Turkish-English False Friends: The Complete List for Turkish Speakers

1Why Turkish produces a different kind of false friend

Turkish is not related to English. There is no shared grammar, no shared word stock, no common ancestor. By the usual logic that should mean no false friends at all, and yet Turkish speakers hit them constantly. The reason is that the shared vocabulary did not come from a shared ancestor; it was imported, twice, from different places and at different times.

The first wave was French, arriving through the late Ottoman reforms and the early Republic, and it is enormous. Kravat, kanepe, şoför, kuaför, klima, pantolon, asansör, tuvalet, plaj, büfe and several thousand more are French words wearing Turkish spelling. Those same French words also entered English, but usually into a narrower or more formal corner of it. So the Turkish word is completely ordinary and the English cousin is not.

The second wave is English itself, arriving since the 1980s, and Turkish did something interesting with it. It kept the form and changed the job. Plaza means an office tower. Site means a gated residential complex. Servis means the shuttle bus that takes you to work. Magazin means celebrity gossip. These are real Turkish words made of English parts, and an English speaker will not recognise a single one of those meanings.

The third category is not about vocabulary at all. Turkish has a set of everyday phrases that English has no equivalent for, not even approximately: kolay gelsin, geçmiş olsun, elinize sağlık, güle güle kullan. Translating them produces sentences that are grammatical and baffling, and not translating them leaves a hole where Turkish speakers expect something to be said.

Tip: Sort your errors by source. French-layer errors are fixed with a dictionary in about an hour. Turkish-made English is fixed by learning the real English term. The missing phrases are fixed by learning what English says instead, which is often nothing at all.

2The French and Italian layer

The largest group, and the one most likely to appear in a Turkish speaker's English without warning, because in Turkish these words are entirely neutral. The English relative exists, which is what makes it dangerous: nobody corrects you, they just look puzzled.

• şoför, from French chauffeur, means any driver; English chauffeur is specifically a private driver in a uniform, so say driver
• kuaför, from French coiffeur, is a hairdresser; English has no everyday coiffeur
• klima, from French climatiseur, is an air conditioner; English climate is the weather over decades
• fanila, from flannel, is an undershirt; English flannel is a type of cloth
• büfe, from French buffet, is a small kiosk or snack stand; English buffet is a self-service meal
• otogar is a coach station; English has no otogar, so say bus station or coach station
• pastane is a patisserie or cake shop; English pastry shop or bakery is safer
• jile, from Gillette, is a razor blade; English gilet is a sleeveless jacket
• hostes is a flight attendant; English hostess has other associations, so say flight attendant or cabin crew
• stajyer is an intern; English intern or trainee, never stagiaire
• aksiyon can mean an action film or a share on the stock exchange; English action is neither of those on its own

Tip: The pattern is consistent enough to use as a rule of thumb: when a Turkish word looks European, assume French and check the English separately. You will be right most of the time and the check takes ten seconds.

3Borrowed from English, changed in Turkish

These came from English, kept their shape, and took on a Turkish job. They are the hardest group to catch, because they feel like English you already know.

• market in Turkish is a small grocery shop; English market is a marketplace or a sector, so say corner shop, convenience store, or supermarket
• rezidans is a serviced high-rise apartment building; English residence is where someone lives, of any kind
• outlet in Turkish is a discount shopping mall; English outlet store is closer, but outlet alone means an electrical socket in North America
• mobil in Turkish means mobile in the technology sense only; English mobile also means able to move
• kombi is a domestic boiler; English combi is not a general word, so say boiler
• jenerik is the opening or closing credits of a film; English generic means non-branded, so say credits or opening titles
• klip is a music video; English clip is any short extract
• entel is a mildly insulting word for a pretentious intellectual; English has no single word, so say pretentious
• check etmek and mail atmak are Turkish verbs built from English nouns; English needs the real verbs, to check and to email

Tip: Test any English-looking word you learned in Turkey by searching it in quotation marks next to a plain English word. If nearly every result is a Turkish site, the word is Turkish.

4The complete one-to-one list

Quick reference. Turkish word, what it actually means, and the English word that carries it.

• sempatik means likeable, not sympathetic. Use likeable, friendly, nice.
• antipatik means unpleasant, not antipathetic. Use unpleasant, off-putting.
• kravat is a tie, not a cravat.
• smokin is a tuxedo or dinner jacket, not smoking.
• kanepe is a sofa, not a canapé.
• prezervatif is a condom, not a food preservative.
• fabrika is a factory, not fabric.
• magazin is celebrity gossip, not a magazine.
• atlet is an undershirt or vest, as well as an athlete.
• şoför is a driver, not necessarily a chauffeur.
• klima is an air conditioner, not a climate.
• büfe is a kiosk, not a buffet.
• plaza is an office tower, not a public square.
• site is a gated residential complex, not a website or a building site.
• servis is a shuttle bus, not a service.
• kampanya is a sale or promotion, not a campaign.
• market is a small grocery shop, not a marketplace.
• spot is a television advertisement, not a spot.
• jenerik is the film credits, not something generic.
• aktüel means current, whereas English actual means real.
• realize etmek means to carry something out, whereas English realise mostly means to become aware.
• pretansiyon and pretend do not match: English pretend means to fake.
• sansasyonel is fine, but sansasyon as a noun for a scandal is better rendered as a stir or a scandal.
• kritik in Turkish can mean a review; English critique is a formal analysis and a review is a review.
• pasta in Turkish is cake, not Italian pasta; English pasta is the Italian food and cake is cake.
• tost in Turkish is a toasted sandwich; English toast is just toasted bread.
• hostes is a flight attendant, not a hostess.
• stajyer is an intern, not a stagiaire.
• konferans in Turkish is often a single lecture; English conference is a multi-day event.
• ajanda in Turkish is a personal diary; English agenda is the list of topics for a meeting.

Tip: Read this once, then come back to it after you have written something real in English and check only the words you actually used. A list read from top to bottom is forgotten by the weekend.

5Verbs whose range English splits in two

The hardest group, because there is no wrong-looking word to catch. The sentence is grammatical. It just says something you did not mean.

Tip: For each of these, write two English sentences that mean clearly different things and label which Turkish situation each belongs to. One verb with five glosses will never stick; five sentences with five situations will.

6Phrases English simply does not have

Turkish has a rich set of situational formulas, and English has almost none of them. There is nothing to translate; there is only what English says instead, which is sometimes nothing at all.

• kolay gelsin, said to anyone who is working, has no English equivalent. English says nothing in that situation, or at most keep up the good work, which is warmer and more evaluative than the Turkish. Do not say may it come easy.
• geçmiş olsun, said to someone who has been ill or had an accident, is closest to get well soon for illness and I am sorry to hear that for anything else. There is no single phrase covering both.
• elinize sağlık, said to whoever cooked, becomes that was delicious, or thank you, that was wonderful. Health to your hands is not English.
• afiyet olsun, said before eating or in reply to thanks after a meal, is enjoy your meal before, and you are welcome after. English has no phrase that does both.
• güle güle kullan, said when somebody buys something new, becomes enjoy it, or I hope you like it.
• başınız sağ olsun, for a bereavement, becomes I am so sorry for your loss, which is the fixed English formula and should be used exactly.
• hayırlı olsun, for a new job, house or business, becomes congratulations, or all the best with it.
• maşallah, said to admire something without harm, has no English version at all; a plain compliment is what English uses, and any attempt to translate the protective sense will confuse.
• inşallah, used in Turkish across a wide range from genuine hope to polite non-commitment, is read by English speakers as either religious or evasive; say I hope so, or hopefully, and if you mean probably not, say it plainly.
• eline sağlık and ağzına sağlık follow the same pattern as elinize sağlık; praise the thing, not the hands or the mouth.
• kolay gelsin as a way to end a conversation with a shopkeeper or an official has no English use at all; English ends with thanks, or have a good day.
• buyurun, which covers here you are, go ahead, come in and how can I help, splits into four different English phrases depending on the situation.

Notice what these have in common: they are all social lubricant, said at a predictable moment to acknowledge what someone is doing. English does far less of this. The silence where a Turkish speaker expects a phrase is not coldness; it is simply that English marks these moments with nothing, or with a smile.

The practical risk runs both ways. Translating them produces baffling English. Expecting them produces the impression that English speakers are rude, when they are only quiet.

Tip: For each phrase, learn the situation and the English response to that situation, not a word-for-word rendering. Buyurun is four phrases, not one, and no dictionary entry will teach you that.

7Grammar transfer that surfaces as word choice

Turkish grammar is structurally very different from English, and the differences surface as odd word choices rather than obvious grammar mistakes, which is why they survive so long.

Tip: The he and she problem is worth attacking on its own, because it is the fastest fix with the largest effect. Before you talk about someone, say their pronoun to yourself once. Two weeks of that usually settles it.

8Numbers, dates and money

Turkey uses the continental convention. English-speaking countries use the opposite one. This is not a style preference; it changes the value of the number.

Tip: Set your computer, phone and spreadsheet to English formatting when you work in English. Fixing this at the tool level removes the error permanently, which care alone never does.

9Abi, abla, and calling strangers your brother

Turkish addresses people by kinship terms whether or not they are family, and by titles that English does not use. Translated literally, this produces sentences that are grammatically perfect and socially confusing.

Abi and abla, older brother and older sister, are used for anyone slightly older, including shopkeepers, taxi drivers and colleagues. Amca and teyze, uncle and aunt, are used for older strangers. This is warm and completely normal in Turkish.

Translated directly, it produces My brother at the shop said, or I asked my uncle at the bank. English speakers hear an actual family relationship. Use the person's role or name: the shopkeeper, my colleague, a man at the bank.

None of this is a vocabulary error. These are correct English sentences that create a wrong impression, which makes them more costly than a mispronounced word and much harder to notice, because nobody will mention it.

Tip: In English, default to the person's name plus their role. It is the safest option in every English-speaking country, and in a professional setting it does not read as cold the way the equivalent might in Turkish.

10Sounds that change the word

Turkish is written almost exactly as it is spoken, which makes English spelling a shock and produces a specific set of pronunciation errors. These matter here because several of them turn one word into another.

• Turkish has no w, so w becomes v: west becomes vest, wine becomes vine, worse becomes verse. Each of those is a different English word, so this one changes meaning rather than just accent.
• Turkish has no th sounds, so think becomes sink or tink and this becomes dis or zis. Three and free, thin and fin, and both and boat are the pairs to watch.
• Turkish inserts a vowel to break up consonant clusters, so train can become tirain and street can become sitreet. English is comfortable with three consonants together and you have to be too.
• Turkish vowel harmony pulls English vowels towards each other inside a word, which flattens contrasts like ship and sheep, full and fool, and man and men.
• Turkish devoices final consonants, so bad sounds like bat, dog like dock, and have like haf. English keeps the voicing and also lengthens the vowel before it, which is the part actually worth practising.
• English word stress moves and changes meaning: a REcord and to reCORD, PRESent and preSENT. Turkish stress is far more regular, so this needs deliberate attention.
• English spelling does not predict pronunciation. The same letters give though, through, thought, tough and thorough. Learn the sound with the word rather than deducing it from the letters.

The reason these belong in a false friend guide is that several of them do not produce an accent, they produce a different word. Vest for west and sink for think are not mispronunciations to an English listener; they are other words, and the sentence quietly stops making sense.

Tip: Record yourself reading a short paragraph, then listen while reading the same paragraph. You will hear the w and th substitutions immediately, and they are among the fastest things in English to fix deliberately.

11Twelve sentences to correct

Each contains one error from this guide. Try each before reading the correction.

• My new manager is very sympathetic. Correction: My new manager is very likeable. Sempatik means likeable; sympathetic means feeling sorry for someone.
• I took a new laptop last week. Correction: I bought a new laptop last week. Almak covers both, but if money changed hands, English says bought.
• I work in a plaza in the city centre. Correction: I work in an office building in the city centre.
• We live in a site with a garden and security. Correction: We live in a gated community with a garden and security.
• I take the service to the office every morning. Correction: I take the shuttle to the office every morning.
• My car is exist, so I can drive you. Correction: I have a car, so I can drive you.
• There is a big campaign at the supermarket this week. Correction: There is a big sale at the supermarket this week.
• My brother at the pharmacy recommended it. Correction: The pharmacist recommended it, unless he really is your brother.
• The invoice total is 12,5 million lira. Correction: The invoice total is 12.5 million lira, in English punctuation.
• She watches magazine programmes every evening. Correction: She watches celebrity gossip shows every evening.
• Good morning Mr Ahmet, thank you for your email. Correction: Good morning Mr Yılmaz, using the family name.
• I went to cinema with friend yesterday. Correction: I went to the cinema with a friend yesterday.

Tip: Twelve is more than anyone absorbs at once. Pick the three you actually made this month and drill only those.

12How to find your own false friends

A list somebody else wrote is a starting point. The list that helps you is built from your own English, because your errors depend on your job, your vocabulary and your habits.

Do this with real English you produced: a sent email, a message to a colleague, an exam answer, a transcript of yourself speaking. Not exercises, because exercises make you careful and false friends only surface when you are not.

• Take a piece of English you wrote without checking, at least two hundred words
• Underline every word that came to you from Turkish rather than from English
• Mark separately any word that looks European, since those are almost all French-layer imports
• For each, search the English word and read three real examples from native sources
• Mark it wrong if your sentence does not fit the pattern of those three
• Write the correction as a full sentence, never as a single word
• Check separately for the three invisible ones: a missing article, my car is exist for I have, and he used for she
• Keep the list in one file and reread it before you write anything that matters

Expect five to fifteen in your first two hundred words. That is normal, and the number falls quickly, because false friends are a finite list rather than a general weakness.

Tip: The fastest version of this is to hear English while reading the same words, which is what subtitled podcasts give you. Collocation errors surface immediately when you hear the correct pairing, well before you could explain why yours was wrong.