Elon.io is an online learning platform
We have an entire course teaching Turkish grammar and vocabulary.
Questions & Answers about Arabam var.
Why is there no word for 'I' or 'have' in this sentence?
In Turkish, there is no direct verb for 'to have.' Instead, you say 'my [thing] exists.' Here, arabam means 'my car' and var means 'exists' or 'there is.' So literally, you are saying 'My car exists.'
How does araba become 'my car'?
To show that something belongs to you, you add a possessive suffix to the end of the noun. The word for car is araba. Because it ends in a vowel, you just add -m to make it arabam (my car).
Can I just use var by itself to mean 'have'?
No, var just means 'there is' or 'exists.' To make it mean 'have,' you must use a possessive suffix on the object. If you just said araba var, it would mean 'there is a car.' Adding the -m to make arabam var changes it to 'I have a car' (literally: my car exists).
How do I make this negative to say 'I don't have a car'?
The opposite of var is yok, which means 'does not exist.' To say 'I don't have a car,' you just replace var with yok, making it arabam yok (literally: my car does not exist).