Welcome! Come in, come in. Our hamam’s a little old and a little tired, but it’s still standing.
1yıkandım: “myself” in one ending
In Lesson 2, the -ış inside tanıştık meant “each other”. Today a Turkish verb gets an ending for “yourself”: it says someone is doing something to themselves. yıkamak is “to wash”; yıkanmak is “to wash yourself”, to have a wash. English mostly just drops the object — “I washed and went out” — or says “myself”; Turkish puts the “myself” inside the verb.
TDK’s dictionary calls such a verb a dönüşlü fiil, a “reflexive verb”: the action turns back on whoever does it. The ending is -n after a vowel, and after a consonant -ın, -in, -un or -ün — the last vowel picks which of the four, as with Lesson 2’s -ış.
yıkamak → yıkanmak— wash → have a wash
taramak → taranmak— comb → comb your hair
hazırlamak → hazırlanmak— prepare → get ready
kurulamak → kurulanmak— dry → dry yourself
saklamak → saklanmak— hide → hide yourself
After a consonant, with a vowel in front. You know sarmak, “to wrap”, from Course 1’s Lesson 25:
sarmak → sarınmak— wrap → wrap yourself up
giymek → giyinmek— put on → get dressed
soymak → soyunmak— strip, peel → get undressed
övmek → övünmek— praise → boast
From there it’s an ordinary verb: any tense, the negative, the question, -malı, an order — everything where it always is:
Kerem her sabah yıkanır, giyinir ve kahvesini içer.— Every morning Kerem has a wash, gets dressed and drinks his coffee.
Toplantıya hazırlandınız mı? — Daha hazırlanmadım.— Have you got ready for the meeting? — Not yet, I haven’t.
Toplantıdan önce hazırlanmalıyız.— We need to get ready before the meeting.
Hemen kurulan! Hasta olacaksın.— Dry yourself off right now! You’ll get ill.
Kedi dolabın arkasına saklandı.— The cat hid behind the cupboard.
And not every one of these verbs still sounds like “yourself”. TDK counts sevinmek, “to be glad”, among the reflexives too: there’s sevmek, “to love”, inside it, but nobody hears “love yourself” in it any more.
Bu habere çok sevindim.— I was very glad to hear this news.
2eğilmek: “yourself” with an -l — and why it isn’t the passive
TDK adds that a reflexive verb is mostly built with -n, but sometimes with -l. There aren’t many; here are the two you’ll want most:
eğmek → eğilmek— bend → bend down
çekmek → çekilmek— pull → step back, step aside
Eğilin, kapı çok küçük!— Bend down, the door’s very small!
Lütfen biraz çekilin, geçeyim.— Could you step aside a little, please? Let me through.
Now a fair warning. -n and -l have a second job: “done by someone”, the passive. TDK’s dictionary gives yıkanmak both meanings, “to have a wash” and “to be washed”. You’ve met it whole already: Eleman aranıyor, “Staff wanted”, in Course 1’s Lesson 23. The passive is this course’s Lesson 10; until then one question will do: could whoever it’s about do this to themselves? Kerem could; glasses couldn’t:
Kerem yıkandı.— Kerem had a wash.
Bardaklar yıkandı.— The glasses have been washed. (that’s the passive — Lesson 10)
3kendime: “myself” as a word
In Lesson 2, not every verb had an -ış, and the word birbiri stepped in. “Yourself” works the same way: not every verb has an -(ı)n, and for the rest there’s the word kendi. TDK calls it a dönüşlülük zamiri, a reflexive pronoun. As with birbiri, you add a possessive — whose “self” it is — and the case the verb asks for.
Person by person — “-self”, “-self” as the object, and “to -self”:
ben → kendim, kendimi, kendime— I → myself, myself, to myself
sen → kendin, kendini, kendine— you → yourself, yourself, to yourself
o → kendisi, kendisini, kendisine— he, she → himself, himself, to himself
biz → kendimiz, kendimizi, kendimize— we → ourselves, ourselves, to ourselves
siz → kendiniz, kendinizi, kendinize— you → yourselves, yourselves, to yourselves
onlar → kendileri, kendilerini, kendilerine— they → themselves, themselves, to themselves
In the third person an n comes in before the case — the same one as in Course 1’s Lesson 7: when a case follows -ı or -sı, an n slips in between them, arabası → arabasına. So kendisi → kendisine:
For o there’s a shorter form too, without the -si: kendini, kendine. Spot it? kendine is then “to yourself” for sen and “to himself, to herself” for o. The sentence tells you which.
Aynada kendime baktım.— I looked at myself in the mirror.
Kendine bir kahve al, bana da bir çay!— Get yourself a coffee — and me a tea!
Defne kendine bir kahve aldı.— Defne got herself a coffee.
Kendimi iyi hissetmiyorum, bugün evde kalacağım.— I don’t feel well, I’m staying at home today.
A verb with -(ı)n can often be said with kendi too, and it means the same:
Kerem kendini övüyor. — Kerem övünüyor.— Kerem is praising himself. — Kerem is boasting.
Kedi kendini dolabın arkasına sakladı.— The cat hid itself behind the cupboard.
Kedi dolabın arkasına saklandı.— The cat hid behind the cupboard.
Now an old debt. In Course 1’s Lesson 7 you took Kendine iyi bak!, “Take care of yourself!”, whole, for saying goodbye, and heard that bak is an order; Course 1’s Lesson 10 showed how it’s made: bakmak minus its -mak. One brick is left, kendine: kendin, “yourself”, and the dative -e, because bakmak asks for the dative, as this course’s Lesson 2 said. Word for word: “look well to yourself”. And in Course 1’s Lesson 26, Can got the same thing in its siz form: Kendinize iyi bakın.
4kendim yaptım and kendi kendime: “myself” and “by myself”
kendi can also just stress the person: “myself”, and nobody else. Then kendim, kendin and the rest take no case, and stand in place of whoever did it, or right next to them:
Bu planı kendim çizdim.— I drew this plan myself.
Zehra Hanım kendisi aradı!— Zehra Hanım rang us herself!
Kahveyi kendin mi yaptın? Çok güzel olmuş!— Did you make the coffee yourself? It’s turned out lovely!
One more you’ll want at work: kendisi can stand in for o politely — TDK says it’s sometimes used out of respect. On the phone about your boss, say:
Kendisi şimdi toplantıda. Bir saat sonra arar mısınız?— She’s in a meeting just now. Could you ring back in an hour?
And kendi twice, kendi kendime, is “by myself”, with nobody’s help, or “to myself”. TDK’s dictionary gives it all of these, and “by itself” too, of a door:
Türkçeyi kendi kendime öğreniyorum.— I’m teaching myself Turkish.
Kerem kendi kendine konuşuyor: sunuma hazırlanıyor.— Kerem’s talking to himself: he’s getting ready for a presentation.
Kapı kendi kendine açıldı!— The door opened by itself!
5kendi kesem: “my own”
And kendi’s last job: “my own”. Here it takes nothing at all — the possessive ending goes on the thing, and kendi in front just underlines that it’s yours and nobody else’s. kesem is my kese, my scrubbing mitt; kendi kesem is my very own:
Herkes kendi peştamalını getirsin.— Everyone should bring their own peştamal.
Defne kendi arabasıyla geldi.— Defne came in her own car.
Kendi kahveni kendin yap!— Make your own coffee yourself!
In the last one kendi does two jobs: “your own” and “yourself”. Defne told Kerem much the same in this course’s Lesson 1: Kahve makinesine bak. Boş mu? O zaman yeni kahveyi sen yapmalısın — “Look at the coffee machine. Empty? Then you’re the one who makes the next pot.”
6kendine or birbirine: “yourself” and “each other”
The reflexive and the reciprocal are easy to mix up: each has an ending inside the verb and a word of its own. Ask yourself who does it to whom. Someone does it to themselves: -(ı)n or kendi. Two or more, each to the other: -(ı)ş or Lesson 2’s birbiri:
Defne aynada kendine baktı.— Defne looked at herself in the mirror.
Defne’yle Kerem birbirine baktı.— Defne and Kerem looked at each other.
Kerem övündü: “Bu planı ben çizdim!”— Kerem boasted: “I drew this plan!”
Takım arkadaşları birbirini övdü.— The teammates praised each other.
And where “yourself” is -(ı)n, one letter tells it from “each other”: -n is “yourself”, -ş is “each other”. yıkandılar: each of them had a wash; tanıştılar: they met each other.
7Türkiye up close: the hamam
This course’s first lesson had Mimar Sinan, who climbed the whole ladder from apprentice to master. He didn’t only build mosques: the lists of his works, the TDV encyclopaedia says, name some twenty-five to thirty hamams, Turkish baths, in and around İstanbul alone, palaces aside. One of them, the Haseki Hürrem Sultan Hamamı, stands in front of Ayasofya.
There’s no pool in a Turkish hamam, unless it’s at a hot spring. You wash at a kurna, a marble basin under a tap, scooping up the water and pouring it over yourself. The TDV encyclopaedia says it with a reflexive: you wash su dökünerek, “pouring water over yourself”, with Lesson 3’s -erek.
There are three rooms. First the camekân, where you undress, and rest afterwards. Then the soğukluk — in TDK’s words, the gently heated place between where you wash and where you dress. And last the sıcaklık, the hot room. In the middle of it is the göbek taşı, literally the “navel stone”: a wide marble platform heated from below, where you lie and sweat.
Men are washed by a tellak, and women, in a women’s hamam, by a natır. In their hand is a kese — in TDK’s words, a mitt for rubbing off the dirt as you wash. You cover yourself with a peştamal, a thin cloth for the hamam — TDK spells it peştamal, with an a, not peştemal. On your feet go nalın, wooden clogs, and TDV remembers clogs of walnut, boxwood, ebony and sandalwood.
And a hamam was never just about getting clean. For women of middling means, TDV says, it was the great outing: they brought food and ate it at midday right on the göbek taşı. And two days before a wedding the bride was taken to the gelin hamamı, the “bride’s hamam”.
As you leave, someone will say Sıhhatler olsun!, literally “may it be health”. TDK has it as what you say to someone who’s just washed or been shaved, so you’ll hear it at the barber’s too.
8Dialogue: a hamam with no water
July. Orhan Bey’s garden window is nearly done, and the office has a new job: an old neighbourhood hamam in Üsküdar, shut for years. They’re met by the hamamcı, the man who used to run it.
Hamamcı:
Hoş geldiniz! Buyurun, girin. Hamamımız biraz eski, biraz yorgun, ama hâlâ ayakta.
Zehra:
Hoş bulduk. Orhan Bey bize bu hamamı çok anlattı. Çocukken babasıyla buraya gelmiş.
Glad to be here. Orhan Bey’s told us a lot about this hamam. He says he came here with his father as a boy.
Hamamcı:
Nuri Bey’i hatırlıyorum. Orhan o zaman küçük bir çocuktu ve sıcaklığı hiç sevmedi! Orhan Bey nasıl? Penceresi bitti mi?
I remember Nuri Bey. Orhan was a little boy then, and he never liked the hot room! How is Orhan Bey? Is his window finished?
Kerem:
Bitmek üzere. Bittikten sonra hepimiz onda çay içeceğiz.
It’s about to be finished. Once it’s done, we’re all having tea at his place.
Hamamcı:
Kırk yıl bu hamamda çalıştım. Son müşterimiz on yıl önce geldi.
I worked in this hamam for forty years. Our last customer came ten years ago.
Kerem:
Aa! Kapı kendi kendine açıldı!
Oh! The door opened by itself!
Hamamcı:
Korkmayın, Kerem Bey. Bu kapı her zaman kendi kendine açılır. Belki son müşterimiz!
Don’t be frightened, Kerem Bey. This door always opens by itself. Maybe it’s our last customer!
Kerem:
Defne, ben hiç hamama gitmedim. Burada insan önce ne yapar?
Defne, I’ve never been to a hamam. What do you do here first?
Defne:
Ben annemle yılda bir kere hamama giderim. Ama siz anlatın, lütfen!
I go to the hamam with my mother once a year. But you tell him, please!
Hamamcı:
Anlatayım. Önce burada soyunursunuz ve peştamala sarınırsınız.
Let me tell you. First you get undressed here and wrap yourself in a peştamal.
Hamamcı:
Sonra sıcaklığa geçersiniz, göbek taşına uzanırsınız ve terlersiniz.
Then you go through to the hot room, stretch out on the göbek taşı and sweat.
Defne:
Şu kubbeye bakın! Işık şu küçük yuvarlak camlardan geliyor.
Look at that dome! The light comes in through those little round panes.
Zehra:
Bu camların hepsini koruyacağız.
We’ll keep every one of those panes.
Hamamcı:
Terledikten sonra tellak gelir. Sizi keseler, sonra yıkar.
Once you’ve had a good sweat, the tellak comes. He scrubs you, then he washes you.
Kerem:
Tellak mı? Yok, teşekkür ederim. Ben kendim yıkanırım!
A tellak? No, thank you. I’ll wash myself!
Hamamcı:
Olur, Kerem Bey. Kendi kendinize de keselenebilirsiniz. Ama sırtınızı keseleyemezsiniz!
As you like, Kerem Bey. You can scrub yourself, too. But you can’t scrub your own back!
Defne:
İşte bu yüzden tellak var!
That’s what the tellak is for!
Hamamcı:
Yıkandıktan sonra soğuklukta dinlenirsiniz. Kurulanırsınız, giyinirsiniz, bir çay içersiniz. Kapıda ben de size “Sıhhatler olsun!” derim.
After your wash you rest in the cool room. You dry yourself, get dressed and have a glass of tea. And at the door I say to you, “Sıhhatler olsun!”
Kerem:
Ben ne derim?
And what do I say?
Hamamcı:
“Sağ olun” dersiniz. Hepsi bu.
You say “Sağ olun” — thank you. That’s all there is to it.
Zehra:
Kerem Bey, bu kubbeyi çizmeden önce kendiniz bir hamama gitmelisiniz. Cumartesi ne yapıyorsunuz?
Kerem Bey, before you draw this dome, you must go to a hamam yourself. What are you doing on Saturday?
Kerem:
Cumartesi mi? Galiba hamama gidiyorum.
Saturday? Looks like I’m going to a hamam.
Defne:
Kendine iyi bak, Kerem! Tellak seni çok iyi keseleyecek.
Take care of yourself, Kerem! The tellak is going to give you a really good scrub.
The reflexives: soyunursunuz, sarınırsınız, yıkanırım, keselenebilirsiniz, yıkandıktan sonra, kurulanırsınız, giyinirsiniz. kendi in three of its jobs: kendi kendine for the door, kendim and kendiniz for “myself” and “yourself” — and in Defne’s goodbye, which you can now take apart letter by letter. insan in Kerem’s question is “a person”, anyone at all. And çocukken and gelmiş are last lesson’s and Course 1 Lesson 18’s: Zehra Hanım is passing on what Orhan Bey said.
9Reading
A week later Kerem’s piece went up on the office’s website. Read it through; open a translation only where you’re stuck.
Bir mimar hamamda
Kerem’s piece for the office’s website.
Ben bir mimarım ve geçen cumartesiye kadar hiç hamama gitmedim.
I’m an architect, and until last Saturday I’d never been to a hamam.
Büromuz şimdi Üsküdar’da eski bir mahalle hamamını restore ediyor.
Our office is restoring an old neighbourhood hamam in Üsküdar just now.
Zehra Hanım bana “Bu kubbeyi çizmeden önce kendiniz bir hamama gitmelisiniz” dedi.
Zehra Hanım told me, “Before you draw this dome, you must go to a hamam yourself.”
Ben de cumartesi sabahı eski ama hâlâ açık bir hamama gittim.
So on Saturday morning I went to an old hamam that’s still open.
Soyundum ve peştamala sarındım.
I got undressed and wrapped myself in a peştamal.
Peştamal hemen yere düştü.
The peştamal promptly fell to the floor.
Yanımdaki yaşlı bir amca güldü ve bana yardım etti: “İyi bağla, oğlum!”
An old man next to me laughed and gave me a hand: “Tie it properly, son!”
Sonra sıcaklığa geçtim ve göbek taşına uzandım.
Then I went through to the hot room and stretched out on the göbek taşı.
Yukarıda, kubbede, küçük yuvarlak camlar var; ışık oradan geliyor.
Up in the dome there are small round panes of glass, and the light comes in through them.
Yarım saat terledim ve hiçbir şey düşünmedim.
For half an hour I sweated and thought about nothing at all.
Sonra tellak geldi.
Then the tellak came.
“Kendim keselenirim” dedim.
“I’ll scrub myself,” I said.
Kendi kendime keselenmeye başladım, ama sırtımı keseleyemedim.
I started scrubbing myself, but I couldn’t do my back.
Sonunda tellak beni keseledi.
In the end the tellak scrubbed me.
Kollarıma baktım: kir! Bu kadar kir benden mi çıktı?
I looked at my arms: dirt! Did all that come off me?
Tellak sadece güldü: “Herkes ilk gün aynı şeyi söyler.”
The tellak just laughed. “Everyone says that the first time.”
Sonra beni yıkadı.
Then he washed me.
Soğuklukta kurulandım ve dinlendim. Sonra giyindim.
In the cool room I dried myself and rested. Then I got dressed.
Bir bardak çay içtim; kendimi çok hafif hissettim.
I had a glass of tea and felt very light.
Ben çıkarken tellak kapıda “Sıhhatler olsun!” dedi.
As I left, the tellak said “Sıhhatler olsun!” at the door.
Ben de “Sağ olun!” dedim.
And I said, “Thank you!”
Pazartesi sabahı Zehra Hanım ilk soruyu sordu: “Kubbe kaç metre?”
On Monday morning Zehra Hanım asked the first question: “How many metres is the dome?”
Bilmiyorum. Ölçmeyi unuttum.
I don’t know. I forgot to measure it.
Ama şimdi bir şey biliyorum: bu hamamı restore ederken kubbedeki küçük camları koruyacağız.
But one thing I do know now: when we restore this hamam, we’ll keep the little panes in the dome.
Bu cumartesi yine gidiyorum. Bu kere önce ölçeceğim, sonra yıkanacağım.
I’m going again this Saturday. This time I’ll measure first, and wash afterwards.
Kendi kesemi de yanıma alacağım.
And I’m taking my own kese.
kir is “dirt” and ölçmek “to measure”; metre and restore etmek you’ll recognise. çizmeden önce is Course 1 Lesson 24’s, çıkarken and restore ederken are last lesson’s, and so is bu kere, from Orhan Bey’s letter.
1What did Kerem forget to do at the hamam?
2Who scrubbed Kerem’s back in the end?
3What will Kerem take with him on Saturday?
10The lesson’s new words
These are the words the lesson brought in for the first time, in the order you met them. The reflexive forms of verbs you already know — yıkanmak, hazırlanmak, giyinmek and the rest — aren’t here. Of the new pairs in the first two sections, the reflexive verb is here, and the plain one — taramak, kurulamak, övmek and the rest — stays there, with its meaning. The hamam words that turn up only in “Türkiye up close” — camekân, kurna, natır, nalın — stay there too.
New words
- taranmakto comb your hair
- kurulanmakto dry yourself
- soyunmakto get undressed
- övünmekto boast, to show off
- sevinmekto be glad
- eğilmekto bend down
- kendiself; own
- hissetmekto feel
- kendi kendineby yourself; to yourself
- kesescrubbing mitt
- peştamala thin cloth to wrap yourself in at the hamam
- hamamhamam, Turkish bath
- soğuklukthe hamam’s cool room
- sıcaklıkthe hamam’s hot room
- göbek taşıthe heated marble platform in a hamam
- tellakbath attendant
- Sıhhatler olsun!said to someone fresh from a bath or a shave
- uzanmakto stretch out, to lie down
- keselemekto scrub with a bath mitt
- kirdirt
- ölçmekto measure
11Say it yourself
Out loud first, then the answer. Each one needs a reflexive verb or kendi in one of its jobs. Getting it wrong and then checking is exactly what this is for.
I had a wash and got dressed
Yıkandım ve giyindim.
get ready, we’re leaving in five minutes
Hazırlan, beş dakika sonra çıkıyoruz.
get yourself some tea
Kendine bir çay al.
I wrote this text myself
Bu yazıyı kendim yazdım.
he’s talking to himself
Kendi kendine konuşuyor.
everyone should bring their own scrubbing mitt
Herkes kendi kesesini getirsin.
12Check yourself
Six items. A miss shows you the right answer straight away, and why.
1Match each picture to its word.
2Fill in the right word: “In the morning I had a wash and went to work.”
Sabah ? ve işe gittim.
3Kendinize iyi bakın — who is it said to?
4Fill in the right word: “I drew this plan myself.”
Bu planı ? çizdim.
5How do you say “Defne and Kerem looked at each other”?
6Fill in the right word: “Everyone should bring their own peştamal.”
Herkes ? peştamalını getirsin.
13Homework
Two to say aloud, three to write. Write by hand or in your phone’s notes, then read it aloud: the ear finds what the eye let through.
- Your morning out loud, in reflexive verbs only: yıkanırım, giyinirim, taranırım, hazırlanırım… Then yesterday morning the same way: yıkandım, giyindim…
- The forms of kendi out loud, through every person, with one sentence: kendime bir çay aldım, kendine…, kendisine… — all the way to onlar.
- Something you did kendi kendime, on your own: learned, mended, drew, cooked. Five or six sentences, with at least one kendim, “myself”.
- A bath-house, a hamam, a pool or a spa — where have you been? Tell it step by step, with three reflexive verbs.
- Three sentences with kendi, “own”, and three with birbiri, “each other” — about people at your work or at home.