Turkish Causative Verbs: How to Make Someone Do Something (-dir / -t / -ir)

The causative (ettirgen çatı) turns “do” into “make someone do”, “let someone do” or “have something done”: yapmak (to do) → yaptırmak (to have done), gülmek (to laugh) → güldürmek (to make laugh), dönmek (to turn) → döndürmek (to turn something, spin). In daily life you use it whenever someone else does a job for you: at the barber, the mechanic or the dry cleaner. This guide gives the rules for choosing among the causative suffixes, the short list of irregular verbs, how the sentence changes around a causative verb, and the common mistakes.

The causative suffixes at a glance

The -dIr suffix follows 4-way vowel harmony, and its d becomes t after the voiceless consonants f, s, t, k, ç, ş, h, p. The -Ir, -It and -Ar groups are lexical: you learn those verbs as vocabulary, but there are only a few dozen common ones.

Irregular causatives

A handful of very common verbs have unpredictable causatives:

Compound verbs with etmek and olmak

For compound verbs, only etmek changes: tamir etmek → tamir ettirmek (have repaired), kontrol etmek → kontrol ettirmek (have checked), iptal etmek → iptal ettirmek (have cancelled). Note et- → ettir-: the t doubles, because -tir follows the voiceless t.

What the causative means

1. Make / force: Öğretmen bizi çok çalıştırdı. (The teacher made us work very hard.)
2. Have done (a service): Arabamı yıkattım. (I had my car washed.)
3. Let / allow: Çocukları parkta oynattık. (We let the children play in the park.)
4. Make something happen to a thing: Suyu kaynattım. (I boiled the water; lit. made it boil.)
5. Lexicalised meanings, which you learn as new verbs: anlatmak (to explain, tell), bildirmek (to notify), yetiştirmek (to raise, grow), göstermek (to show), bitirmek (to finish something), uyandırmak (to wake someone).

Who does what: accusative or dative?

The causative adds a new person, the causer, as subject. The original doer (the causee) is pushed into a case:

Intransitive verbs: causee in the accusative

If the original verb has no object, the causee becomes the direct object, in the accusative:

• Bebek uyudu. (The baby slept.) → Anne bebeği uyuttu. (The mother put the baby to sleep.)
• Çocuk güldü. (The child laughed.) → Palyaço çocuğu güldürdü. (The clown made the child laugh.)
• Misafirler oturdu. (The guests sat.) → Garson misafirleri oturttu. (The waiter seated the guests.)

Transitive verbs: causee in the dative

If the original verb already has an object, that object keeps the accusative and the causee goes into the dative:

• Çocuk ilacı içti. (The child took the medicine.) → Annesi çocuğa ilacı içirdi. (His mother made the child take the medicine.)
• Tamirci arabayı tamir etti. → Arabayı tamirciye tamir ettirdim. (I had the mechanic repair the car.)
• Berber saçımı kesti. → Saçımı berbere kestirdim. (I had the barber cut my hair.)

Often the causee is simply left out: Saçımı kestirdim. (I had my hair cut.)

Combining voices

Suffixes for voice come in a fixed order: stem + reflexive/reciprocal + causative + passive, then negation and tense. That allows chains such as:

• yap-tır-ıl-dı → yaptırıldı — it was had done (it was commissioned)
• yaz-dır-ma-dı → yazdırmadı — he/she didn’t have it written / didn’t print it
• yaz-dır-t-tı → yazdırttı — he/she had (someone) write it (double causative)

The double causative (-dır + -t) is used when there is an intermediary: Müdür raporu sekretere yazdırttı is possible, but in everyday speech a single causative usually suffices. For the passive and reflexive, see the passive voice and reciprocal and reflexive verbs. You can split any of these chains in the suffix deconstructor.

Example sentences

1. Saçımı kestirdim. — I had my hair cut.
2. Gömleklerimi ütületeceğim. — I’m going to have my shirts ironed.
3. Bizi yarım saat beklettiler. — They kept us waiting for half an hour.
4. Bebeği yedirdin mi? — Did you feed the baby?
5. Bana bu filmi anlatır mısın? — Can you tell me about this film?
6. Bu fıkra herkesi güldürdü. — This joke made everyone laugh.
7. Evi boyatmak istiyoruz. — We want to have the house painted.
8. Bardağı düşürdüm, kusura bakma. — I dropped the glass, sorry.
9. Çorbayı biraz daha pişir. — Cook the soup a bit longer.
10. Gürültü beni uyandırdı. — The noise woke me up.
11. Bana fotoğraflarını göster. — Show me your photos.
12. Hafta sonu çocuklara odalarını temizlettim. — At the weekend I made the children clean their rooms.
13. Bankaya para yatırdım. — I deposited money at the bank. (yat- → yatır-)
14. Pasaportumun fotokopisini çektirmem lazım. — I need to have my passport photocopied.
15. Bu ilaç ateşi düşürür. — This medicine brings the fever down.
16. Otobüsü kaçırdık. — We missed the bus.
17. Sesi biraz azaltır mısın? — Could you turn the volume down a bit?

Common mistakes

• Using -dir on a multi-syllable vowel stem: ❌ bekledirmek, temizledirmek / ✅ bekletmek, temizletmek.
• Using -t on a one-syllable vowel stem: ❌ yetmek (for “feed”) / ✅ yedirmek. (Yetmek is a different verb: “to suffice”.)
• Regularising irregulars: ❌ geldirmek, gördürmek (for “bring”, “show”) / ✅ getirmek, göstermek.
• Wrong case for the causee: ❌ Berberi saçımı kestirdim / ✅ Berbere saçımı kestirdim.
• Forgetting the causative for services: Arabamı tamir ettim means you repaired it yourself; at a garage you say tamir ettirdim.
• Voiceless assimilation: ❌ yapdırmak, kesdirmek / ✅ yaptırmak, kestirmek.

Mini-exercise

Make the causative stem, then translate.

1. yazmak → ?
2. okumak → ?
3. içmek → ?
4. yemek (eat) → ?
5. çıkmak → ?
6. temizlemek → ?
7. gelmek → ?
8. korkmak → ?

Answers: 1. yazdırmak (have written, print) 2. okutmak (have read, scan) 3. içirmek (make drink) 4. yedirmek (feed) 5. çıkarmak (take out) 6. temizletmek (have cleaned) 7. getirmek (bring) 8. korkutmak (frighten)

Practice this

Conjugate causative verbs such as yaptırmak in any tense in the verb conjugator, then learn the mirror image of the causative in the passive voice.