkish→Related Topics
- Cardinal NumbersA1 — Counting in Turkish from bir to milyon — how numbers concatenate with no word for 'and' (yüz yirmi beş = '125'), and why the counted noun stays singular (beş elma 'five apples', never *beş elmalar).
- The Locative -DA: At / In / OnA1 — The locative case -DA marks static location (at, in, on) and powers the var/yok possession construction; unlike English at/in, it can never express motion toward a place.
- Talking About YourselfA2 — How to state your nationality, profession, age, languages, and family in Turkish using zero-copula nominal sentences.
- Present Copula: Zero and Personal EndingsA1 — The present 'to be' is a set of person endings glued onto the predicate — doktorum 'I am a doctor', doktorsun 'you are' — with no ending at all in the third-person singular: Bu ev güzel.