Forming Yes/No Questions

Once you know that the particle mI is a separate, harmonizing word, forming a yes/no question is mostly a matter of knowing where the particle goes and which word carries the personal ending. That placement shifts depending on the predicate type and the tense. This page walks through each case and shows the natural answer pattern that goes with it.

The basic recipe

A neutral yes/no question — one that asks about the whole sentence rather than focusing one word — puts mI right before the personal ending, at the very end of the predicate. Everything else in the sentence stays exactly as it was in the statement. No word order change, no rising helper verb, nothing else moves.

The hard part is just figuring out, for a given predicate, what counts as "the end" and where the person marking sits. Let's take the predicate types one at a time.

Nominal predicates (no verb)

When the predicate is a noun or adjective — "you are a teacher", "this is expensive" — there is no real verb. The particle comes after the predicate word, and the personal ending attaches to the particle. This is the copula question, covered in full at questions with the copula.

Note the third-person plural: the -lar stays on the noun and mI follows it (yorgunlar mı?), because -lar is a true suffix while mI is a separate word that comes after it.

Verbal predicates: the ending may move

With real verbs, the key question is whether the personal ending stays on the verb or jumps onto mI. The dividing line is the tense. The full system lives at where mI goes with verbs; here is the working summary you need to build questions.

Past tense (-DI): ending stays on the verb

The definite past keeps its personal ending welded to the verb, and mI simply follows the whole thing.

Here aradın "you called" stays intact, and mı comes after. The ending does not move to the particle.

Present continuous (-Iyor): ending moves to mI

In the -yor present, the ending detaches from the verb and rides on the particle.

The verb is left bare (dinliyor), and musun / muyuz carries the person.

Aorist (-Ir): ending moves to mI

The aorist, used for habits, general truths and polite requests, also moves the ending onto the particle.

Yapar misin? "will/would you do?" is the standard polite request frame — extremely common, and the ending is on mı (here mısın), not on the verb.

Future tense (-AcAk): ending moves to mI

So in three of the four core verbal tenses (present continuous, aorist, future) the person ending lands on the particle, and only the definite past keeps it on the verb. A reliable mnemonic: if the tense ends in a consonant-final shape like -DI, the ending stays; if the tense ends in a form like -yor / -Ir / -AcAk, the ending hops onto mI.

The answer pattern

Turkish answers a yes/no question with evet "yes" or hayır "no" — but speakers very often add, or even prefer, an echo of the verb. Answering with the verb alone is completely natural and frequently warmer than a bare evet.

In the echo, the verb takes the answerer's own personal ending: the question was geldin mi? "did you come?", but the answer is geldim "I came." You always shift the person to match the speaker. The fuller toolkit of answers — including yok, tabii, valla and the verb-echo strategy — is at answering with evet and hayır.

Negative questions invite agreement differently

This is the point where English speakers most reliably stumble. Turkish evet and hayır track the actual facts, not the grammar of the question. In English, "Aren't you coming?" answered with "Yes" means "yes, I am coming." In Turkish the response follows reality, so you must think about what is true, not about mirroring the question's polarity.

Read those twice. To an English ear they seem backwards. In Turkish, evet confirms the proposition as stated — here the negative one, "you are not coming" — so Evet, gelmiyorum means "yes, you're right, I'm not coming." And hayır rejects the stated proposition: Hayır, geliyorum means "no, your assumption is wrong, I actually am coming." Because this is so easy to get tangled, Turkish speakers very often skip the bare evet/hayır here and just echo the verb, which removes all ambiguity:

Açım "I'm hungry" answers cleanly no matter how the question was framed. When in doubt with a negative question, lead with the verb.

Common mistakes

The definite past keeps -din on the verb. Moving it to the particle (geldin misin?) treats the past like the continuous, which is wrong.

The reverse error: in -yor the ending hops onto mI, leaving the verb bare. Geliyorsun mu? leaves the ending stranded on the verb.

Like the continuous, the copula moves the person marking onto mI: öğretmen misin?.

To confirm a negative ("right, I'm not coming") Turkish uses evet, because evet agrees with the proposition as stated. Mapping English "no, I'm not" word-for-word onto hayır reverses the meaning.

Key takeaways

• A neutral yes/no question puts mI before the personal ending at the end of the predicate; no word order changes.
• Nominal predicates and the continuous, aorist, and future move the personal ending onto mI (öğretmen misin?, geliyor musun?, yapar mısın?, gelecek misin?).
• The definite past keeps the ending on the verb: geldin mi?.
• Answers are evet / hayır, but echoing the verb (Evet, geldim / Geliyorum) is natural and often preferred.
• For negative questions, evet/hayır follow the facts, not the English-style polarity — so to be safe, echo the verb.