How do I politely ask someone to do something in Turkish?

Add -in, -ın, -un, or -ün (chosen by vowel harmony) to the verb stem instead of using the bare command form — e.g. gelin, "please come," instead of the blunt gel, "come."

What is the difference between -in and -iniz in Turkish?

Both address more than one person, or politely address one person, but -iniz (and its vowel-harmony variants -ınız/-unuz/-ünüz) is an extra layer more formal — it's the form you see on official signs, in manuals, and in very polite service language, like kemerlerinizi bağlayınız, "please fasten your seatbelts."

How do I tell someone politely not to do something in Turkish?

Insert the negative suffix -ma or -me before the ending, with a buffer -y-, e.g. beklemeyin, "please don't wait," from bekle- + -me + -yin.

Polite Requests: The -in / -iniz Imperative

Turkish has a blunt, one-word command form — gel! (“come!”), bak! (“look!”) — that’s fine for a child, a pet, or someone you know well. The moment you’re speaking to more than one person, or you want to soften an order into a request, the verb takes a different ending. This is the form you’ll actually use with strangers, colleagues, waitstaff, and anyone you’d address as “you” formally.

What this ending does

Attaching -in (or its vowel-harmony variants -ın, -un, -ün) to a verb stem turns a blunt command into something you can say to a group, or to a single person you want to address politely:

Gelin. — Come. / Please come.
Oturun. — Sit down. / Please have a seat.
Bakın. — Look. / Please look.

There’s also a more emphatic, more formal version, built by adding an extra syllable: -iniz/-ınız/-unuz/-ünüz. It’s grammatically the same “you-plural/polite” form, just dialed up — the kind of wording you meet on signs, in instruction manuals, and in very formal announcements:

Geliniz. — Please come. (formal, e.g. a written invitation)
Oturunuz. — Please be seated. (formal, e.g. a host addressing guests)

Forming it

Both endings follow four-way vowel harmony based on the last vowel of the verb stem:

Last vowel of the stem	Polite / plural	Very formal
a, ı	-ın	-ınız
e, i	-in	-iniz
o, u	-un	-unuz
ö, ü	-ün	-ünüz

For example: bak- (“look,” last vowel a) takes -ın → bakın, while gör- (“see,” last vowel ö) takes -ün → görün — reading straight down the table by the stem’s last vowel.

If the verb stem ends in a vowel, a buffer -y- appears before the ending so two vowels don’t collide:

oku- (to read) → okuyun — please read
bekle- (to wait) → bekleyin — please wait
bağla- (to fasten) → bağlayınız — please fasten (very formal)

Stems ending in a consonant attach the ending directly, no buffer needed: gel → gelin, otur → oturun.

Negative: telling someone politely not to do something

To turn a polite request negative, insert the negative suffix -ma or -me (chosen by two-way vowel harmony from the stem) right before the ending:

Bakmayın. — Please don’t look.
Beklemeyin. — Please don’t wait.
Oturmayınız. — Please do not sit down. (very formal)

Because -ma/-me itself ends in a vowel, the buffer -y- is now always required before the ending — even for consonant-final stems like gel- and bak-, which needed no buffer in the affirmative: gel → gelin (no buffer) but gel-me-yin → gelmeyin (buffer appears once -me is added).

Exceptions worth knowing

The distinction between -in and -iniz is one of register, not of who’s being addressed. Both can be used for a group or as a polite singular “you” — -iniz just signals more formality. A shop clerk might say buyurun to a single customer, but an airline safety card will say kemerlerinizi bağlayınız (“please fasten your seatbelts”), reaching for the more formal ending because it’s addressing the public in writing.

Word order stays flexible, but lütfen (“please”) almost always comes first. Lütfen isn’t required to make a request polite — the ending already does that — but it’s common to add for extra courtesy: Lütfen kapıyı kapatın. (“Please close the door.”)

Not every polite-imperative-looking word follows the regular pattern. Buyurun (and its formal double, buyurunuz) is a fixed, idiomatic form of the verb buyurmak used as an all-purpose polite invitation — “here you are,” “go ahead,” “please come in,” “after you,” depending entirely on context. Learn it as a set phrase rather than trying to derive its meaning from the literal verb.

Examples

Lütfen kapıyı kapatın. — Please close the door.
Buraya gelin. — Come here. / Please come here.
Sorularınızı sorunuz. — Please ask your questions. (formal, e.g. an announcement)
Yavaş konuşun, anlamıyorum. — Speak slowly, I don’t understand.
Lütfen burada beklemeyin. — Please don’t wait here.
Kemerlerinizi bağlayınız. — Please fasten your seatbelts. (very formal, e.g. airline safety announcement)

Notice how the very formal examples — the kind you’d expect on a sign or in an announcement — reach for -unuz/-ınız, while everyday polite speech (asking someone to slow down, telling someone not to wait) uses the shorter -un/-in just as comfortably.

Try it yourself

Babi, Speafy’s AI tutor, will have you practice turning the same blunt command into both the everyday polite form and the very formal one, so you learn to pick the right register for a friend’s parent versus a public sign — and Speafy’s FSRS-based flashcards keep the vowel-harmony choice (and the buffer -y- that shows up in the negative) automatic.