Best App to Learn Turkish in 2026 (Vowel Harmony, Suffixes and the TYS)

The short answer: Turkish is regular and logical, but it builds words out of chains of suffixes, so the job of an app is to get those chains into your ear. For a free daily habit, Duolingo. For structured lessons, Babbel, Busuu or LingoDeer. For a free audio course, Language Transfer. For audio lessons on the go, Pimsleur. For listening to real Turkish in songs, stories and YouTube, with every word explained in your own language and traced back to its root, Soma. For flashcards you control, Anki. And the Yunus Emre Institute, which teaches Turkish as a foreign language around the world, has a free online portal. Most learners combine two: one for structure and one for listening.

Turkish has no grammatical gender, almost no irregular verbs and a spelling that matches the sound. What takes time is that one Turkish word often does the work of a whole English phrase: evlerimizden is "from our houses". This guide sorts nine apps, plus the Yunus Emre Institute's free portal and its TYS exam, by what you actually need.

How we compared them

We looked at each app's own pages and store listings in October 2026 and asked five questions:

1. What do you actually do in it? Lessons, audio, videos, songs, flashcards.
2. Does it help you take words apart? Can you see the root under the suffixes?
3. Do you hear real Turkish? Natural speech at natural speed, not single words.
4. Which language explains the Turkish? For many learners in the Arab world, Central Asia and Southeast Asia, English is a second language too.
5. What does it cost? Free, a free tier, or a subscription after a trial.

We don't quote prices, because they change by country and month. Each app's own page has the current price.

Turkish learning apps compared

Vowel harmony: why the endings keep changing

Turkish suffixes change their vowel to match the last vowel of the word they join. The plural is -ler after front vowels and -lar after back vowels: evler (houses), kapılar (doors). "In" or "at" is -de or -da: evde (at home), kapıda (at the door). Some suffixes have four forms: "my" is -im, -ım, -um or -üm, which is why "in my hand" is elimde but "in my eye" is gözümde.

You don't learn vowel harmony as a table; you learn it by hearing it until the wrong vowel sounds wrong. Both of those phrases are in the chorus of Soma's Gün Doğarken Simit: Elimde simit, gözümde umut ("Simit in my hand, hope in my eyes").

Suffixes: one word, many parts

Turkish uses suffixes where English uses prepositions and pronouns, and it stacks them: ev (house) + -ler (plural) + -imiz (our) + -den (from) is evlerimizden, "from our houses". The verb comes at the end of the sentence. And the root itself can change when a suffix is added: şehir (city) becomes şehre (to the city), and gök (sky) becomes göğe (to the sky).

That makes the dictionary hard to use at first, because the word you hear is rarely the word you look up. A tap in Soma does the taking-apart for you: in Gün Doğarken Simit, tap kapıda and you get kapı, "door"; tap şehre and you get şehir, "city"; tap göğe and you get gök, "sky". For a verb, a tap shows the stem: birikiyor ("is gathering") shows birik, "to accumulate".

Best free app to learn Turkish

The Yunus Emre Institute, which teaches Turkish around the world, runs a free online portal: courses built on the CEFR, activities for reading, listening, writing and speaking, a vocabulary module, and video lessons based on its Yedi İklim Türkçe textbooks that you can follow without enrolling in a course.

Language Transfer has Introduction to Turkish, a free audio course with no sign-up, funded by donations.

Duolingo is free with ads and is good at one thing: making you open it every day. Its weakness is depth. Learners often finish a unit able to read sentences but not to follow spoken Turkish at full speed.

Busuu's Turkish course is free to start, and Babbel and Pimsleur each let you try a lesson free.

Soma is free for one language, with every song, story and picture in it. If Turkish is your one language, you get all of the Turkish. It runs in any browser on your phone or computer; native iOS and Android apps are coming soon.

Best app for listening to real Turkish

Spoken Turkish runs suffixes together fast, and the end of the sentence, where the verb is, is exactly where beginners lose track. Listening needs its own daily practice.

• Soma builds listening in three ways. Original Turkish songs are sung word by word in karaoke, with the translation under every line; you can slow them down or switch the vocals off and sing. Spoken stories and dialogues come at four levels, and in a dialogue you can take a part and answer aloud. And a Turkish YouTube video you paste becomes a lesson. Tap any word for its meaning and its root. The songs are made with AI for learners, and every lyric is checked by people.
• Lingopie does this with TV shows: tap a word in the subtitles to translate it and save it. It suits intermediate learners who can already follow a scene.
• Pimsleur's audio lessons work hands-free, while driving or at the gym.

Try one before you decide: Gün Doğarken Simit ("Simit at daybreak") opens with Gün doğarken bu sokak ısınıyor ("As day breaks this street warms up"); tap sokak and you get "street". The full karaoke is on the page, no sign-in needed.

Best app for speaking Turkish

• Babbel has you practise speaking out loud, with AI-powered speaking practice in Babbel Speak and audio from native Turkish speakers.
• Busuu gives you feedback from Turkish speakers.
• Pimsleur's 30-minute lessons focus on speaking and pronunciation.
• Soma trains speaking through shadowing: you hear a sentence, say it back, and it scores your pronunciation word by word against Turkish (tr-TR). Scoring is on the Pro and Max plans. In a dialogue you can also take one part and answer aloud.

Best app if English isn't your first language

Most Turkish apps explain Turkish in English. If your strongest language is Arabic, Russian, Indonesian or Hindi, you are learning Turkish through a second language, and every explanation of a suffix costs you twice.

• Soma explains Turkish in the language you choose. It offers 23, including Arabic, Russian, Ukrainian, Indonesian, Hindi, Bengali, Chinese, German and Spanish. The app's menus switch to that language too.
• Duolingo, Babbel and Busuu: which language explains the Turkish depends on the course, so check what each offers from your language.

Best app for Turkish vocabulary

• Anki, if you like control. Free on desktop and Android, with the modern FSRS scheduler built in. If Anki feels like too much setup, see Anki alternatives.
• Babbel brings words back just before you would forget them.
• Soma keeps every word or line you save in one spaced-repetition review, and each word comes from a song or story you heard, so it arrives with its suffixes, a melody and a sentence attached.

Learn each word's root together with the forms you met: kapı, kapıda, kapılar. And keep your reviews short and daily: see how to learn a language with spaced repetition.

Best app for the TYS

Be careful here: a general app is not an exam course.

• The TYS (Türkçe Yeterlik Sınavı, the Turkish Proficiency Exam) is the Yunus Emre Institute's exam. It tests reading, listening, writing and speaking, and it was the first Turkish exam to receive the quality mark of ALTE, the Association of Language Testers in Europe. It is not a beginner's exam: depending on your score, the certificate is at B2 or C1. It is held at many centres in Türkiye and abroad, and its site has sample questions.
• The Yunus Emre Institute's free portal follows CEFR levels, so it is a natural way to build up to B2.
• Busuu follows CEFR levels up to B2, which helps you see where you stand.
• Soma doesn't do mock tests. What it adds is the listening and speaking the TYS tests: hours of real Turkish, and shadowing for the speaking part.

Is Duolingo enough to learn Turkish?

For a start, yes; for a real conversation, almost never on its own. Duolingo is excellent at habit and early vocabulary. It gives you little long, natural listening, and Turkish suffix chains only become automatic after you have heard them in real sentences many times. Keep the streak if it motivates you, and add a structured course and one way to listen every day. More options in Duolingo alternatives.

Frequently asked questions

Which app is best to learn Turkish for free? The Yunus Emre Institute's online portal is free, built on the CEFR, with video lessons. Language Transfer's Introduction to Turkish is a free audio course. Duolingo is free with ads, and Busuu's course is free to start. Soma is free for one language, including all its Turkish songs and stories.

Is Turkish hard to learn? Less than its long words suggest. There is no grammatical gender, the spelling matches the sound, and the rules are regular. The challenge is vowel harmony and suffix chains, and both come with listening.

Which app teaches Turkish in Arabic or Russian? Soma explains every word and song line in Arabic, Russian, Indonesian or 20 other languages, whichever you choose. For Duolingo, Babbel and Busuu, it depends on which courses exist from your language.

What level is the TYS? The TYS gives certificates at B2 or C1, depending on your score, so it is for upper-intermediate learners. Before that, the Yunus Emre Institute's free portal and CEFR courses such as Busuu help you build up to it.

Can I learn Turkish with songs? Yes, as part of a routine. Songs make suffix patterns and vowel harmony stick because the melody carries them, but you also need to read, speak and review. See best apps to learn a language through music.

How long does it take to learn Turkish with an app? It depends on your hours, and on what you already speak: Azerbaijani and other Turkic-language speakers start far ahead. Be wary of any app that promises fluency in a few weeks.

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Sources: vendor pages and store listings checked October 2026: babbel.com/learn-turkish, busuu.com, languagetransfer.org, lingopie.com, apps.ankiweb.net, turkce.yee.org.tr, tys.yee.org.tr, and the App Store listings of Language Transfer, LingoDeer, Pimsleur, Lingopie and Duolingo.

Comparing apps for another language? The same guide for Russian, Korean, German and Spanish.

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Try Soma free. Hear Turkish in songs, stories and real YouTube videos, with every word explained in your own language and kept with spaced repetition. Play Gün Doğarken Simit first, no sign-in needed, then start at app.soma.ninja; plans are on the pricing page.

Drafted with AI, edited and fact-checked by a human.