The Passive -Il / -In / -n

The Turkish passive is built with a single suffix that has three shapes — -Il, -In, or -n — chosen entirely by the last sound of the stem. Get that choice right and you can passivize almost any verb. But the real reason this construction matters is what it does that English cannot: Turkish forms impersonal passives even from intransitive verbs, which is how the language says "one does", "you do", "people do" without naming anyone. That single feature reshapes how you express generic statements, signs, rules, and directions.

Choosing -Il, -In, or -n by the final sound

The passive suffix has three allomorphs in complementary distribution. You never have to guess — the stem-final sound decides:

The logic behind the three shapes is phonetic. After most consonants you need a helping vowel, so you get -Il (the I harmonizing four ways: yazıl, açıl, görül, oku-stems aside). After an l-final stem, a second l would be hard to say, so the suffix dissimilates to -In (bulun, alın). After a vowel there is no need for a helping vowel at all, so the bare consonant -n suffices (okun, başlan).

The personal passive: the object becomes the subject

In a plain personal passive, the thing that was the object of the active verb becomes the subject of the passive, and the original doer drops out (or is reintroduced with tarafından "by", covered on the passive agent with tarafından). The verb then agrees with its new subject and takes ordinary tense and person marking.

• Active: Birisi camı kırdı. "Someone broke the window."
• Passive: Cam kırıldı. "The window was broken."

Because the doer is usually unknown or irrelevant, the agentless passive is by far the most common — Turkish, like English, uses the passive precisely when you do not want to name who did it.

The headline feature: the impersonal passive

Here is what has no clean English equivalent. Turkish can passivize an intransitive verb — one with no object at all — to make an impersonal statement meaning "one does X", "you do X", "people do X", with no subject whatsoever. The verb just sits in the 3rd person singular passive, and the whole sentence is about the activity in general.

• gitmek "go" → gidilmek → Nasıl gidilir? "How does one get there?" (literally "how is it gone?")
• içmek "drink/smoke" → içilmek → Burada sigara içilmez. "Smoking is not done here." (a sign, a rule)
• girmek "enter" → girilmek → Buraya girilmez. "No entry / one does not enter here."

English has to insert a vague subject — "one", "you", "people" — or rephrase entirely ("no smoking", "no entry"). Turkish needs none; the impersonal passive is the generic. This is the natural register for signs, instructions, recipes, and rules, and using it is what makes generic statements sound native instead of translated. The construction is explored in full on the impersonal passive.

The passive in the aorist for rules and norms

Because rules and customs are habitual, the impersonal passive very often appears in the aorist (-Ir / negative -mAz). Yapılır "(it) is done / one does", yapılmaz "(it) is not done / one does not". This is the register of etiquette and instructions: Böyle yapılmaz "That's not how it's done", Çay nasıl demlenir? "How is tea brewed?".

Harmony and consonant changes throughout

The passive suffix harmonizes four ways in -Il and -In (yazıl, görül, bulun, gülün), and the usual boundary changes apply. A stem ending in a voiceless consonant keeps it voiceless before the suffix (aç- → açıl-); the helping vowel rounds after rounded stems (gör- → görül-, bul- → bulun-). After a vowel-final stem the bare -n attaches with no helping vowel (oku- → okun-, de- → denil- uses an extra -Il for the very short stem de- "say", a tiny irregularity worth noting: denmek / denilmek "be said").

Common mistakes

Kırıldı already contains the passive -Il. There is no separate "was" — the suffix carries the whole passive meaning.

For a generic "how does one...?", use the impersonal passive yazılır, not the active 2nd-person yazarsın.

A sign or rule uses the impersonal passive içilmez ("smoking is not done"), not the personal içmezsin ("you don't smoke").

bul- ends in l, so the passive is -In once: bulun- → bulundu. Adding -Il on top double-marks the passive.

After the vowel of oku-, the passive is the bare -n: okun- → okundu, never okul-.

Key takeaways

• The passive has three shapes by stem-final sound: vowel → -n (okunmak), l → -In (bulunmak), other consonant → -Il (yazılmak).
• In a personal passive, the object becomes the subject and the doer drops (or returns with tarafından).
• Turkish's signature feature: the impersonal passive turns even intransitive verbs into subjectless generics — gidilir "one goes", içilmez "smoking is not done", nasıl yapılır? "how is it done?".
• Generic rules and instructions are usually in the aorist passive (yapılır / yapılmaz).
• Don't add an English-style "be / get / was" auxiliary, and don't force a "by"-agent — the suffix does the work.
• The suffix harmonizes and follows the usual boundary sound rules throughout.