giymek "to put on / to wear" and çıkarmak "to take off" are the everyday verbs of dressing — you use them whenever you get up, go out, or come home. Both are transitive: the garment you put on or take off is a direct object that takes the accusative when it's a specific item. But this clothing pair also gives a clean, memorable demonstration of the reflexive voice in -In: alongside the transitive giymek (put a garment on) sits the reflexive giyinmek "to get dressed", and alongside the idea of taking clothes off sits soyunmak "to undress (oneself)". The contrast — put a thing on versus get yourself dressed — is exactly the difference the -In suffix encodes, in vocabulary an A2 learner uses every single day.
giymek: put on, and wear
giymek covers both English "put on" (the act) and "wear" (the ongoing state), depending on the tense. The garment is the accusative object.
- Act of putting on → usually the past or future: paltoyu giydim "I put the coat on".
- Habitual wearing → the aorist: kışın palto giyerim "I wear a coat in winter".
- Wearing right now → the present continuous: bugün mavi bir kazak giyiyorum "I'm wearing a blue jumper today".
Dışarısı soğuk, kalın bir mont giy.
It's cold outside, put on a thick coat.
Düğünde o güzel lacivert elbiseyi giydi.
She wore that lovely navy dress at the wedding.
Ben evde hep terlik giyerim.
At home I always wear slippers.
The aorist is giyer (front-vowel stem → -er), the present giyiyor, the past giydi, the future giyecek. Turkish uses giymek for essentially everything you wear on the body: clothes, shoes, socks, gloves, even (colloquially) a hat — though for hats, glasses, and jewellery many speakers prefer takmak "to put on / attach" (see the note below).
çıkarmak: take off (and much more)
çıkarmak "to take off / remove" is the opposite of giymek for clothing — you çıkar a coat you no longer want on. It's transitive, so the garment is the accusative object. Its aorist is çıkarır, present çıkarıyor, past çıkardı, future çıkaracak.
İçeri girince ayakkabılarını çıkar, lütfen.
Take off your shoes when you come in, please.
Hava ısındı, ceketimi çıkardım.
The weather warmed up, so I took my jacket off.
Note that çıkarmak is itself a causative — the causative of çıkmak "to go out / come off" — which is why it means "make come off, remove". That same verb does a lot of non-clothing work: çantadan telefonu çıkardı "she took the phone out of the bag", parayı çıkardım "I took the money out", dişini çıkardılar "they pulled his tooth out". For clothing, though, just learn it as the partner of giymek.
Cüzdanını çıkar, hesabı ben ödeyeceğim derken kimse karışmasın.
Don't take your wallet out — I'm paying the bill, no arguments.
The reflexive: giyinmek and soyunmak
Here is the structural lesson. Add the reflexive -In to giy- and you get giyinmek "to dress oneself, to get dressed". The action now folds back on the subject: you are not putting a garment on — you are dressing yourself. Crucially, giyinmek takes no object, because the object is already "oneself", baked into the suffix.
| Transitive — put a garment on | Reflexive — dress oneself |
|---|---|
| Paltoyu giydim. (I put the coat on.) | Giyindim. (I got dressed.) |
| Çocuğa montunu giydir. (Put the kid's coat on him.) | Çocuk kendi giyindi. (The kid dressed himself.) |
Çabuk giyin, otobüsü kaçıracağız!
Get dressed quickly, we'll miss the bus!
Güzel giyinmeyi sever, her zaman şık görünür.
She likes to dress well; she always looks elegant.
The mirror-image verb is soyunmak "to undress (oneself), to take one's clothes off" — built on the root soy- "to strip / peel" plus the same reflexive -In. Like giyinmek, it is intransitive and takes no object.
Doktor 'soyunun lütfen' dedi, ben de gömleğimi çıkardım.
The doctor said 'please undress', so I took my shirt off.
Eve gelir gelmez soyunup pijamalarını giydi.
As soon as he got home he undressed and put his pyjamas on.
A note on takmak: hats, glasses, jewellery
Not everything is giy-ed. For items you attach rather than slip into — glasses, a watch, earrings, a ring, a tie, and often a hat — Turkish prefers takmak "to put on / attach". You çıkar them to take them off, same as clothes.
Gözlüğümü takmadan hiçbir şey göremiyorum.
I can't see anything without putting my glasses on.
Yüzüğünü takıp aynaya baktı.
She put her ring on and looked in the mirror.
So the rough rule: clothes and shoes → giymek; accessories you fasten or perch → takmak; removing either → çıkarmak. Many speakers stretch giymek to hats too (şapka giy), and it won't be wrong, but gözlük tak "put your glasses on" is fixed — gözlük giy sounds off.
Conjugation snapshot
| Form | giymek (1sg) | çıkarmak (1sg) |
|---|---|---|
| Present (-Iyor) | giyiyorum | çıkarıyorum |
| Aorist (-Ir / -Ar) | giyerim | çıkarırım |
| Past (-DI) | giydim | çıkardım |
| Future (-AcAk) | giyeceğim | çıkaracağım |
| Reflexive partner | giyinmek (get dressed) | soyunmak (undress) |
Common mistakes
Using the reflexive giyinmek with a garment object, instead of the transitive giymek:
❌ Paltoyu giyindim.
Incorrect — giyinmek takes no object. For 'I put the coat on' use the transitive: paltoyu giydim. For 'I got dressed' use giyindim alone.
✅ Paltoyu giydim.
I put the coat on.
Using the transitive giymek with no object to mean "get dressed":
❌ Hadi giy, geç kaldık.
Off — giymek needs an object ('put on what?'). For 'come on, get dressed' use the reflexive: hadi giyin.
✅ Hadi giyin, geç kaldık.
Come on, get dressed, we're late.
Translating English "wear" with a "to be" + adjective construction instead of the verb giymek:
❌ Bugün mavi bir gömlek var üzerimde diyerek anlatmak.
Unnatural — Turkish says it with the verb giymek: bugün mavi bir gömlek giyiyorum 'I'm wearing a blue shirt today'.
✅ Bugün mavi bir gömlek giyiyorum.
I'm wearing a blue shirt today.
Using giymek for glasses, where takmak is expected:
❌ Gözlük giydim.
Off — glasses are attached, not worn: gözlüğümü taktım 'I put my glasses on'.
✅ Gözlüğümü taktım.
I put my glasses on.
Forgetting the accusative on a specific garment being taken off:
❌ Ceket çıkar, sıcak burası.
If it's a specific (your) jacket, mark it: ceketini çıkar. Bare 'ceket çıkar' reads as 'take off a jacket / produce a jacket'.
✅ Ceketini çıkar, sıcak burası.
Take your jacket off, it's hot in here.
Key takeaways
- giymek "put on / wear" and çıkarmak "take off" are transitive: the specific garment takes the accusative (paltoyu giy, ayakkabıyı çıkar).
- Tense decides giymek's meaning: past/future = putting on, aorist = habitual wearing, -Iyor = wearing now.
- The reflexive -In gives giyinmek "get dressed" and soyunmak "undress" — both intransitive, no object.
- çıkarmak is the all-purpose "remove" (it's the causative of çıkmak): it also takes things out of bags, pockets, etc.
- Accessories you fasten — glasses, watch, ring — use takmak, not giymek (gözlük tak, not gözlük giy).
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Start learning Turkish→Related Topics
- The Reflexive -InB2 — How the suffix -In turns a verb back on its own subject (yıkanmak 'wash oneself', giyinmek 'get dressed'), and when to use it instead of the productive kendi(ni) reflexive.
- 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.
- How to Use the Verb ReferenceA2 — How to read the Turkish verb-reference pages — stem, key forms, governed case, and the irregular-feeling details they highlight.
- Voice: Passive, Causative, Reflexive, ReciprocalB1 — The four voice suffixes that sit between stem and tense, how each reshapes a verb's arguments, and how they stack in a fixed order.