The Reflexive kendi

English has a tidy set of reflexive pronouns — myself, yourself, himself — built by adding -self/-selves to a possessive base. Turkish does almost the same trick with one word: kendi "self." Attach a possessive suffix and you get the whole set — kendim "myself," kendin "yourself," and so on. But Turkish kendi does more than English -self: it doubles as an emphasiser ("I did it myself") and, in the form kendisi, as a polite third-person pronoun that English has no equivalent for. This page covers all three jobs.

Building the set: kendi + possessive

kendi on its own means "self / own." To turn it into "myself, yourself, …," add the personal possessive suffixes, which harmonise onto kendi:

The third person has two shapes: bare kendi and the -si-marked kendisi. Both mean "himself/herself," but kendisi is the more common, more emphatic, and — as we'll see — the polite one.

Job 1: the reflexive object — "I saw myself"

When the subject and object are the same person, you cannot reuse the ordinary object pronoun. English knows this — you say "I saw myself," never "I saw me." Turkish is the same: for a reflexive object you must use the case-inflected kendi-form, not o/onu.

So "I saw myself (in the mirror)" is Kendimi gördüm — kendi + 1sg possessive -m + accusative -i. The possessive and the case stack just as they do on a noun.

This is exactly where English speakers most often go wrong: they reach for onu gördüm "I saw him/it," which can never mean "I saw myself." The reflexive object is obligatory.

Job 2: emphatic — "I did it myself"

Used alongside the normal subject, kendi-forms add emphasis: "I myself did it," "she came in person." Here it does not replace anything; it underlines who.

There is also a doubled emphatic, kendi kendime / kendi kendine "(all) by myself, on my own," used for doing something without help or talking to oneself.

Job 3: kendi as "own" — kendi evimiz

Bare kendi before a noun means "own" — kendi evim "my own house," kendi işim "my own business." It pairs with the possessive on the following noun, like an intensified possessive.

Job 4: kendisi as a polite "he/she" — a register English lacks

Here is the insight worth the whole page. In formal and polite speech, kendisi is used as a respectful third-person pronoun meaning simply "he/she" — more deferential than o. This is why kendisi geldi is ambiguous out of context:

• "She herself came" (emphatic reflexive), or
• "She came" (polite/formal "she," more courteous than o geldi).

Using o for a respected person — a customer, an elder, your boss — can sound curt or even dismissive; kendisi is the polite default in service and formal settings (formal). English has no grammaticalised politeness here at all; we just say "he/she" either way.

kendileri: themselves and the honorific plural

kendileri is "themselves" for a plural subject — but it also serves as an honorific singular, a very formal "he/she" for someone you hold in high esteem, paralleling the deferential plural siz. In everyday speech it usually just means "themselves."

Common mistakes

The headline error is using o/onu for the reflexive (onu gördüm for "I saw myself"). The possessive must match the subject and the case must match the verb's demand: kendi*mi gördüm "I saw myself" (1sg possessive + accusative), kendi**ne baktı "he looked after himself" (3sg possessive + dative). Get the possessive right first (it agrees with the *subject), then add the case the verb wants. A second slip is confusing emphatic kendim (bare, as subject) with reflexive-object kendimi (accusative).

Key takeaways

• kendi "self" + a possessive suffix gives the reflexives: kendim, kendin, kendisi, kendimiz, kendiniz, kendileri.
• The possessive agrees with the subject; a following case suffix marks the role (kendi*mi gördüm, kendi**ne baktım*).
• For a reflexive object you must use a kendi-form — never o/onu. "I saw myself" = kendimi gördüm.
• kendi before a noun means "own": kendi evimiz "our own house."
• kendisi doubles as a polite "he/she" (formal) — kendisi geldi can mean "she herself came" or courteously "she came." Prefer it over o for people you're being respectful about.
• For the "each other" counterpart, see reciprocal birbiri; for the verbal reflexive voice, see reflexive -in.