Turkish Past Tense: -di vs -miş Explained
Use -di for what you saw or know for sure, and -miş for what you heard, worked out or just noticed. Forms with vowel harmony, many examples and common mistakes.
Learn TurkishFree app with audio, quizzes and real booksTurkish has two simple past tenses, and the difference isn't about time but about how you know. Use -di for things you saw, did or know for certain: Ali dün geldi. (Ali came yesterday.) Use -miş for things you heard from someone else, worked out from evidence, or have only just realized: Ali dün gelmiş. (Apparently Ali came yesterday.) Turkish grammars call them görülen geçmiş zaman (the seen past) and duyulan geçmiş zaman (the heard past).
The quick table
| -di | -miş | |
|---|---|---|
| What it says | You saw it or know it for sure | You heard it, inferred it, or just noticed it |
| English often adds | nothing | apparently, it seems, I hear, it turns out |
| Example | Ali dün geldi. (Ali came yesterday.) | Ali dün gelmiş. (Apparently Ali came yesterday.) |
| Forms | -dı, -di, -du, -dü (after voiceless consonants -tı, -ti, -tu, -tü) | -mış, -miş, -muş, -müş |
| Typical use | Your own memories, things you witnessed, known facts | Passed-on news, conclusions from evidence, surprise, fairy tales |
The forms
Both suffixes follow four-way vowel harmony: the vowel of the suffix depends on the last vowel of the verb stem. Only -di also changes its first consonant: after a voiceless consonant (f, s, t, k, ç, ş, h, p) the d becomes t. The m of -miş never changes.
| Last vowel of the stem | -di | -miş | Examples |
|---|---|---|---|
| a, ı | -dı / -tı | -mış | aldı, almış (took); yaptı, yapmış (did) |
| e, i | -di / -ti | -miş | geldi, gelmiş (came); gitti, gitmiş (went) |
| o, u | -du / -tu | -muş | okudu, okumuş (read); tuttu, tutmuş (held) |
| ö, ü | -dü / -tü | -müş | gördü, görmüş (saw); öptü, öpmüş (kissed) |
The personal endings differ too. Here is gelmek (to come):
| -di | -miş | |
|---|---|---|
| ben (I) | geldim | gelmişim |
| sen (you) | geldin | gelmişsin |
| o (he, she, it) | geldi | gelmiş |
| biz (we) | geldik | gelmişiz |
| siz (you, plural or polite) | geldiniz | gelmişsiniz |
| onlar (they) | geldiler | gelmişler |
Negative: add -me / -ma before the tense suffix: gelmedim (I didn't come), gelmemiş (apparently he didn't come). Question: Geldin mi? (Did you come?) puts the personal ending before mi; with -miş it goes after: Gelmiş misin?
Use -di for
Your own experiences. Dün sinemaya gittim. (I went to the cinema yesterday.)
Things you witnessed. Maç 2-1 bitti. (The match ended 2-1.) You watched it, so it's -di.
Facts everyone treats as certain. İstanbul 1453'te fethedildi. (Istanbul was conquered in 1453.)
Answers to "Have you...?" questions. Yemek yedin mi? Evet, yedim. (Have you eaten? Yes, I have.) English uses the present perfect here; Turkish uses -di.
Use -miş for
News you heard from someone else. Duydun mu? Ayşe evlenmiş! (Did you hear? Ayşe got married!) Said with -di, Ayşe evlendi sounds as if you were at the wedding or know it first hand.
Conclusions from evidence. Yerler ıslak, gece yağmur yağmış. (The ground is wet, it must have rained in the night.) You didn't see the rain, only its result.
Surprise and sudden realization. Aa, saat on olmuş! (Oh, it's ten o'clock already!) Çok büyümüşsün! (You've grown so much!) Nobody told you anything: you've just noticed.
Things you did without realizing. Telefonumu evde unutmuşum. (I've left my phone at home, I've just realized.) Uyuyakal*mışım.* (I overslept.) The first person with -miş only makes sense when you weren't aware of your own action at the time.
Fairy tales, jokes and legends. Turkish tales begin Bir varmış, bir yokmuş... (Once upon a time, literally "there was, there wasn't"), and Nasreddin Hodja stories are told with -miş from start to finish: Bir gün Nasreddin Hoca eşeğine ters binmiş. (One day Nasreddin Hodja got on his donkey backwards.)
With nouns and adjectives
The same pair works with "to be" in the past. After a vowel, a buffer y comes in.
- Ev çok büyük*tü.* (The house was very big.) You saw it.
- Ev çok büyük*müş.* (They say the house is very big.) Notice that -miş here can mean the present: what you've heard is still true.
- Dün hasta*ydım.* (I was ill yesterday.)
- Ahmet hasta*ymış.* (I hear Ahmet is ill.)
- Bu yemek çok güzel*miş!* (This food is really good!) Said while tasting it for the first time.
Common mistakes for English speakers
Using -miş for "have done". Some textbooks call -miş the "perfect" tense, and English speakers then use it for every present perfect. I've already eaten is Ben çoktan yedim in normal speech. Use -miş only when the source of the information matters.
Telling your own memories with -miş. Dün sinemaya gitmişim sounds as if you've just found out from someone else that you went. Your own day is gittim.
Passing on news with -di. If a friend told you that Mert quit his job, Mert işten ayrılmış is the natural way to pass it on. Mert işten ayrıldı claims you know it for certain.
Forgetting the consonant change. Yaptı, gitti, içti, konuştu, never yapdı, gitdi. This change only affects -di: yapmış, gitmiş.
Breaking vowel harmony. Okudu and okumuş, not okudi or okumiş. The suffix vowel follows the last vowel of the stem every time.
Questions
Does -miş sound doubtful or rude? Not by itself. It just says the information is second hand. With an ironic tone it can sound sceptical: Çok zenginmiş! can mean "So he's very rich, is he?"
What is -mişti? The pluperfect, for something that had already happened before another past event: Ben geldiğimde o çoktan çıkmıştı. (When I arrived, she had already left.)
And -iyordu? The past continuous, for an action that was going on: Ben geldiğimde o yemek yiyordu. (When I arrived, she was eating.)
Is -miş also an adjective? Yes, as a participle it describes a finished state: kızarmış ekmek (toast, literally "toasted bread"), haşlanmış yumurta (boiled egg).
Keep going
The past tense lesson has the full -di conjugation with a quiz, and the vowel harmony lesson explains the four-way rule behind every suffix in this post. If you're wondering how much work Turkish takes overall, see Is Turkish Hard to Learn?
You'll get a feel for -di and -miş fastest by reading stories, where the narrator's choice tells you who saw what. Our Learn Turkish app takes you from your first words through graded reading to Turkish literature, with a translation under every line. It's free to download, though some books and extra content need diamonds you earn while learning, or Premium.