What writing system does Turkish use?

The 29-letter Latin-based Turkish alphabet, adopted in 1928 to replace the Perso-Arabic Ottoman script. Dotted İ i and dotless I ı are separate letters.

Is Stichos suitable for complete beginners with zero prior knowledge (A0)?

Yes. A0 is a primary focus, designed for readers with no prior knowledge. A1 then adds basic everyday vocabulary and simple connected clauses as your foundation grows.

Are Stichos levels the same as CEFR levels?

Not exactly. Stichos levels use the familiar CEFR names, from A0 to B2, and are modelled on the CEFR (the Common European Framework of Reference), so a Stichos B1 is meant to feel close to a B1 in your course book. They aren't an official CEFR rating, and different books and exams draw the lines in slightly different places. A0 is Stichos's own addition, just below the framework's first level.

Are the stories written by AI, and how accurate are they?

Yes. Stories are generated by AI and then checked by further automated steps against the grammar and vocabulary rules for your level. That catches most problems, but it isn't a human editor, so an occasional unnatural phrase or slip can get through. Treat Stichos as practice material, and check anything you're unsure of with a teacher or a reference.

Can I read stories with explanations in my native language?

Yes. Stichos allows you to pair any target language with any native support language. You can read a Croatian story with French glosses, or a German story with Spanish explanations.

How does word lookup work while reading?

Tap or click any word for its meaning in that sentence, explained in your own language. In the full version, you can save any word to your Vocab Bank for later review.

Is the preview free, and what happens to my email?

Yes. The preview is free and needs no account. If you join the Reading List, we use your email to send your 3 free sample stories (PDF, after you confirm your address) and to let you know when we fully open. Our Privacy Policy explains how we handle it.

Do stories include audio or narration?

Story narration isn't part of the preview. At launch, the Premium Audio add-on reads every story aloud in a natural-sounding AI voice, in 39 of our 40 languages (Esperanto doesn't have audio support yet).

Try a Free Beginner Turkish Story

Explore live-generated A1 Turkish reading passages with tap-to-translate vocabulary.

Stichos generates live A0 and A1 Turkish stories with tap-to-translate words and line-by-line English translations.

Meryem'in Doğum Günü Hediyesi

Meryem bugün büyük bir mağazaya gidiyor.

Meryem is going to a big store today.

Bugün arkadaşı Ayşe'nin doğum günü.

Today is her friend Ayşe's birthday.

Meryem Ayşe için güzel bir hediye arıyor.

Meryem is looking for a nice gift for Ayşe.

Mağazada çok güzel bir hediye buluyor.

She finds a very nice gift at the store.

Meryem renkli bir hediye kutusu alıyor.

Meryem buys a colorful gift box.

Sonra Meryem eve geliyor.

Then Meryem comes home.

Hediyeyi masaya koyuyor.

She puts the gift on the table.

Meryem hediyeyi sarmak istiyor.

Meryem wants to wrap the gift.

Masada renkli kağıt var.

There is colorful paper on the table.

Meryem kağıdı alıyor.

Meryem takes the paper.

Meryem küçük bir makas alıyor.

Meryem gets small scissors.

Kağıdı dikkatle kesiyor.

She cuts the paper carefully.

Birden makas masadan düşüyor.

Suddenly the scissors fall off the table.

Meryem eğiliyor ve makası alıyor.

Meryem bends down and picks up the scissors.

Meryem gülüyor.

Meryem laughs.

Hediyeyi renkli kağıt ile sarıyor.

She wraps the gift with colorful paper.

Üstüne uzun ve kırmızı bir kurdele bağlıyor.

She ties a long, red ribbon on top.

Hediye paketi çok güzel görünüyor.

The gift package looks very nice.

Meryem paket ile Ayşe'nin evine gidiyor.

Meryem goes to Ayşe's house with the package.

Kapıyı çalıyor.

She knocks on the door.

Ayşe kapıyı açıyor.

Ayşe opens the door.

Ayşe çok mutlu oluyor.

Ayşe is very happy.

Meryem hediyeyi Ayşe'ye veriyor.

Meryem gives the gift to Ayşe.

Ayşe hediyeyi alıyor ve gülümsüyor.

Ayşe receives the gift and smiles.

Evde müzik başlıyor.

Music starts at home.

Kutlama şimdi başlıyor.

The celebration is starting now.

Meryem ve Ayşe birlikte çok eğleniyorlar.

Meryem and Ayşe have a lot of fun together.

Quick facts about Turkish

Speakers

About 85 million people speak Turkish as a first language (estimates from 2006 to 2021) and about 6 million as a second language (2019).¹

Did you know?

Turkish replaced the Perso-Arabic Ottoman script with a Latin-based alphabet in 1928, as one of Atatürk's reforms.¹

The main challenge

Words are built by stacking suffixes, and the verb usually comes last (subject–object–verb). One word can carry a whole sentence: Evinizdeyim is ev (house) + -iniz (your) + -de (at) + -yim (I am), "I am at your house".²

Sources

About the Turkish language

Language family	Turkic → Oghuz (Western Oghuz), closely related to Azerbaijani, Gagauz and Turkmen¹
Speakers	About 91 million in total, according to Ethnologue: roughly 85 million native speakers (estimates from 2006 to 2021) and 6 million second-language speakers (2019).¹
Primary script	The 29-letter Latin-based Turkish alphabet, adopted in 1928 to replace the Perso-Arabic Ottoman script. Dotted İ i and dotless I ı are separate letters.²
Word order & typology	Subject–object–verb is the basic order, though other orders are grammatical and signal emphasis. Agglutinative, with suffixes chained onto a root and vowel harmony running through them; no grammatical gender.¹^,3
Official status	Official language of Turkey and co-official with Greek in the Republic of Cyprus. A recognised minority language in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Greece, Iraq, Kosovo, North Macedonia and Romania.¹

Turkish reading proficiency benchmarks (CEFR)

Stichos level	Approximate framework equivalent	Reader profile
A0	Pre-A1	Early Beginner
A1	CEFR A1	Beginner
A2	CEFR A2	Elementary
B1	CEFR B1	Intermediate
B2	CEFR B2	Upper Intermediate

This column uses plain CEFR levels to describe reading difficulty. The Yunus Emre Institute's Turkish Proficiency Exam (TYS) certifies only the B2 and C1 levels, so it is listed under resources rather than mapped here.

Reference corpora

Frequency work on modern Turkish centres on a balanced national corpus.¹

Turkish National Corpus: About 50 million words of contemporary Turkish from 1990 to 2013, designed largely on the model of the British National Corpus, with transcribed speech making up 2% of it.¹
Standard register: Stichos writes standard Istanbul Turkish, avoiding regional dialects, archaic Ottoman terms and slang.

https://www.tnc.org.tr/

Readability design principles

Turkish words grow long through suffixes rather than rarity, so English formulas need recalibrating. Published Turkish adaptations include:¹

Ateşman (1997): A recalibration of the Flesch Reading Ease formula for Turkish, based on average word length in syllables and average sentence length in words.¹
Bezirci and Yılmaz (2010): A SMOG-like formula that combines sentence length with separate counts of longer words by syllable band, treating polysyllabic words as their own signal of difficulty.¹
Stichos: Stichos sets difficulty with level-by-level grammar rules and sentence-length limits rather than a single readability score.

https://arxiv.org/abs/2306.03774

Script & grammar scaffolding

Tenses: A0 uses only the present continuous (-iyor) and verbless sentences such as Kahve sıcak.; the aorist appears only in fixed phrases like Teşekkür ederim. A1 adds the simple past (-di) and the future (-acak/-ecek). A2 opens the aorist, the reported past (-miş), ability (-ebil) and necessity (-meli).
Clauses: A0 is one main clause with no conjunctions and no converbs such as -ip, -erek or -ken, which hide a second clause. Simple converbs (-ince, -ip) open at A2, and participle clauses (-en, -diği) and the conditional (-se) at B1.
Word order: Readers keep the default subject–object–verb order; inverted sentences (devrik cümle) are allowed from C1.
Vowel harmony and address: Suffixes follow major and minor vowel harmony and consonant assimilation, as in the locative evde and parkta. Friends and family are addressed with sen, strangers and superiors with siz.

Related academic & framework resources

Türkçe Yeterlik Sınavı (TYS): The Yunus Emre Institute's Turkish Proficiency Exam, which has issued certificates at B2 and C1 only since January 2022.
Türk Dil Kurumu (TDK): The Turkish Language Association, which publishes the standard Turkish dictionary and spelling guide (Yazım Kılavuzu).
Turkish National Corpus: A balanced 50-million-word corpus of contemporary written and spoken Turkish, free for non-commercial use.
Exploring Linguistic Features for Turkish Text Readability: A study by Ahmet Yavuz Uluslu and Gerold Schneider that compares the traditional Turkish formulas with machine-learned models.

Frequently asked questions

What writing system does Turkish use?: The 29-letter Latin-based Turkish alphabet, adopted in 1928 to replace the Perso-Arabic Ottoman script. Dotted İ i and dotless I ı are separate letters.
Is Stichos suitable for complete beginners with zero prior knowledge (A0)?: Yes. A0 is a primary focus, designed for readers with no prior knowledge. A1 then adds basic everyday vocabulary and simple connected clauses as your foundation grows.
Are Stichos levels the same as CEFR levels?: Not exactly. Stichos levels use the familiar CEFR names, from A0 to B2, and are modelled on the CEFR (the Common European Framework of Reference), so a Stichos B1 is meant to feel close to a B1 in your course book. They aren't an official CEFR rating, and different books and exams draw the lines in slightly different places. A0 is Stichos's own addition, just below the framework's first level.
Are the stories written by AI, and how accurate are they?: Yes. Stories are generated by AI and then checked by further automated steps against the grammar and vocabulary rules for your level. That catches most problems, but it isn't a human editor, so an occasional unnatural phrase or slip can get through. Treat Stichos as practice material, and check anything you're unsure of with a teacher or a reference.
Can I read stories with explanations in my native language?: Yes. Stichos allows you to pair any target language with any native support language. You can read a Croatian story with French glosses, or a German story with Spanish explanations.
How does word lookup work while reading?: Tap or click any word for its meaning in that sentence, explained in your own language. In the full version, you can save any word to your Vocab Bank for later review.
Is the preview free, and what happens to my email?: Yes. The preview is free and needs no account. If you join the Reading List, we use your email to send your 3 free sample stories (PDF, after you confirm your address) and to let you know when we fully open. Our Privacy Policy explains how we handle it.
Do stories include audio or narration?: Story narration isn't part of the preview. At launch, the Premium Audio add-on reads every story aloud in a natural-sounding AI voice, in 39 of our 40 languages (Esperanto doesn't have audio support yet).

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Free Sample Readers · Stichos