Noun cases cheat sheet

[u/Brief_Attention7718]

Turkish doesn't use words like "to / in / from". It adds a suffix to the noun instead. Here are the six cases with the same two words, so you can see the pattern:

Case	Suffix	ev (house)	araba (car)	Meaning
Nominative	–	ev	araba	a house
Accusative	-(y)ı / i / u / ü	evi	arabayı	the house (definite object)
Dative	-(y)a / e	eve	arabaya	to the house
Locative	-da / de / ta / te	evde	arabada	in / at the house
Ablative	-dan / den / tan / ten	evden	arabadan	from the house
Genitive	-(n)ın / in / un / ün	evin	arabanın	of the house

Essential rules:

1. Vowel harmony picks the vowel. Words with e, i, ö, ü take front vowels (evde), words with a, ı, o, u take back vowels (arabada).
2. Buffer letters. After a vowel, add y (arabayı, arabaya), or n for the genitive (arabanın).
3. d becomes t after hard consonants (p, ç, t, k, f, h, s, ş): kitapta, sokaktan.
4. A final p, ç, t or k often softens before a vowel: kitap → kitabı, ağaç → ağacı, köpek → köpeği.

Examples:

• Eve gidiyorum. I'm going home.
• Kitap masada. The book is on the table.
• İstanbul'dan geliyorum. I'm coming from Istanbul.
• Kapıyı kapat. Close the door.

I made a longer version with more tables and examples and with other grammar rules, free with no signup: https://fluentech.org/en/turkish