By B1 you have met every Turkish tense and mood somewhere — but scattered across a dozen lessons, each form can feel like a separate vocabulary item to memorise. It is not. Every one of them is the same stem plus the same slots filled differently. This page conjugates a single verb, gelmek ("to come"), through every primary and compound form in the first-person singular ("I…"), and lays them side by side. Read it as one sheet and the agglutinative system stops being a list and becomes a machine: a stem, then aspect/tense, then optionally a second tense (the compound), then the person.
The stem is gel- (a front, unrounded, voiced-final stem, so it takes e/i-harmony and voiced -d- in the past). Where a form needs a buffer y (a vowel meeting a vowel), it is shown in the breakdown.
The primary (simple) tenses and moods
These are the one-tense forms: stem + a single tense/mood suffix + person. They are the building blocks for everything below.
| Form | 1st singular | Breakdown | English |
|---|---|---|---|
| Present continuous (-Iyor) | geliyorum | gel-iyor-um | I am coming |
| Aorist / habitual (-Ir) | gelirim | gel-ir-im | I come (generally) |
| Future (-AcAK) | geleceğim | gel-ecek-(y)im | I will come |
| Definite past (-DI) | geldim | gel-di-m | I came |
| Evidential past (-mIş) | gelmişim | gel-miş-im | I (apparently) came |
| Necessitative (-mAlI) | gelmeliyim | gel-meli-(y)im | I must / should come |
| Optative (-(y)A) | geleyim | gel-e-(y)im | let me come / may I come |
| Conditional / hypothetical (-sA) | gelsem | gel-se-m | if only I came / were I to come |
| Abilitative (-(y)Abilir) | gelebilirim | gel-ebil-ir-im | I can come |
Three things to notice. First, the future softens its k between vowels: gelecek + -im → geleceğim (the k becomes ğ). Second, the optative -(y)A contracts cleanly: gel-e-yim → geleyim. Third, the abilitative is itself a compound — gel + -ebil- ("be able") + the aorist -ir + person — which is why "I can come" is gelebilirim, an aorist underneath.
Şu an geliyorum, beş dakikaya oradayım.
I'm on my way right now; I'll be there in five minutes.
İstersen sabahları ben de gelirim, yolum oradan geçiyor.
If you like, I'll come in the mornings too; my route passes by there.
Yarın mutlaka geleceğim, söz veriyorum.
I'll definitely come tomorrow, I promise.
The compound tenses: a base tense plus a past or evidential copula
This is where Turkish gets its remarkable depth. You take a primary form — geliyor, gelir, gelecek, gelmiş — and stack a second tense on it via the copula -(y)DI ("was") or -(y)mIş ("apparently"). The first suffix sets the aspect; the copula shifts the whole thing into the past or into hearsay. English needs strings like was coming, used to come, was going to come, had come — Turkish folds each into one word.
| Form | 1st singular | Breakdown | English |
|---|---|---|---|
| Past continuous | geliyordum | gel-iyor-du-m | I was coming |
| Aorist past (habitual past) | gelirdim | gel-ir-di-m | I used to come |
| Future-in-the-past | gelecektim | gel-ecek-ti-m | I was going to come |
| Pluperfect (-mIş + -DI) | gelmiştim | gel-miş-ti-m | I had come |
| Reported continuous | geliyormuşum | gel-iyor-muş-um | (apparently) I was coming |
| Reported aorist | gelirmişim | gel-ir-miş-im | (apparently) I would come |
| Reported future | gelecekmişim | gel-ecek-miş-im | (apparently) I was going to come |
| Conditional (real, -Ir + -sA) | gelirsem | gel-ir-se-m | if I come |
| Necessitative past | gelmeliydim | gel-meli-(y)di-m | I should have come |
| Future perfect (compound) | gelmiş olacağım | gel-miş + ol-acak-(y)ım | I will have come |
Two contrasts are worth pinning down because learners blur them. gelmiştim (gel-miş-ti-m, pluperfect) means "I had come" — a definite past-before-the-past. gelmişim (gel-miş-im, simple evidential) means "I (apparently/it turns out) came" — present-relevance hearsay or realisation. The difference is the extra -ti- slot, and the meanings are not interchangeable. Likewise gelirsem ("if I come", a real, open condition) sits on the aorist, whereas gelsem ("if only I came / were I to come", a remote or wishful condition) sits on the bare -sA. Same root, different worlds. For how these two-tense words encode aspect, see aspect overview.
Sen aradığında ben tam çıkıyordum, o yüzden açamadım.
When you called I was just heading out, so I couldn't pick up.
Çocukken her yaz dedemlere gelirdik.
As kids we used to come to my grandparents' every summer.
Tam gelecektim ki yağmur başladı, vazgeçtim.
I was just about to come when it started raining, so I gave up.
O konuşmaya geç kalmıştım, en güzel kısmını kaçırmıştım.
I had been late to that talk; I'd missed the best part.
The full system on one verb
Now read the two tables together, top to bottom, as a single paradigm of gel-. Nine primary forms, ten compounds — nineteen ways to locate "I come" in time, modality, and evidential stance, all from one three-letter stem. No other piece of the language rewards a single glance this much: it shows you that gelecektim is not a new word to learn but gelecek (future) with a past copula bolted on, and that gelmiş olacağım is just the future of olmak ("to be/become") sitting after the perfect participle gelmiş. Bookmark this page; when you meet an unfamiliar form in the wild — say gelseydim (gel-se-(y)di-m, "if only I had come") — decompose it against this grid and the meaning falls out. The reusable shape behind it all is on the regular verb template.
Bu işi bu hafta bitirmiş olacağım, merak etme.
I'll have finished this by the end of the week, don't worry.
Keşke o gün ben de gelseydim, çok eğlenmişsiniz.
I wish I'd come that day too — sounds like you had a great time.
Common mistakes
❌ Gelmiştim diye duydum, ben de şaşırdım.
Incorrect — for hearsay 'I gather I came' use the evidential gelmişim, not the pluperfect gelmiştim.
✅ Gelmişim diye duydum, ben de şaşırdım.
I heard that I (apparently) came; I was surprised too.
gelmiştim is the pluperfect "I had come" (witnessed). For hearsay or realisation you need the evidential gelmişim — the -ti- slot is the whole difference.
❌ Gelsem yarın, sana yardım ederim.
Incorrect — a real, open 'if I come' takes the aorist conditional gelirsem, not gelsem.
✅ Gelirsem yarın, sana yardım ederim.
If I come tomorrow, I'll help you.
gelsem is the remote/wishful conditional ("were I to come / if only I came"). For an ordinary open condition use the aorist-based gelirsem.
❌ Gelecektim ama sonra geleceğim.
Incorrect — mixing future-in-the-past with simple future in one breath; pick the tense the timeline needs.
✅ Gelecektim ama vazgeçtim.
I was going to come, but I changed my mind.
gelecektim (gelecek + -ti-) is "I was going to come" — a past intention that did not happen. Don't follow it with the plain future geleceğim; that contradicts the timeline.
❌ Geleceyim seni görmeye.
Incorrect — the future *k* softens to ğ before the personal vowel: geleceğim, not geleceyim.
✅ Geleceğim seni görmeye.
I'll come to see you.
The future -AcAK keeps its ğ: gelecek + -im → geleceğim. The form geleceyim (with y) does not exist.
Key takeaways
- Every form here is one stem (gel-) with different slots filled — not nineteen separate words to memorise.
- Primary tenses fill one tense/mood slot; compound tenses add a second tense via the copula -(y)DI ("was") or -(y)mIş ("apparently").
- Mind the pairs: gelmiştim (pluperfect, "had come") vs gelmişim (evidential, "apparently came"); gelirsem (open "if") vs gelsem (remote "if only").
- The future softens k to ğ before a vowel: gelecek
- im → geleceğim.
- Use this grid as a decoder: meet an unknown form, split it into slots, and the meaning falls out.
Now practice Turkish
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Start learning Turkish→Related Topics
- Present Continuous -(I)yorA1 — How to form and use the -(I)yor present, Turkish's everyday tense for ongoing and near-future actions.
- Past of Tenses: -Iyordu, -Irdi, -AcAktI, -mIştIB1 — Turkish builds its imperfect, habitual-past, future-in-past and pluperfect simply by stacking the copular past -(y)DI onto a primary tense: geliyordu 'he was coming', gelirdi 'he used to come', gelecekti 'he was going to come', gelmişti 'he had come'.
- Aspect: How Turkish Slices TimeB2 — How Turkish distributes aspect across tenses, auxiliaries and converbs — the -(I)yor vs -Ir split, perfect -mIş olmak, and lexical-aspect compounds.
- The Regular Verb TemplateA2 — One master template that conjugates every regular Turkish verb — every tense and mood as fill-in-the-blank slots, with yapmak and gelmek worked in full.