Turkish has two ways to say someone does something to themselves. One is the pronoun kendi(ni) — kendimi gördüm "I saw myself" — which is fully productive. The other is the reflexive suffix -In, baked right into the verb: yıkanmak "to wash oneself", giyinmek "to get dressed". This page is about that suffix — what it means, where it surfaces, and the cases where Turkish strongly prefers it over the pronoun. It pairs naturally with the reciprocal -Iş, which does the same trick for "each other".
What -In does
The reflexive suffix folds the object back onto the subject: the doer and the receiver of the action are the same person. yıka- "wash (something)" becomes yıkan- "wash oneself"; the thing being washed is the subject's own body.
| Base verb | Reflexive | English |
|---|---|---|
| yıka- (wash) | yıkanmak | to wash oneself, bathe |
| giy- (wear/put on) | giyinmek | to get dressed |
| tara- (comb) | taranmak | to comb one's hair |
| hazırla- (prepare) | hazırlanmak | to get (oneself) ready |
Her sabah duş alıp yıkanırım.
Every morning I take a shower and wash up.
Çabuk giyin, geç kalıyoruz!
Get dressed quickly, we're running late!
Aynanın önünde uzun uzun tarandı.
She combed her hair at length in front of the mirror.
Notice there is no separate object in these sentences. You do not say kendini yıkadın; the reflexivity is already inside yıkan-. A great many of these verbs are about grooming and the body — washing, dressing, combing, getting ready — which is the prototypical home of the reflexive suffix.
Form: -In and its four-way harmony, with -n after vowels
The suffix is underlyingly -In, harmonising four ways: -ın / -in / -un / -ün. After a stem that already ends in a vowel, only the -n surfaces, because Turkish does not stack two vowels.
| Stem ends in… | Suffix shape | Example |
|---|---|---|
| consonant | -ın/-in/-un/-ün | giy- → giyin-, sev- → sevin- |
| vowel | -n | yıka- → yıkan-, tara- → taran- |
Sınava iki hafta boyunca hazırlandım.
I prepared for the exam for two weeks.
Çocuklar sevindi, bütün gün gülüp oynadı.
The children were delighted; they laughed and played all day.
Several very common emotion verbs are lexicalised reflexives whose "to oneself" origin has faded: sevinmek "to be glad / rejoice" (from sev- "love"), üzülmek "to be saddened / feel sorry" (from üz- "distress"), dövünmek "to beat oneself, lament" (from döv- "beat"). You meet these as ordinary vocabulary; recognising the -In inside them is what lets you parse them.
Haberi duyunca çok üzüldüm.
I was very saddened when I heard the news.
Fırsatı kaçırdığı için günlerce dövündü.
He kicked himself for days over missing the chance.
The trap: -In also looks like the passive
Here is the genuinely hard part, and it deserves an honest flag: the reflexive -In is identical in shape to one form of the passive suffix. The passive of vowel-final and l-final stems is also -n / -In. So the same string can be reflexive or passive, and only context (and often the verb's lexical history) tells them apart.
- yıkandı can be reflexive "he washed himself" or passive "it was washed".
- tarandı can be reflexive "she combed her hair" or passive "it was combed through / scanned".
Çocuk yıkandı.
The child washed up. (reflexive — the child washed himself)
Bütün bulaşıklar yıkandı.
All the dishes were washed. (passive — someone washed them)
There is no morphological trick to disambiguate these; you rely on whether the subject is a plausible doer (a child can wash himself → reflexive) or a plausible patient (dishes cannot wash themselves → passive). This overlap is one of the reasons learners should meet the reflexive verbs as a memorised list.
Reflexive suffix vs. kendi(ni): which one?
The two reflexive strategies divide the labour:
- The suffix -In is for the lexicalised, conventional reflexives — overwhelmingly grooming and bodily/emotional states. It is the normal way to say these things, and using kendi instead sounds wrong: "I washed myself" is yıkandım, not kendimi yıkadım.
- The pronoun kendi(ni) is the productive, emphatic reflexive for everything else, especially actions you would not expect to do to yourself. "I saw myself" is kendimi gördüm; "She blamed herself" is kendini suçladı; "Look at yourself!" is Kendine bak!
Yıkandım ve giyindim.
I washed and got dressed.
Aynada kendimi gördüm.
I saw myself in the mirror.
Kendini çok zorluyorsun, biraz dinlen.
You're pushing yourself too hard; rest a little.
You can even combine them for emphasis on a verb that already has a reflexive: kendi kendine yıkandı "he washed himself (all by himself)". But the bare-pronoun kendini yıkadı for routine washing is the marked, slightly odd option.
Common mistakes
❌ Her sabah kendimi yıkıyorum.
Unnatural — routine washing uses the lexical reflexive, not kendi
✅ Her sabah yıkanıyorum.
I wash up every morning.
For everyday washing, the suffix verb yıkanmak is the natural choice; kendimi yıkamak sounds clinical or odd.
❌ Çabuk kendini giy, geç kalıyoruz!
Incorrect — 'get dressed' is giyinmek, a suffixed reflexive
✅ Çabuk giyin, geç kalıyoruz!
Get dressed quickly, we're late!
"Get dressed" is giyinmek. Kendini giymek would literally mean "wear yourself", which is nonsense.
❌ Haberi duyunca kendimi üzdüm.
Off — 'be saddened' is the lexical reflexive üzülmek
✅ Haberi duyunca üzüldüm.
I was saddened when I heard the news.
The settled emotional state uses üzülmek; kendimi üzdüm would imply you deliberately made yourself sad.
❌ Aynada yıkandım ve şaşırdım.
Ambiguous/wrong — to see oneself you need kendi, not a reflexive suffix verb
✅ Aynada kendimi gördüm ve şaşırdım.
I saw myself in the mirror and was startled.
There is no -In reflexive of görmek; "see oneself" is kendini görmek.
Key takeaways
- -In turns a verb back on its subject: yıkanmak (wash oneself), giyinmek (get dressed), taranmak (comb one's hair), hazırlanmak (get ready).
- It harmonises four ways (-ın/-in/-un/-ün) and surfaces as bare -n after a vowel.
- The suffix forms a closed lexical set — mostly grooming and emotional states (sevinmek, üzülmek, dövünmek); learn them as vocabulary.
- It is homophonous with the passive -In; context (doer vs. patient) disambiguates yıkandı "washed himself" / "was washed".
- For non-conventional "do it to oneself", use the productive pronoun kendi(ni): kendimi gördüm, kendini suçladı.
- For "to each other", see the matched reciprocal -Iş.
Now practice Turkish
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Start learning Turkish→Related Topics
- The Reflexive kendiA2 — kendi 'self' takes possessive suffixes to give the reflexive pronouns kendim, kendin, kendisi, kendimiz, kendiniz, kendileri — used reflexively, emphatically, and (as kendisi) as a polite he/she.
- The Passive -Il / -In / -nB1 — How to build the Turkish passive from any verb stem, choosing -Il, -In, or -n by the final sound, and how the impersonal passive expresses generic 'one/you'.
- Voice: Passive, Causative, Reflexive, ReciprocalB1 — The four voice suffixes that sit between stem and tense, how each reshapes a verb's arguments, and how they stack in a fixed order.
- The Reciprocal -IşB2 — How the suffix -Iş builds verbs meaning 'do to each other' or 'do together' (görüşmek, mektuplaşmak, dövüşmek), and how it differs from the productive birbiri pronoun.