gibi and kadar: Similarity and Extent | Turkish Grammar

Two of Turkish's busiest postpositions, gibi and kadar, both deal with measuring one thing against another — but they measure differently. gibi says X resembles Y ("like a bird", "as if he's about to leave"); kadar says X reaches the same extent as Y ("as heavy as", "about an hour", "until evening"). The single most important thing to learn here is that kadar changes the case it governs depending on its meaning: comparison keeps the bare/genitive complement, but the temporal "until" sense flips to the dative. Get that split right and these two words become reliable; miss it and you'll produce the most recognizable postposition error English speakers make.

gibi — "like, as, as if"

gibi follows a noun (or a whole clause) and means "like" or "as", drawing a resemblance. With a full noun it stays bare; with a personal pronoun it takes the genitive — the same pattern shared by the bare/genitive postpositions.

O çocuk bir kuş gibi özgür.

That child is free like a bird.

Bugün hava yaz gibi.

The weather today is like summer.

Tıpkı annen gibi gülüyorsun.

You laugh just like your mother.

With a pronoun, the genitive is obligatory in careful Turkish — benim gibi, senin gibi, never *ben gibi:

Sen de benim gibi erken kalkıyorsun.

You get up early too, like me.

A second, very common use is gibi + a future participle (-(y)AcAk) meaning "as if about to / looks like it's going to". Here gibi attaches to a verb form rather than a noun and reports an impression:

Hava yağmur yağacak gibi.

It looks like it's going to rain.

Çocuk her an ağlayacak gibiydi.

The child looked as if she might cry at any moment.

You can also use gibi görünmek / gibi gelmek to soften a claim into "it seems / it feels":

Bu fiyat bana biraz yüksek gibi geliyor.

This price feels a bit high to me.

kadar — "as…as / as much as"

The first sense of kadar is equality of degree: "as Y as", "as much as Y". This is the comparison sense, and it takes a bare noun or genitive pronoun, exactly like gibi. The thing you compare to comes first, then kadar, then the adjective or verb.

Bu valiz bir taş kadar ağır.

This suitcase is as heavy as a rock.

Kimse onun kadar çalışkan değil.

Nobody is as hardworking as he is.

Beni sen kadar kimse anlamıyor.

Nobody understands me as much as you do.

That last example shows the common colloquial bare pronoun (sen kadar); in careful and written Turkish you produce the genitive senin kadar. For the full treatment of equality comparison with kadar and how it differs from daha comparatives, see equality with kadar.

o kadar ("that much / so") and ne kadar? ("how much / how?") are frozen high-frequency phrases built on this sense — worth memorizing whole:

O kadar yorgunum ki ayakta duramıyorum.

I'm so tired that I can't stay on my feet.

Bu ayakkabı ne kadar?

How much is this pair of shoes?

💡

gibi asks "is X like Y?" (resemblance); kadar asks "does X reach Y's extent?" (degree). "A face like the moon" is ay gibi bir yüz; "as bright as the moon" is ay kadar parlak.

kadar — "about, approximately"

After a quantity, kadar softens it to "about / roughly / around". The number stays bare; kadar simply turns an exact figure into an estimate.

Toplantı bir saat kadar sürdü.

The meeting lasted about an hour.

Burada yüz kadar insan var.

There are about a hundred people here.

This approximate sense overlaps neatly with degree: bu kadar, şu kadar, bunun kadar all play in the same space, and you'll see kadar reinforcing degree adverbs like o kadar çok ("so very much").

kadar — "until, up to, as far as" (the dative one)

Here is the split that defines this page. When kadar means "until / up to / as far as" — a limit in time or space rather than a comparison — its complement takes the dative case -(y)A, not the bare/genitive form. So "until evening" is akşam**a** kadar, and "as far as home" is ev**e** kadar.

Akşama kadar seni bekledim.

I waited for you until the evening.

Sabaha kadar uyuyamadım.

I couldn't sleep until morning.

Otobüs durağına kadar yürüdük.

We walked as far as the bus stop.

Bu işi cumaya kadar bitirmem lazım.

I need to finish this work by Friday.

Notice the difference between the two kadars side by side. In senin kadar ("as much as you"), senin is genitive — comparison. In eve kadar ("up to the house"), eve is dative — destination/limit. The same word, two case requirements, chosen by meaning. Because this dative behaviour groups it with göre, doğru and rağmen, the "until" sense of kadar is also catalogued among the dative postpositions. For the broader dative pattern, see the dative case.

💡

Decide what kadar means before you choose the case. Comparison / "about" → bare noun or genitive pronoun (benim kadar, bir saat kadar). "Until / up to" → dative (akşama kadar, eve kadar).

How English misleads you

English uses "like" and "as" for both gibi and kadar, which blurs them. "As tall as you" and "like you" both feel like one preposition in English, but Turkish keeps them apart: senin kadar uzun (degree — extent) versus senin gibi (resemblance — manner). When you mean "to the same degree", reach for kadar; when you mean "in the manner of / resembling", reach for gibi.

English also has no case ending to flip, so the dative on temporal kadar has no English trigger at all — "until evening" gives you no signal that Turkish wants akşama. You simply have to attach the meaning "until" to the dative requirement and produce it deliberately.

Common mistakes

Missing the dative on "until" kadar. This is the headline error. "Until evening" is akşama kadar, not a bare noun.

❌ Akşam kadar çalıştım.

Incorrect — temporal 'until' kadar governs the dative: akşama.

✅ Akşama kadar çalıştım.

I worked until the evening.

Adding a dative where comparison kadar wants the genitive. "As much as you" is senin kadar, not *sana kadar.

❌ Sana kadar sabırlı değilim.

Incorrect — comparison kadar takes the genitive pronoun: senin.

✅ Senin kadar sabırlı değilim.

I'm not as patient as you.

Bare pronoun before gibi. Pronouns must be genitive in careful Turkish.

❌ Ben gibi düşünme.

Incorrect — 'gibi' takes the genitive pronoun: benim.

✅ Benim gibi düşünme.

Don't think the way I do.

Using gibi where kadar is meant (or vice versa). "As cold as ice" is a degree, so it needs kadar, not gibi.

❌ Elin buz gibi soğuk değil, buz kadar.

Incorrect — mixing the two: 'buz gibi' means 'icy', 'buz kadar' means 'as cold as ice'.

✅ Elin buz gibi.

Your hand is freezing (icy).

Key takeaways

gibi = resemblance, "like / as / as if": kuş gibi, yağmur yağacak gibi. Full noun bare, pronoun genitive.
kadar has three jobs: comparison ("as…as", genitive: senin kadar), approximation ("about", bare: bir saat kadar), and limit ("until / up to", dative: akşama kadar, eve kadar).
The case is chosen by meaning: comparison and approximation keep bare/genitive; "until / up to" flips to the dative.
o kadar ("so much") and ne kadar? ("how much?") are frozen phrases worth memorizing.
English "like/as" merges what Turkish splits — decide between resemblance (gibi) and extent (kadar) first.

Now practice Turkish

Reading grammar gets you part of the way. The exercises are where it sticks — free, no signup needed.

Start learning Turkish→