Learn Turkish with short stories

Stories to read in Turkish, with the English beside each paragraph. They open in the browser, with no account needed, and each free one is also a free Turkish–English ebook for Kindle, Kobo or any e-reader: downloading needs a free account, no payment (which file to pick).

Open the Turkish–English library, where you can search the stories and filter them by level.

Want to hear it too? Turkish stories with audio are narrated, free, with a speed control.

By level:

• Beginner (A1–A2): Easy Turkish short stories for beginners, with English translation · 171 stories
• Intermediate (B1–B2): Intermediate Turkish short stories, side by side with English · 192 stories
• Advanced (C1–C2): Advanced Turkish stories, with the English alongside · 33 stories

Every story here carries its level on the Common European Framework, from A1 for beginners to C1 and beyond, so the library works as a set of Turkish graded readers, most of them free: start at the level where you understand most of a page, and move up when the English beside it is something you check only now and then.

Turkish is easier to read than its reputation suggests. It uses the Latin alphabet, is spelled almost exactly as it sounds, and its grammar is very regular, with few exceptions to learn.

The challenge is that almost nothing else is familiar. Words are built by adding suffix after suffix to a root, and sentences run in a different order from English, with the verb at the end. With the English next to each paragraph, you can see how a long word or sentence was meant and start to recognise the pieces it is made from.

For Turkish speakers, a parallel text is a way into books in English without reaching for a dictionary every few lines. Read the English and look across to the Turkish when a phrasal verb, an idiom or a long sentence doesn’t land.

It works for bilingual families too: one book, two languages on the same page, so a parent and a child can each follow in the language they read best.

396 English stories in the library have Turkish alongside: Kısa hikâyelerle İngilizce öğrenin.

Long out of copyright and easy to find as EPUBs. Any of them makes a good first Turkish–English parallel text:

• Aşk-ı Memnu, Halit Ziya Uşaklıgil
• Kürk Mantolu Madonna, Sabahattin Ali
• İntibah, Namık Kemal
• Kaşağı, Ömer Seyfettin

Or use a book you already own: the method works best with something you actually want to read. See how to read a parallel text to get the most from it.