Conjugation › Turkish › Var
Turkish · Verb Tables · Advanced
var means "to exist / there is" in Turkish. Simple past (witnessed): vardı. Below: all 10 tenses we teach, with examples.
Formed with -DI; used for events the speaker personally witnessed, did, or is certain of.
| vardı |
Formed with -mIş; used for events learned secondhand, inferred from evidence, or realized with surprise — Turkish grammatically marks this evidential distinction from the witnessed past.
| varmış |
The simple past -DI doubled with a second, bound -DI (geldiydim); colloquial and regional, used for emphatic or reminiscent narration rather than everyday neutral speech.
| vardıydı |
The reported past -mIş plus the past copula -DI ("had done"); note that -miş devoices the following d to t: gelmişti, not gelmişdi.
| varmıştı |
The reported past -mIş doubled with -mIş again ("apparently had done"); rare, used mainly in folk tales and secondhand storytelling.
| varmışmış |
Formed with -sE; used as a standalone wish, usually with keşke ("if only"), and as the subordinate "if"-clause of any conditional sentence (gelirse gel — "come if you're coming"). Turkish has no separate subjunctive mood; -sE and its compounds cover doubt, hypothesis and wish.
| varsa |
-sE plus the past copula -DI; the normal way to express an unreal past condition or an unfulfilled wish about the past ("if only he had come", "if he had come, ...") — by far the most common of the wish-mood compounds.
| varsaydı |
-sE plus -mIş instead of -DI ("apparently, if he had..."); rare, mostly colloquial storytelling.
| varsaymış |
-En makes an adjectival participle referring to the doer, the basis of every subject relative clause ("the man who comes/is coming").
| var olan |
Attaches to the aorist-like base to mean "while [doing]"; can also attach to nouns and adjectives (gençken, "while young").
| varken |
| Evde ekmek var. | There is bread at home. |
| Eskiden burada bir köprü vardı. | There used to be a bridge here. |
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