hissetmek ("to feel") is one of the most useful B1 verbs and one of the most quietly tricky, for two reasons. First, it is a fused etmek-compound: it comes from the Arabic-origin noun his ("sense, feeling") plus the light verb etmek ("to do/make"), and when they fuse, the s doubles — his + etmek → hissetmek. Second, the single most common thing you want to say with it — "I feel tired," "I feel happy" — does not translate word for word. Turkish does not say "I feel tired"; it says, in effect, "I feel myself tired," using the reflexive kendini. Get these two points right and hissetmek becomes effortless.
The fusion: his + etmek → hissetmek
Hundreds of Turkish verbs are etmek-compounds: a noun (usually from Arabic or Persian) plus etmek, written together when they fuse phonologically — teşekkür etmek ("to thank"), kabul etmek ("to accept"), hissetmek (see verbs/compound-etmek-olmak). Most stay two separate words. A small set, where the noun is short and ends in a way that "grips" etmek, fuses into one word with a consonant change:
| Noun |
| Fused form | What happened |
|---|---|---|---|
| his (feeling) | his + etmek | hissetmek | s doubles → -ss- |
| af (pardon) | af + etmek | affetmek | f doubles → -ff- |
| zan (supposition) | zan + etmek | zannetmek | n doubles → -nn- |
| red (refusal) | red + etmek | reddetmek | d restored + doubled |
The doubling reflects the word's original Arabic form, where the consonant was geminate (long); Turkish writes it out when the noun fuses with etmek. So hissetmek is hiss- + -etmek, and you simply learn it as one verb. There is also a separate spelling point inside the etmek half: the t of et- devoices and voices according to the following sound (see consonant-changes/devoicing-c-d), giving forms like hisset-ti-m ("I felt") but hisse-di-yor → hissediyorum ("I feel"), where the t surfaces as d between vowels.
Onu ilk gördüğümde garip bir şey hissettim.
When I first saw him, I felt something strange.
Şu an kendimi çok daha iyi hissediyorum, teşekkürler.
I feel much better now, thank you.
Two patterns: feeling a thing vs feeling a state
This is the heart of the page. hissetmek splits cleanly into two constructions, and English blurs them.
Pattern A — feeling a thing (a noun): accusative object. When what you feel is an object — a pain, a presence, an emotion as a noun — hissetmek is an ordinary transitive verb taking the accusative.
Ayağımda hafif bir ağrı hissediyorum.
I feel a slight pain in my foot.
Arkamda birinin olduğunu hissettim ama kimse yoktu.
I felt that someone was behind me, but there was no one.
Bu şehirde hiç kendime ait bir his hissetmedim.
I never felt a sense of belonging in this city.
That second example shows the -DIK complement: "I felt that someone was behind me" = birinin ol-duğu-nu hissettim — nominalized clause in the accusative, exactly the machinery used after bilmek and anlamak.
Pattern B — feeling a state (an adjective): the reflexive kendini. This is the pattern English speakers get wrong. To say "I feel tired / happy / lonely," Turkish does not treat hissetmek as a copula. You cannot say yorgun hissediyorum on its own. Instead you make yourself the object of the verb with the reflexive pronoun kendi- ("self") carrying a possessive and the accusative, and the adjective sits before the verb:
kendi- + possessive + accusative + adjective + hissetmek
So "I feel tired" is literally "I feel myself tired": Kendimi yorgun hissediyorum. The logic is that hissetmek needs an object, and when the thing you feel is a state of yourself, you become that object (see pronouns/reflexive-kendi).
| Person | "self" object | Example |
|---|---|---|
| I feel… | kendimi | Kendimi yorgun hissediyorum. |
| you feel… | kendini | Kendini nasıl hissediyorsun? |
| he/she feels… | kendini | Kendini yalnız hissediyor. |
| we feel… | kendimizi | Kendimizi burada evimizde gibi hissediyoruz. |
Kendimi bugün çok daha enerjik hissediyorum.
I feel much more energetic today.
Bütün gün kalabalıkta kendimi yalnız hissettim.
All day in the crowd, I felt lonely.
Kendini nasıl hissediyorsun, biraz daha iyi misin?
How are you feeling — a bit better?
That last sentence, Kendini nasıl hissediyorsun?, is the standard "How are you feeling?" you say to someone who's been unwell. Note it is not Nasıl hissediyorsun? alone — the kendini is obligatory.
Forms
The stem is hisset- (which surfaces as hissed- before a vowel). All forms are regular once you track the t/d alternation.
| Form | Turkish | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| Infinitive | hissetmek | to feel |
| Present continuous (1sg) | hissediyorum | I feel / I'm feeling |
| Past (1sg) | hissettim | I felt |
| Aorist (3sg) | hisseder | he/she feels |
| Future (1sg) | hissedeceğim | I will feel |
| Negative (1sg) | hissetmiyorum | I don't feel |
| Question (2sg) | hissediyor musun? | do you feel? |
Watch the past: it is hissettim, with the hard -tt- — the doubled s stays, and et- + -ti keeps the t because the suffix begins with a consonant. Compare the present hissediyorum, where the t sits between vowels and softens to d.
hissetmek vs duymak and the noun his
Two near-neighbours are worth separating. duymak ("to hear; to sense/feel") overlaps with hissetmek in the "perceive" sense — acı duymak and acı hissetmek both mean "to feel pain" — but duymak leans toward sensory/emotional registering ("to come to feel"), while hissetmek is the everyday "feel." The related noun his ("feeling, sense, emotion") and its plural hisler/hislerimiz ("feelings") give you the vocabulary for talking about emotions.
Sana karşı hâlâ bir şeyler hissediyorum.
I still feel something for you.
İçimde kötü bir his var, bu işten vazgeçelim.
I have a bad feeling about this; let's drop this business.
English-speaker pitfalls
- "I feel tired" needs kendini. This is the number-one error. English maps "feel" + adjective directly, but Turkish requires the reflexive object: kendimi yorgun hissediyorum, not yorgun hissediyorum.
- Don't confuse hissetmek with hissettirmek. The causative hissettirmek means "to make (someone) feel" — bana kendimi özel hissettirdi ("he made me feel special"). It's a different verb, one derivation further along.
- The t really does change. Beginners often write hissetiyorum (one t, no softening). It is hissediyorum — doubled s, and the t softens to d before the vowel.
Common mistakes
❌ Yorgun hissediyorum.
Incorrect — feeling a state needs the reflexive object kendini; the bare adjective leaves hissetmek without its object.
✅ Kendimi yorgun hissediyorum.
I feel tired.
❌ Kendimi mutlu hissediyor musun?
Incorrect — the reflexive must agree with the subject; for 'you', it's kendini, not kendimi.
✅ Kendini mutlu hissediyor musun?
Do you feel happy?
❌ Bir ağrı hissetiyorum.
Incorrect spelling — the t between vowels softens to d, and the s is doubled: hissediyorum.
✅ Bir ağrı hissediyorum.
I feel a pain.
❌ Dün gece çok kötü hissedim.
Incorrect — the past keeps the hard tt (hissettim), and a state still needs kendimi.
✅ Dün gece kendimi çok kötü hissettim.
Last night I felt very bad.
Key takeaways
- hissetmek = his ("feeling") + etmek, fused with a doubled s; the et- part's t softens to d between vowels (hissediyorum) but stays hard before a consonant (hissettim).
- Feeling a thing (noun) → accusative object: bir ağrı hissediyorum; also -DIK complements: …olduğunu hissettim.
- Feeling a state (adjective) → the reflexive object kendini: kendimi yorgun hissediyorum, kendini nasıl hissediyorsun? The reflexive must agree with the subject.
- Kendini nasıl hissediyorsun? is the standard "How are you feeling?"
- Don't confuse hissetmek ("feel") with the causative hissettirmek ("make someone feel").
Now practice Turkish
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Start learning Turkish→Related Topics
- Compound Verbs with etmek and olmakA2 — How Turkish builds a huge share of its everyday verbs from a noun plus etmek ('do') or olmak ('become').
- The Reflexive kendiA2 — kendi 'self' takes possessive suffixes to give the reflexive pronouns kendim, kendin, kendisi, kendimiz, kendiniz, kendileri — used reflexively, emphatically, and (as kendisi) as a polite he/she.
- Softening: p→b, ç→c, t→dA2 — The stem-final softening of p, ç and t to b, c and d before a vowel suffix — why it happens, the written result, and the large set of monosyllables and loans that do not soften.
- etmek (to do / make)A2 — A reference for etmek, the transitive light verb behind hundreds of Turkish compounds — its t→d softening, fused spellings, the most common noun+etmek phrases, and the cases they govern.