Chapter 7

Lesson 7

How to ask "Do you know English" in Turkish

Turkish                                     English

İngilizce biliyor musun             Do you know English?(informal)

Japonca biliyor musunuz           Do you know Japanese?(formal)

Fransızca biliyor musun            Do you know French?(informal)

Evet, Almanca biliyorum          Yes, I know German

Hayır, Fransızca bilmiyorum    No, I don't know French

Vocabulary

Turkish                           English                                     

biliyor musun                   do you know(informal)        

biliyor musunuz               do you know(formal)            

İngilizce                           English                                

Japonca                            Japanese                                

Almanca                           German                                

Fransızca                          French                                

biliyorum                         I know                                

bilmiyorum                      I don't know

                             

Sample Sentences

Turkish                                                       English

İngilizce biliyor musun?                              Do you know English?

Almanca biliyor musunuz?                          Do you know German?

O Japonca konuşur                                       He/she speaks Japanese

Ben İtalyanca ve Fransızca konuşurum       I speak Italian and French

Evet Türkçe biliyorum                                 Yes, I know Turkish

Hayır, Almanca bilmiyorum                        No, I don't know German

Grammar Tips

In this part you'll learn another important phrase: "Do you know Turkish?" Using this phrase as opposed to speaking English at someone is important for many reasons. For one, if the group you're speaking to doesn't understand English, at least they will understand what you're asking. Moreover, it shows a lot of respect on your part, because you try to learn the language. 

In Turkish, "Do you know English?" is "İngilizce biliyor musunuz?" 

The first word, İngilizce, means "English." After this continues with biliyor, a form of the word for "to know." The last part, musunuz, makes the sentence a question. All together, it's "İngilizce biliyor musunuz?"

The phrase that you just learned is formal. This means you can use it in situations with older or with people you don't know.

When you're speaking to young people, no problem to use informal speech. In that case you will

say İngilizce biliyor musun?

Here we just remove -uz from the last word to make musun. The difference seems small but it

completely changes the formality level, from formal to informal.

Again, it can be used the formal İngilizce biliyor musunuz? with older people or those you don't

know. İngilizce biliyor musun is more direct. Do not use it with strangers or with

olders.

Let's try a different language: Italian. "Do you know German?" is İtalyanca

biliyor musun? The word for "Italian" is İtalyanca. Here, just the word for the language changes; the rest is the same.

When you ask whether someone speaks another language besides Turkish, you might get

the answer in Turkish. Like; "Yes, I know English" would be Evet, İngilizce biliyorum.

The first word, evet, means "yes." After that comes İngilizce which is English. Finally,  biliyorum, it is "to know." All together, that's Evet, İngilizce biliyorum.

This phrase could be shorter, just by saying "Yes": Evet.

Or by taking out the word for English and just saying  "Yes, I do know": Evet, biliyorum.

If the answer is negative, then it is  "No, I don't know English": Hayır, İngilizce bilmiyorum.

The word, hayır, means "no." we have our form of the word "to know": bilmiyorum. A small difference between biliyorum and bilmiyorum which is only ''m'' but it changes the whole meaning of the sentence from positive to negative.  Consequently, that's Hayır, İngilizce bilmiyorum.