There are many different love words and phrases that you can use in Turkish, whether for familial relationships, friends or lovers. While some of them are only used among friends, some can also be used with a partner. 💙
This post will help you to learn the most common Turkish words and sentences related to love, as well as grammatical tips from a Turkish member of the uTalk team.
If you want to learn more Turkish words and phrases that you can use in your daily life we recommend you check out the 60+ topics on the uTalk app. And, in case saying “I love you” in one language isn’t quite enough for you, you can learn it in more than 150 languages by downloading the uTalk app and taking a look at the ‘Social Phrases’ topic. Download the application here and give it a try!
Table of Contents
- Turkish words to say to your partner
- Turkish words to say to your friends
- Turkish love phrases and fun bonuses
Turkish is a very sincere language! You can turn almost any word into a term of endearment for a loved one. For example, the word Boncuğum, ‘my bead/my pearl’, or even the slightly humorous word Böceğim, ‘my bug’, can be used as terms of endearment. Therefore, in addition to the Turkish words and phrases you’ll learn in this post, please remember that you can make up many of them and say them to the person you love—but don’t misuse this power! 😅
Turkish words to say to your partner
| Turkish | English | Comments |
| Aşkım | My love | The word aşk means ‘love’ in English |
| Sevgilim | My love | This word has the same meaning as aşkım but they come from different roots. The verb sev/sevmek means ‘to love’. While the suffix -gi (sevgi) changes the meaning to ‘love’, adding the suffix -li makes the word mean ‘dear/beloved’. |
| Bebeğim | My baby | The word bebek means ‘baby’. |
| Yavrum | My baby | Although this technically means ‘my baby’, it’s not the most polite thing to say to your lover. It’s slang. |
| Hayatım | My life | Yes, you guessed it! Hayat means ‘life’. |
| Bitanem/bir tanem | My one and only | Bitanem is the non-standard way of writing bir tanem. Although technically it should be written as bir tanem, as bir means ‘one’ and tanem means ‘only’, people mostly write it as bitanem. |
| Canım | My darling | The word can means ‘soul/life’. |
| Kalbim | My heart | The word kalp means ‘heart’ in Turkish. |
| Balım | My honey | The word bal means ‘honey’. |
As you may have noticed, the words we’ve learnt so far always end with -ım/-im/-um/-em suffixes. Why is that?
🚨 -ım/-im/-um/-em suffixes give the meaning of belonging to the word. In the context of love words, if a word ends with the letter ‘m’, e.g. sevgilim, it means ‘my love’, while the letter ‘n’, e.g. sevgilin gives the word the meaning ‘your love’.
Turkish words to say to your friends
Although the words you learnt in the previous section are mostly used for lovers, you can also use them in female friendships, especially canım!
We listed the most common Turkish love words used among women and men separately in this section.
| Turkish | English | Comments |
| Güzelim | My beauty | The word güzel means ‘beautiful’ in English. |
| Fıstık/Fıstığım | Peanut/my peanut | |
| Tatlım | My sweet/sweetheart | The word tatlı can mean ‘cute’ or ‘dessert’ depending on the context. |
| Gülüm | My rose | The word gül can mean ‘smile’ or ‘rose’ depending on the context. It’s not impolite, but it is slang. Most women would prefer the other love words over this one. |
| Şekerim | My sugar | The word şeker means ‘sugar’ in English. |
On the other hand, it is very likely you’ll hear the following love words from men talking to their male friends.
| Kardeşim | My brother | |
| Aslanım | My lion | It is used in the sense of ‘my man/my bro’. |
| Kral | King | Slang way to say ‘my man’. |
| Dostum | My friend | |
| Koçum | My coach | It is used in the sense of ‘my man’. |
And, a bonus and very common Turkish term of endearment that you can use for any close friend of yours, regardless of gender:
| Kanka/Kankam | dude/my dude |
Turkish love phrases and fun bonuses
Now that we’ve learnt Turkish words of love and endearment that can be used for friends and lovers, we can move onto the next stage and learn some love phrases.
| Turkish | English | Comments |
| Senden çok hoşlanıyorum. | I like you very much. | |
| Seni seviyorum. | I love you. | |
| Sana aşığım. | I’m in love with you. | In Turkish this sentence has a stronger meaning than saying ‘I love you’. |
| İyi ki varsın. | I’m so glad to have you. | You can use this phrase for a friend as well. |
| Ruh ikizimsin. | You are my soulmate. | You can use this phrase for a friend as well. |
And, fun bonuses:
| Turkish | English | Comments |
| Ya benimsin ya kara toprağın. | Either you’re mine or black soil’s. | It means ‘if I can’t have you, no one can’. ⚰️ |
| Köpeğin olayım. | Let me be your dog. 🐶 | It’s a funny sentence which is used in desperate times. If you’re ready to do anything to be with a person, you can say this sentence to them. |
Don’t you think there are a lot of love words that can be learnt in Turkish?
We’re sure there are many words we haven’t included in the list but are used by Turkish people. However, we wanted to include the most commonly used love words and phrases in Turkish for you in this post! We hope you’ve benefitted from it and will start using what you’ve learnt on your loved ones. 💙
If you want to learn different Turkish words across more topics, start learning Turkish with the uTalk app.
Happy language learning!