Azerbaijani for beginners – Lesson 2

Gender

There is no grammatical gender in Azeri. The pronoun o and endings associated with it can mean he/she/it.

Articles

There are no articles, although the word bir (“one”) can be used as an indefinite article:
bir kitab “a book”.

In other cases, the definiteness or indefiniteness of an article has to be guessed from the context:
çay ucuzdur – “the tea is cheap” *or* “tea is cheap”

Plural

The plural suffix is -lar for back-vowel words, and -lər for front vowel words.

kitab-lar – book-s
ev-lər – house-s

When a singular word stands for things in general, such as in the expressions reading books, writing letters, etc the plural noun in English is translated as a singular in Azeri:

kitab oxuyuram – I am reading books/a book
məktub yazıram – I am writing letters/a letter
(another example from Google: mən bütün oğlanlara məktub yazıram. – I am writing letters to all the boys)

Similarly, when preceded by a number or other quantity word, the noun is in the singular:

iki qələm – two pens
çox kitab oxuyuram – I read many books

Noun cases

There are six cases in Azeri: Nominative, Genitive, Dative, Accusative (or definite direct object case), Locative, and Ablative. These will be covered in more detail below, but for now the endings:

Nominative	(no ending)
Genitive	(n)ın (possession – kişi-nin maşını “the man-‘s car”)
Dative	(y)a (motion towards – ev-ə “to-the house”)
Accusative	(n)ı (definite direct objects – məktub-u yazdı “he wrote the letter”)
Locative	da (shows where an object is located – ev-də “in the house”)
Ablative	dan (motion away from – ev-dən “from the house”)

Nominative case generally marks the subject or an indefinite object in a sentence. To mark a definite direct object, the case ending -(n)ı is used (from now on 4-way harmonizing suffixes will only be given with “ı”, and 2-way harmonizing suffixes with “a”.)

çay içirəm – I am drinking tea.
çayı içirəm – I am drinking *the* tea

After nouns ending in a consonant, the ending is simply tacked on:

kitab-ı	(the) book
ev-i	the house
top-u	the ball
gül-ü	the flower

For words ending in a vowel, the buffer consonant -n- is added:

meyvəni yeyirəm – I eat *the* fruit
lampanı alıram – I am buying the lamp
etc.

There is one major exception – the word su “water” which takes the buffer consonant -y-:

suyu içdim – I drank the water.

Other “exceptions” are nouns where a final vowel disappears when a case ending beginning in a vowel is added:

şəkil picture → şəkl-i
burun nose → burn-u

These will be noted as they appear.

Pronouns

mən	I
sən	you (familiar singular)
o	he/she/it
biz	we
siz	you (polite singular or plural)
onlar	they

Since verbs conjugate according to person, personal pronouns are often not used.

(Mən) kitab oxuyuram. – I am reading a book.

The definite direct object case of the pronouns is formed just like other nouns:
məni, səni, onu, bizi, sizi, onları

məni gördün	you saw me
səni çağırdım	I invited you
etc

Locative Case -da

As the name suggests, this case shows where an object is located:

stolda	on the table
məktəbdə	at the school
evdə	in the house/at home

As you can see, this single prefix takes the place of the various locative prepositions in English.

The plural suffix always comes before other suffixes, so:

ev-lər-də	in (the) houses
maşın-lar-da	in the cars

Vocabulary

kitab	book
top	ball
gül	flower
çay	tea
qələm	pen
məktub	letter, missive
meyvə	fruit
lampa	lamp
su	water
maşın	car
alma	apple
şəkil	picture
quş	bird
daş	stone
üzük	ring
ev	house
bıçaq	knife
ürək	heart
stol	table
mənzil	apartment

Exercises

Exercise A: Put the correct plural ending on the nouns below:
1) quş (bird)
2) daş (stone)
3) üzük (ring)
4) ev (house)
5) bıçaq (knife)
6) ürək (heart)
7) stol (table)
8) mənzil (apartment)

Exercise B: Do the same with the locative suffix.

Exercise C: Complete the sentences below by putting the nouns in the definite direct object case:
1) mən_ çağırdı – He invited me.
2) maşın_ satdıq – We sold the car.
3) şəkil_ çəkdim – I took the picture (exception).
4) alma_ yedim – I ate the apple.

Solutions

After you’ve done the exercises you can check whether your answer is correct using the following solutions:

Solution of Exercise A:
1) quşlar
2) daşlar
3) üzüklər
4) evlər
5) bıçaqlar
6) ürəklər
7) stollar
8) mənzillər

Solution of Exercise B:
1) quşda
2) daşda
3) üzükdə
4) evdə
5) bıçaqda
6) ürəkdə
7) stolda
8) mənzildə

Solution of Exercise C:
1) məni çağırdı – He invited me.
2) maşını satdıq – We sold the car.
3) şəkli çəkdim – I took the picture (exception).
4) almanı yedim – I ate the apple.