English has no single word for "two each." We patch it together with phrases — two apiece, two at a time, in twos — and the word each is doing the heavy lifting. Turkish has a dedicated distributive numeral: take a cardinal and add -(ş)Ar, and you get birer "one each," ikişer "two each," üçer "three each." This is a whole grammatical category that English lacks a suffix for, which is exactly why learners reach for the wrong tools (her "each," or just repeating the cardinal). This page teaches the form, the spelling rule that decides between -şar and -ar, and the "one by one" doubling.
What the distributive means
A distributive number spreads a quantity across members of a group, or across repeated events. ikişer answers the question Kaçar? "how many each?" — as opposed to kaç? "how many?" which the plain cardinal answers. Compare:
- İki elma al. — "Take two apples." (two total)
- İkişer elma al. — "Take two apples each." (two per person)
That single suffix carries the whole meaning of "each" / "apiece." There is no separate word for "each" in the sentence — the number does it all.
Çocuklara birer dondurma aldım, hepsi çok sevindi.
I bought the kids one ice cream each — they were all delighted.
Herkese üçer soru düştü, toplam on iki soru var.
Everyone got three questions each — there are twelve questions in total.
The form: -şAr after vowels, -Ar after consonants
The suffix is -(ş)Ar. The A is a two-way low-vowel harmony — it surfaces as -ar after back vowels and -er after front vowels. The buffer ş appears only when the number ends in a vowel; after a consonant it drops out.
| Number | Distributive | Meaning | Ending |
|---|---|---|---|
| bir (1) | birer | one each | consonant → -er |
| iki (2) | ikişer | two each | vowel → -şer |
| üç (3) | üçer | three each | consonant → -er |
| dört (4) | dörder | four each | consonant → -er |
| beş (5) | beşer | five each | consonant → -er |
| altı (6) | altışar | six each | vowel → -şar |
| yedi (7) | yedişer | seven each | vowel → -şer |
| sekiz (8) | sekizer | eight each | consonant → -er |
| dokuz (9) | dokuzar | nine each | consonant → -ar |
| on (10) | onar | ten each | consonant → -ar |
The cleanest minimal pair is ikişer (2, ends in vowel → ş) versus onar (10, ends in consonant → no ş). Higher units follow the same logic: yüz ends in a consonant → yüzer "a hundred each"; bin → biner "a thousand each."
Bilet gişesinde herkese ikişer bilet verdiler.
At the ticket booth they gave everyone two tickets each.
Maraton boyunca yüzer metre arayla su istasyonu vardı.
Along the marathon there was a water station every hundred metres.
The counted noun still stays singular
Just like with plain cardinals, the noun a distributive counts stays singular — üçer lira, not üçer liralar. The number does the counting; the plural would be redundant.
Kahveler üçer lira, ikimize altı eder.
The coffees are three lira each — that's six for the two of us.
Sınıfı beşer kişilik gruplara ayırdık.
We split the class into groups of five each.
Distribution over time and price: "X at a time"
Beyond "each," the distributive also means "X at a time" or "at a rate of X" — distribution over a series rather than over people. This is where yüzer metre "in hundred-metre stretches" and prices like üçer lira "three lira apiece" live.
İlacı günde ikişer tane, sabah akşam alacaksın.
You'll take the medicine two at a time, morning and evening.
Sırayla girin, içeri üçer üçer alıyorlar.
Go in one row at a time — they're letting people in three at a time.
The doubling: birer birer "one by one"
Repeat a distributive and it becomes a manner adverb meaning "X by X." birer birer "one by one," ikişer ikişer "two by two," üçer üçer "three at a time." This doubled form describes how an action unfolds.
Öğrenciler sınıfa birer birer girdi, gürültü yapmadılar.
The students entered the classroom one by one — they didn't make any noise.
Merdivenleri ikişer ikişer çıktı, çok acelesi vardı.
He went up the stairs two at a time — he was in a real hurry.
Why not "her" or a repeated cardinal?
English speakers reach for her "each, every" — but her attaches to the counting unit (the recipient or the period), not to the quantity distributed. Her çocuğa iki elma "two apples to each child" is grammatical, but the neat, idiomatic way is the distributive: Çocuklara ikişer elma "two apples each to the children." Likewise, repeating the cardinal (iki iki) is not how Turkish says "two by two" — that role belongs to the doubled distributive ikişer ikişer.
Common mistakes
The errors below all come from importing English strategies — each, every, or repeating the bare number.
❌ Herkese iki bilet verdiler, yani toplam dört.
Incorrect — to mean 'two each', use the distributive ikişer, not the bare cardinal.
✅ Herkese ikişer bilet verdiler.
They gave everyone two tickets each.
❌ Öğrenciler sınıfa iki iki girdi.
Incorrect — 'two by two' is the doubled distributive, not a repeated cardinal.
✅ Öğrenciler sınıfa ikişer ikişer girdi.
The students entered the classroom two by two.
❌ Çocuklara birer dondurmalar aldım.
Incorrect — a distributive keeps the noun singular: birer dondurma.
✅ Çocuklara birer dondurma aldım.
I bought the kids one ice cream each.
❌ Herkese onşar soru düştü.
Incorrect — 'on' ends in a consonant, so no buffer ş: it's onar.
✅ Herkese onar soru düştü.
Everyone got ten questions each.
❌ Maratonda yüzşer metre arayla su vardı.
Incorrect — 'yüz' ends in a consonant, so no ş: it's yüzer.
✅ Maratonda yüzer metre arayla su vardı.
Along the marathon there was water every hundred metres.
Key takeaways
- The distributive -(ş)Ar means "X each / X at a time" — a category English needs a phrase (apiece, at a time) to express.
- Buffer ş appears only after a vowel: ikişer, altışar, yedişer; no buffer after a consonant: onar, beşer, dokuzar. The vowel harmonizes -er / -ar.
- The counted noun stays singular: üçer lira, beşer kişi.
- It distributes over people (ikişer elma "two apples each"), over time, and over a series ("X at a time").
- Double it for a manner adverb: birer birer "one by one," ikişer ikişer "two by two."
- Don't substitute her or a repeated bare cardinal — the distributive suffix is the idiomatic tool.
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).
- Ordinal Numbers -(I)ncIA2 — Building 'first, second, third' with the suffix -(I)ncI — its four-way vowel harmony, the softening in dört → dördüncü, and why a period after a figure (5. kat) marks an ordinal, not a decimal.
- Fractions, Percentages, DecimalsB1 — How Turkish builds fractions back-to-front (üçte bir 'one third' = literally 'in three, one'), reads percentages as yüzde elli '50%', and pronounces the decimal comma — plus buçuk 'and a half'.
- Manner AdverbsA2 — How Turkish expresses 'how' an action is done — bare adjectives, reduplicated pairs like yavaş yavaş, and -(y)ArAk converbs.