duymak is wider than English "hear". It covers three things at once: hearing a sound, getting word of / learning a piece of news, and — surprisingly to English speakers — feeling an emotion or sensation. All three share one verb because they share one core idea: something is perceived by you, often without your choosing it. This page covers each sense, the accusative object, the -DIK clause for "hear that…", and how duymak sits between dinlemek "listen" and hissetmek "feel".
Sense 1: to hear a sound (accusative object)
The basic sense is "to hear" — sound reaching your ears, usually involuntarily. The thing heard is a direct object in the accusative when definite.
Bir patlama sesi duydum, sen de duydun mu?
I heard an explosion — did you hear it too?
Telefonun çaldığını duymadım, üzgünüm.
I didn't hear the phone ring, sorry.
This is where the contrast with dinlemek lives: duymak is passive perception (the sound arrives), dinlemek is active attention (you choose to attend). You can hear without listening and listen without hearing — see that page for the full pairing.
Sense 2: to hear / learn of news, and "hear that…"
duymak is also "to get word of, to learn of, to hear about" some piece of information. With a noun, it stays accusative; but the high-value pattern for B1 is "hear that …", which Turkish builds with a nominalized -DIK clause plus accusative, not with a "that"-conjunction.
To say "I heard that you came", you nominalize "you came" as geldiğini (gel- + -DIK + 2sg poss + accusative) and feed it to duymak: geldiğini duydum.
Evleneceğinizi duydum, çok sevindim!
I heard you're getting married — I'm so happy!
Onun şehri terk ettiğini yeni duydum.
I just heard that he's left town.
Sınavın ertelendiğini duydunuz mu?
Did you hear that the exam was postponed?
The choice of nominalizer follows the usual rule: -DIK for realized/past or present events (geldiğini "that you came"), -AcAK for future ones (evleneceğinizi "that you'll marry"). The whole clause is just a big accusative direct object of duymak.
Because hearsay is involved, the news you report this way is often also flagged with the evidential -mIş when you pass it on as unverified: gelmiş diye duydum "I heard (it's said) that he came". The -mIş marks that you did not witness it yourself — a natural fit, since "I heard" already means you got it secondhand.
İşten ayrılmış diye duydum ama emin değilim.
I heard he's quit his job, but I'm not sure.
Sense 3: to feel an emotion or sensation
Here Turkish diverges sharply from English. duymak also means "to feel" an emotion or inner sensation, in a productive set of verb-noun collocations: the emotion is a bare noun, and duymak is the verb.
| Collocation | Meaning |
|---|---|
| heyecan duymak | to feel excitement / be thrilled |
| üzüntü duymak | to feel sorrow / be saddened |
| pişmanlık duymak | to feel regret |
| endişe duymak | to feel worry / be concerned |
| özlem duymak | to feel longing / yearning |
| ihtiyaç duymak | to feel a need (for) |
Onu bir daha göremeyeceğim için derin bir üzüntü duydum.
I felt deep sorrow that I would never see him again.
Yeni işe başlarken büyük bir heyecan duyuyorum.
Starting the new job, I feel a great excitement.
Yardımına ihtiyaç duyduğumda hep yanımdaydın.
Whenever I felt a need for your help, you were always there.
Note the case partners: many of these direct their feeling at a target via the dative (sana özlem duydum "I felt longing for you", ona karşı saygı duymak "to feel respect toward someone"), while ihtiyaç duymak governs the dative thing needed (yardıma ihtiyaç duymak "to feel a need for help").
These collocations are register-neutral but lean slightly formal/literary: in everyday speech people often prefer hissetmek ("feel") or a plain adjective. çok üzüldüm "I was very sad" (using üzülmek) is more colloquial than üzüntü duydum, which sounds like a written condolence.
Conjugation snapshot
duymak is a regular -mak verb with a back, rounded final vowel. The aorist is duyar.
| Form | 1sg | 3sg | 3pl |
|---|---|---|---|
| Present (-Iyor) | duyuyorum | duyuyor | duyuyorlar |
| Aorist (-Ar) | duyarım | duyar | duyarlar |
| Past (-DI) | duydum | duydu | duydular |
| Future (-AcAk) | duyacağım | duyacak | duyacaklar |
| Reported (-mIş) | duymuşum | duymuş | duymuşlar |
The aorist duyar belongs to the -Ar class (not -Ir), so "I (always) hear it from afar" is uzaktan duyarım. The very common conversational reply duydum "(I) heard / got it" and duymadım "I didn't hear / didn't catch that" both use the past.
Pardon, duyamadım, tekrar eder misiniz?
Sorry, I couldn't hear you — could you say that again?
Common mistakes
The leading error is using duymak where attentive listening is meant (it should be dinlemek):
❌ Her akşam radyoyu duyuyorum.
Incorrect — deliberately attending to the radio is dinlemek, not the involuntary duymak.
✅ Her akşam radyoyu dinliyorum.
Every evening I listen to the radio.
Second, building "hear that…" with a literal "that" instead of a -DIK clause:
❌ Duydum ki sen taşındın, doğru mu?
Awkward — the 'duydum ki' construction is heavy/old-fashioned here; the natural pattern is a nominalized -DIK clause.
✅ Taşındığını duydum, doğru mu?
I heard that you moved — is that right?
(The duydum ki form is grammatical but formal/literary and stiff in conversation; default to the -DIK clause.)
Third, marking the emotion noun with the accusative in a duymak collocation:
❌ Bu haberi okuyunca büyük bir üzüntüyü duydum.
Incorrect — the emotion noun in üzüntü duymak stays bare, with no accusative.
✅ Bu haberi okuyunca büyük bir üzüntü duydum.
When I read this news, I felt great sorrow.
Fourth, using duymak for a physical sensation where hissetmek is natural:
❌ Ellerimde bir soğuk duydum.
Incorrect — a physical sensation like cold is hissetmek, not duymak.
✅ Ellerimde bir soğukluk hissettim.
I felt a coldness in my hands.
Key takeaways
- duymak = "hear (a sound)", "learn of / hear about (news)", and "feel (a named emotion)" — three perceptions, one verb, all involuntary.
- The object is accusative when definite; "hear that…" uses a -DIK / -AcAK nominalized clause, not a "that"-word, and often pairs with reportive -mIş.
- Emotion sense: heyecan / üzüntü / pişmanlık duymak keep the emotion noun bare; this register is slightly formal/literary.
- Contrast: dinlemek = listen on purpose; hissetmek = feel a (physical) sensation, with an accusative object.
- Aorist is duyar (the -Ar class), not "duyur".
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- 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.
- Nominalized 'That'-ClausesB1 — How Turkish renders English 'that'-complements with -DIK (factual) or -(y)AcAK (future) plus a possessive and case, with the embedded subject in the genitive.
- dinlemek (to listen)A2 — How to use dinlemek — 'to listen (to)', which takes a direct accusative object in Turkish (no 'to'), plus the contrast with duymak 'to hear' and the idiom söz dinlemek 'to obey'.
- The Evidential Past -mIş (Reportative/Inferential)A2 — The evidential past -mIş (gelmiş 'apparently came', yağmur yağmış 'it evidently rained') marks an event as known by hearsay, inference, or fresh surprise rather than direct witness — the single most distinctively Turkish feature for English speakers.