Yes/No Questions on Verbs with mI

To ask a yes/no question in Turkish you do not change word order and you do not add an auxiliary like English "do". You add one little particle, mI, written as a separate word. The whole job of turning a statement into a question is done by this particle — Geliyorsun "you are coming" becomes Geliyor musun? "are you coming?". The only genuinely tricky part is where the personal ending goes, and that depends on the tense. This page gives you the everyday cases; the full cross-tense rule is on where mI attaches across tenses.

The particle mI and its four shapes

The question particle is mI, and it harmonizes four ways to the last vowel of the word in front of it: mı / mi / mu / mü.

• after a, ı → mı: aldın mı? "did you take it?"
• after e, i → mi: geldi mi? "did he come?"
• after o, u → mu: okudun mu? "did you read it?"
• after ö, ü → mü: gördün mü? "did you see it?"

It is always written with a space before it, even though it harmonizes with the previous word as if attached. This separateness is a spelling rule that catches every beginner — geldin mi is two words, never geldinmi.

The default pattern: person ending docks on mI

For the everyday spoken tenses — the continuous -(I)yor, the future -(y)AcAK, the aorist -(A/I)r, and the evidential -mIş — the particle mI comes right after the bare tense form, and the personal ending climbs onto mI:

Notice what happens to geliyorsun: the -sun ending peels off the verb, the verb keeps only its bare tense form geliyor, and the person ending reattaches to the particle as musun. The verb itself is now person-less; mI carries the person. This is why the question is Geliyor musun? and never Geliyorsun mu? or Geliyorum mu?.

The exception: -DI and -mIş keep the person on the verb

With the past tense -DI (and the conditional -sA), the personal ending stays on the verb and mI simply follows it, bare and uninflected:

• geldin "you came" → geldin mi? "did you come?" (not geldi misin?)
• gittiniz "you (pl.) went" → gittiniz mi? "did you (pl.) go?"
• yaptık "we did" → yaptık mı? "did we do it?"

Here the verb already carries the person (geldi-n), so there is nothing for mI to host — it just sits at the end. This is the asymmetry the brief calls the trickiest part of Turkish questions: the host of the personal ending shifts between the verb and mI depending on the tense.

The evidential -mIş is the one to watch, because it behaves like the -yor/-acak group, not like -DI: the person climbs onto mI. So "did he reportedly come?" is gelmiş mi? in the 3rd person, but in the 2nd person it is gelmiş misin? with the person on mI.

Third person plural

In the 3rd person plural, the plural marker -lAr normally stays on the verb and mI follows: geldiler mi? "did they come?", geliyorlar mı? "are they coming?". You may also hear the mI before -lAr in some structures, but the safe, standard everyday form keeps -lAr on the verb.

Questions and negation together

You can stack a question on a negative verb. The negation -mA stays where it always is — right after the stem — and mI is added on top in the normal way for that tense:

• gelmedin "you didn't come" → gelmedin mi? "didn't you come?" (past: person on verb)
• gelmiyorsun "you aren't coming" → gelmiyor musun? "aren't you coming?" (continuous: person on mI)

Common mistakes

In the continuous, the person ending moves onto mI: the verb is bare geliyor, and musun carries the person.

The past tense keeps the person on the verb (geldin); mI follows bare.

You mark the person once. Strip it from the verb (geliyor) and attach it to mI: muyum.

Person climbs to mI (musun), and the particle rounds to mu after the o of -yor.

mI attaches to the predicate it questions, not to the end of a long sentence. For alternative questions, repeat it on each verb.

Key takeaways

• Yes/no questions are formed with the particle mI, written separately and harmonizing four ways (mı / mi / mu / mü).
• Bucket A — person climbs onto mI: -yor, -acak, -ir, -miş → geliyor musun, yapacak mısın, gelir misin, gelmiş misin.
• Bucket B — person stays on the verb: -di, -se → geldin mi, gelsen mi.
• Mark the person exactly once; never leave it on the verb in Bucket A (geliyorum mu is wrong) and never move it to mI in Bucket B (geldi misin is wrong).
• Negation and questions combine freely; -mA stays after the stem, mI is added on top.
• The complete cross-tense rule is on where mI attaches across tenses.