Expressing desire is something you need from your first week of Turkish, and the verb istemek ("to want") looks simple. The catch is that Turkish chooses a different structure depending on whether you want to do something yourself or want someone else to do it. Getting this split right is what separates fluent-sounding requests from learner errors. This page covers all three patterns: istemek with an infinitive, istemek with a noun object, and the idiomatic canım istiyor ("I feel like").
Wanting a thing: istemek + noun object
The simplest case. When you want an object — water, money, the bill — you put the noun in front of istemek, with the accusative if it is definite and bare if it is indefinite, just like any transitive verb.
Çok susadım, bir bardak su istiyorum.
I'm very thirsty, I want a glass of water.
Garson, hesabı istiyorum lütfen.
Waiter, I'd like the bill please.
Doğum günümde sadece biraz huzur istiyorum.
For my birthday I just want a bit of peace.
For the full conjugation and case behaviour of the verb itself, see the istemek reference. Note that istiyorum ("I want") can sound direct; in a shop or restaurant Turks often soften it, which the politeness sections cover.
Wanting to do something yourself: -mAk istemek (same subject)
When you want to do the action yourself, Turkish uses the bare infinitive -mAk directly in front of istemek. There is no extra marking. The subject of "want" and the subject of the wanted action are the same person, so the infinitive stays bare.
Çok acıktım, bir şeyler yemek istiyorum.
I'm really hungry, I want to eat something.
Yaz tatilinde Karadeniz'e gitmek istiyoruz.
We want to go to the Black Sea this summer.
Bu konuyu seninle konuşmak istemiyorum.
I don't want to talk about this with you.
The structure is [verb]-mAk + iste-: yemek istiyorum, gitmek istiyoruz, konuşmak istemiyorum. This is the construction English speakers reach for instinctively ("want to eat") and it works perfectly — but only when the two subjects match. The moment they differ, Turkish abandons the infinitive entirely.
Wanting someone else to do something: -mA + possessive (different subjects)
This is the single most important point on the page. When you want someone else to do the action — "I want you to come," "she wants us to wait" — you cannot use the bare infinitive. You must nominalise the wanted action with -mA, attach a possessive suffix agreeing with the doer of that action, and put the whole thing in the accusative as the object of istemek.
| Who does it | Nominalised clause | Whole sentence |
|---|---|---|
| you (sing.) come | gel-me-n | Gelmeni istiyorum — I want you to come |
| he wait | bekle-me-si | Beklemesini istiyorum — I want him to wait |
| we leave | git-me-miz | Gitmemizi istiyorlar — they want us to leave |
Lütfen gitme, gitmeni istemiyorum.
Please don't go, I don't want you to go.
Öğretmen hepimizin sessiz olmasını istedi.
The teacher wanted all of us to be quiet.
Annem akşam yemeğine erken gelmemi istiyor.
My mother wants me to come home early for dinner.
Look closely at the difference between the two structures, side by side:
Gelmek istiyorum.
I want to come. (same subject — I want, I come)
Gelmeni istiyorum.
I want you to come. (different subjects — I want, you come)
In gelmeni, the -n possessive marks "your coming," and the final -i is the accusative making it the object of istemek. The subject of the coming (you) lives inside the possessive ending. English uses the same infinitive in both ("I want to come" / "I want you to come") and just adds an object pronoun; Turkish changes the entire grammatical machinery. This is the nominalised complement clause, and it is one of the structures that most reliably trips up English speakers.
The idiomatic canım istiyor: "I feel like"
When the wanting is a craving or a passing fancy rather than a deliberate wish, Turkish has a vivid idiom: canım ... istiyor, literally "my soul wants ...". Can means "soul, life, inner self," so canım istiyor frames the desire as bubbling up from inside you. It is the natural way to say "I feel like" or "I'm in the mood for."
Hava soğudu, canım sıcak bir çay istiyor.
The weather's turned cold, I feel like a hot tea.
Bugün hiçbir şey yapmak istemiyorum, canım sadece uyumak istiyor.
I don't feel like doing anything today, I just feel like sleeping.
Birden canım deniz istedi, hadi sahile gidelim.
I suddenly felt like the seaside — come on, let's go to the beach.
The thing craved can be a noun (canım çay istiyor, "I feel like tea") or an infinitive (canım uyumak istiyor, "I feel like sleeping"). The possessive on can marks whose craving it is: canım ("my soul/I"), canın ("you"), canı ("he/she"). So "do you feel like coffee?" is Canın kahve istiyor mu? This idiom is warm and colloquial; you would not use it in a formal request.
Negating want
Negation usually sits on istemek: istemiyorum ("I don't want"). With the different-subject pattern you can also negate the inner clause, and the two negations mean different things.
Gitmeni istemiyorum.
I don't want you to go.
Gitmemeni istiyorum.
I want you not to go.
In the first, the wanting is negated. In the second, the going is negated (gitme-me-ni, "your not-going") and the wanting is positive. Both are natural Turkish; choose based on whether you are denying the wish or wishing for the absence of an action. The negation suffix -mA inside gitmeme- is the same nominaliser at work, now stacked with the verbal negative.
Common mistakes
Gelmek istiyorum seni.
Incorrect — across two subjects you cannot use the bare infinitive; 'I want you to come' needs gelmeni istiyorum.
Gelmeni istiyorum.
I want you to come.
Öğretmen sessiz olmamızı istemek.
Incorrect — istemek must be conjugated, not left as a bare infinitive; the past 'wanted' is istedi.
Öğretmen sessiz olmamızı istedi.
The teacher wanted us to be quiet.
Annem erken gelmek istiyor beni.
Incorrect — the wanted action has a different subject (I come), so it must be the nominalised gelmemi, not the infinitive.
Annem erken gelmemi istiyor.
My mother wants me to come early.
Benim canım istiyorum çay.
Incorrect — in the idiom the verb agrees with can (third person), not with 'I'; it is canım çay istiyor.
Canım çay istiyor.
I feel like (some) tea.
Su istiyorum bir.
Incorrect word order — the indefinite quantifier bir precedes the noun; the object sits before the verb.
Bir su istiyorum.
I'd like a water.
Key takeaways
- istemek + noun ("Su istiyorum") for wanting a thing; accusative if definite, bare if indefinite.
- -mAk istemek ("Gelmek istiyorum") for wanting to do something yourself — same subject, bare infinitive.
- -mA + possessive + accusative + istemek ("Gelmeni istiyorum") for wanting someone else to act — different subjects.
- Never carry the bare infinitive across two different subjects; that is the defining error here.
- canım istiyor ("my soul wants") expresses a craving ("I feel like"), warm and colloquial, with the verb agreeing with can, not with you.
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Start learning Turkish→Related Topics
- The Infinitive as a Noun: -mAkA2 — Using the -mAk infinitive as a subject-neutral verbal noun, and how it takes case (yüzmeyi, gitmeye) once the final k drops.
- 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.
- istemek (to want)A2 — istemek 'to want' — the same-subject -mAk infinitive vs the different-subject -mA + possessive complement, noun objects, and the idiom canım istiyor.
- The Action Nominal -mAB1 — The -mA verbal noun and how its possessive suffix encodes a subject, enabling different-subject complement clauses like gelmeni istiyorum.