dinlemek means "to listen (to)". The thing every English speaker must unlearn here is the little word "to": in English you listen to music, but in Turkish dinlemek takes a plain direct object in the accusative, with no preposition and no dative. "I'm listening to the music" is müziği dinliyorum — müzik + accusative -i, full stop. This page covers that case frame, the all-important contrast with duymak "to hear", and the idiom söz dinlemek "to obey".
dinlemek takes the accusative, not "to"
In English, "listen" is intransitive and needs the preposition "to" to attach an object. Turkish treats dinlemek as plainly transitive: what you listen to is a direct object, so it takes the accusative -(y)I when definite, just like the object of "eat" or "read". There is no Turkish word for the "to" of "listen to" — trying to insert the dative is the number-one error.
Sabahları haberleri dinliyorum.
In the mornings I listen to the news.
Beni dinliyor musun?
Are you listening to me?
Öğretmeni dikkatle dinleyin.
Listen to the teacher carefully.
In each, the English "to" simply disappears and the noun takes accusative: haberleri (the news), beni (me), öğretmeni (the teacher). This is a classic verb-case mismatch between the two languages — the meaning lines up, the grammar does not.
When the object is indefinite, you drop the accusative exactly as with any object: biraz müzik dinleyelim "let's listen to some music" (no -i), versus bu müziği dinleyelim "let's listen to this music".
Akşam evde sakin bir müzik dinledik.
In the evening we listened to some calm music at home.
dinlemek vs duymak: listen on purpose, hear by accident
This pair is the conceptual core of the page. Both verbs take an accusative object, so the difference is purely meaning, and it is the same split English makes between "listen" and "hear":
- dinlemek = listen — on purpose, paying attention, choosing to do it.
- duymak = hear — involuntarily, sound reaching your ears whether you want it or not.
You can duymak something without dinlemek it (you hear the neighbours' TV but you're not listening), and you can try to dinlemek something and fail to duymak it (you're straining to listen but can't hear over the noise).
Müziği duydum ama dinlemedim, başka şey düşünüyordum.
I heard the music but didn't listen to it — I was thinking about something else.
Bağırdım ama beni duymadın galiba.
I shouted, but I guess you didn't hear me.
Şşş, dinle — dışarıda bir ses var.
Shh, listen — there's a sound outside.
A neat minimal pair: beni dinle means "listen to me / pay attention to me / take my advice", while beni duy would mean "hear me (perceive my voice)" — much rarer and almost confrontational. When a parent says beni dinle! they mean "do as I say", not merely "register the sound of my voice".
söz dinlemek: to obey, to take advice
Because listening to someone implies heeding them, dinlemek extends naturally into "to obey / to take advice". The most fixed form is söz dinlemek — literally "to listen to (someone's) word" — meaning "to be obedient, to do as told". It is a standard verb-noun collocation; söz stays bare (no accusative), and the person obeyed goes in the genitive-possessive or simply context.
Bu çocuk hiç söz dinlemiyor.
This kid never does as he's told.
Annenin sözünü dinle, o senin iyiliğini istiyor.
Listen to your mother — she wants what's best for you.
You can also use plain dinlemek + a person to mean "heed / take the advice of":
Doktoru dinleseydin şimdi yatakta olmazdın.
If you'd listened to the doctor, you wouldn't be in bed now.
Conjugation snapshot
dinlemek is a regular -mek verb with a front, unrounded final vowel. The aorist is dinler.
| Form | 1sg | 3sg | 3pl |
|---|---|---|---|
| Present (-Iyor) | dinliyorum | dinliyor | dinliyorlar |
| Aorist (-Ir) | dinlerim | dinler | dinlerler |
| Past (-DI) | dinledim | dinledi | dinlediler |
| Future (-AcAk) | dinleyeceğim | dinleyecek | dinleyecekler |
| Imperative | — | dinlesin | dinlesinler |
Two spelling points to watch: in the present, the -e of dinle- is swallowed before -Iyor, giving dinliyor (not "dinleyiyor"); and before the future -AcAk, a buffer -y- appears: dinleyeceğim.
Yeni şarkıyı dinledin mi? Bence harika.
Have you listened to the new song? I think it's great.
Common mistakes
By far the most common is inserting the dative to translate "to".
❌ Müziğe dinliyorum.
Incorrect — dinlemek takes an accusative object; the dative -e wrongly translates English 'to'.
✅ Müziği dinliyorum.
I'm listening to the music.
❌ Bana dinle!
Incorrect — 'listen to me' is beni dinle (accusative), not the dative bana.
✅ Beni dinle!
Listen to me!
Second, confusing dinlemek (deliberate) with duymak (involuntary):
❌ Komşunun gürültüsünü bütün gece dinledim, uyuyamadım.
Incorrect — you didn't choose to attend to the neighbour's noise; involuntary perception is duymak.
✅ Komşunun gürültüsünü bütün gece duydum, uyuyamadım.
I heard the neighbour's noise all night and couldn't sleep.
Third, dropping the accusative on a definite object:
❌ Senin sesli mesaj dinledim, çok komikti.
Incorrect — a specific voice message is definite and needs accusative: mesajını.
✅ Senin sesli mesajını dinledim, çok komikti.
I listened to your voice message — it was so funny.
Fourth, marking söz in the obedience idiom:
❌ Çocuklar sözü dinlemiyor artık.
Incorrect — the general 'be obedient' idiom keeps söz bare: söz dinlemiyor.
✅ Çocuklar söz dinlemiyor artık.
Kids don't do as they're told anymore.
Key takeaways
- dinlemek is transitive: the thing listened to is a direct object in the accusative — there is no Turkish "to". "listen to music" = müziği dinlemek.
- dinlemek = listen on purpose; duymak = hear involuntarily. Both take the accusative; the difference is intention.
- söz dinlemek = "to obey / be obedient", with söz kept bare; beni dinle often means "heed me / take my advice".
- Aorist is dinler; watch the spellings dinliyor (present) and dinleyeceğim (future).
Now practice Turkish
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Start learning Turkish→Related Topics
- The Accusative -(y)I and DefinitenessA1 — The accusative ending marks a direct object as specific — and because Turkish has no word for 'the', the accusative effectively IS the definite article.
- Wrong Case (Especially Dative/Locative/Ablative)B1 — Why English prepositions lead you to the wrong Turkish case, and how to memorize verb-plus-case as a single unit.
- duymak (to hear / feel)B1 — How to use duymak — 'to hear', 'to learn of', and 'to feel (an emotion)', with its accusative object, its -DIK clause for 'hear that…', and the contrast with dinlemek and hissetmek.
- Verb-Noun Collocations by ThemeB2 — Fixed verb-noun pairings clustered by topic — food, money, communication, decisions — where the conventional verb is set per noun and rarely matches English.