karar vermek (to decide)

karar vermek means "to decide", and it is one of the clearest cases where English and Turkish carve up a verb completely differently. English has a single, plain verb — decide. Turkish has no such verb: instead it says, literally, "to give a decision" — karar vermek, the noun karar ("decision") plus the light verb vermek ("to give"). That structure is not decoration; it controls everything that follows, above all the fact that what you decide goes in the dative — you give a decision to a matter — and that "decide to do something" uses the dative verbal noun -mAyA. This page makes the structure, the case government, and the -mAyA complement automatic.

The structure: karar is the object, the matter is dative

The compound is karar ("decision, resolution") + vermek ("to give"). Literally, karar vermek is "to give a decision". As in the light-verb compounds built on etmek, the noun karar already occupies the direct-object slot — vermek gives a decision — so the thing you decide about cannot also be a direct object. It surfaces instead as a dative goal: you direct your decision toward a matter. The frame is [bir şeye] karar vermek — "to give a decision to something".

Notice buna ("to this"), gideceğine (a dative nominalised clause), renge ("to the colour") — all dative. Where English says "decide on the colour" or "decide about this", Turkish marks the matter with the dative and lets the literal "give a decision to it" do the work.

"Decide to do something": -mAyA karar vermek

This is the pattern worth drilling above all others. To say "decide to do something", Turkish does not use a "to"-infinitive the way English does. It nominalises the action with -mA (the verbal noun), then puts it in the dative -(y)A — because, again, the decision is given toward that action. The result is -mAyA karar vermek (the y is a buffer consonant between the two vowels). The pattern is [bir şey] yapmaya karar vermek.

Break down yazılmaya: yazıl- (sign up / be enrolled) + -ma (the verbal-noun nominaliser) + -(y)a (dative). The whole nominalised action sits in the dative because it is what the decision is directed at. For a negative decision — "decide not to do X" — the negation lives inside the nominalised verb: -mAmAyA karar vermek.

Deciding between options: ablative or dative

When you decide between alternatives, the choices typically appear with the ablative -DAn ("from among"), while the option you settle on takes the dative as usual.

karar vermek vs. karar almak — speech vs. institutions

A near-twin you will meet constantly, especially in the news, is karar almak — literally "to take a decision". The two are not freely interchangeable; the choice of light verb tracks who decides and how formally.

• karar vermek ("give a decision") is the everyday verb for a person making up their mind. It is what you use for yourself, your family, your own choices.
• karar almak ("take a decision") is the institutional, formal variant — what a board, a court, a government, or a committee does. It implies a deliberated, official resolution, often one that is recorded.

That last one shows the boundary is soft: an institution can also karar vermek, especially when the focus is the choice itself rather than its official enactment. As a rule of thumb: for a person making up their mind, use karar vermek; for an organ formally resolving something, karar almak sounds more idiomatic. Note the matching noun phrase karar almak keeps karar as the bare object, so "the decision to raise prices" becomes zam yapma kararı — the -mA verbal noun in an izafet with karar.

Compound behavior: where the suffixes land

Because karar vermek is noun + light verb, all tense, person, and negation suffixes attach to vermek, never to karar. The noun stays frozen, and vermek inflects as the irregular-but-common verb it is.

Two spoken forms are worth memorising whole. Karar veremiyorum ("I can't decide / I'm torn") is the everyday phrase for indecision — note it's the negative potential of vermek (ver- + -e + -mi + -yor). And karar verildi ("it has been decided") is the passive, common in announcements: Toplantının ertelenmesine karar verildi ("It was decided to postpone the meeting").

Common mistakes

The recurring errors come from importing the English single verb and from mishandling the -mAyA complement.

Key takeaways

• karar vermek = "give a decision TO something" → the matter decided is in the dative (buna karar verdim), never the accusative.
• The logic: karar already fills the object slot, so the matter can only be a dative goal.
• "Decide to do something": verb + -mA + dative + karar vermek (gitmeye karar verdim); "decide not to" negates inside (gitmemeye karar verdim).
• karar almak ("take a decision") is the formal/institutional twin — used by boards, courts, and governments, while karar vermek is for a person making up their mind.
• All suffixes ride on vermek (verdim, vereceğim, veremiyorum); karar never changes. Useful frozen forms: karar veremiyorum ("I can't decide"), karar verildi ("it was decided").