The everyday politeness set gave you teşekkürler, buyurun and geçmiş olsun; this lesson adds the formulas Turks reach for at life's bigger moments. Each one is fixed — you do not build these from grammar, you deploy them whole, at the right moment.
| wonderful! (protective compliment) | maşallah |
is said over anything admirable — a new baby, a child's success, glowing health. It is not only praise: tradition holds that open admiration invites the evil eye (*nazar*), and *maşallah* wards it off. Omitting it while admiring someone's baby can genuinely unsettle the grandmother.
| thank goodness | çok şükür |
expresses relief and gratitude — *thank goodness*. It answers good news about health, safe arrivals, and troubles survived.
| my condolences | başın sağ olsun |
— literally *may your head be alive* — is **the** condolence formula, and it is obligatory: at a death you say it to the bereaved, whatever else you say.
| happy bayram | iyi bayramlar |
greets everyone during a religious or national holiday — on visits, in shops, on the phone.
| enjoy your new one (said for a purchase) | güle güle kullan |
— *use it laughingly* — congratulates a purchase: a phone, a car, new shoes. Say it whenever someone shows you something newly bought.
| formula | say it when... |
|---|
| maşallah | admiring a baby, a success, good health |
| çok şükür | relief — trouble turned out well |
| başın sağ olsun | someone has lost a relative |
| iyi bayramlar | meeting anyone during bayram |
| güle güle kullan | someone shows a new purchase |
You know güle güle as the goodbye said by the one staying; the same laughingly image returns here — good things should happen with laughter.