Home / Best apps to learn a language / Turkish
Prices and language coverage checked in September 2026.
Turkish has about 85 million native speakers and 91 million in all, by Ethnologue’s 2025 count. It is official in Turkey and Cyprus, it is the first non-German home language in Germany, per Destatis in February 2026, and 252,256 Americans reported Turkish ancestry in the 2023 American Community Survey. There is one standard, so no app has a variety to choose. What Turkish asks of an app is not the alphabet, 29 Latin letters read as written since 1928, but the structure: the verb last, meaning built by chains of suffixes, and vowel harmony shaping each one.
The big apps give Turkish less than they give Spanish or German. Duolingo’s course is A1 by an unofficial tracker’s label, with no Stories, Pimsleur sells one level, Babbel’s Turkish page prints no level, and Speak, Michel Thomas and FluentU have no Turkish at all; Busuu is the one big app whose Turkish page says B2. The best free material comes from the state, the Yunus Emre Institute’s portal, and from YouTube. So the apps below are compared on whether they explain the suffixes, where they stop, what is free on day 30 and how much Turkish you hear.
The US Foreign Service Institute puts Turkish in category III (of I to IV), about 1,100 class hours for an English speaker to reach professional working proficiency.
The alphabet is the easy part: 29 letters, 7 of them modified (ç, ğ, ı, İ, ö, ş, ü), read as written since the law of 1 November 1928. The verb usually comes last, one pronoun (o) covers he, she and it, and a word grows by suffixes, evler, başlardan, each taking the vowel before it. Language Transfer, Turkish Textbook, Busuu, Babbel and the Yunus Emre portal explain the order; Duolingo, Pimsleur, Memrise and Rosetta Stone leave it to patterns. Pick an app that explains the suffix order, and read every new sentence from its verb backwards.
Over 80% of Turkish vocabulary is native Turkic, the rest mostly Arabic, Persian and French loans from the Ottoman centuries. The Turkish Language Association, founded in 1932, replaced 6,075 words between 1934 and 1936 and 32,316 in all, so a text of the 1920s or 1930s uses Arabic and Persian words that a text of the 2020s no longer has, and anything printed before 1928 was in the Arabic script. Learn today’s words first, and read the early classics in a modernised edition.
Turkey exported US$350 million of television drama in 2017, second only to the US by that year’s figures, and sells it to about 140 countries; at MIPCOM 2024 the industry placed it third after the US and the UK. Netflix has made its own Turkish series since The Protector in 2018, and Language Reactor puts dual subtitles on Netflix and YouTube. Turkey ranks 71st of 123 countries and regions in EF’s 2025 English index, in the “Low” band, so outside the tourist areas you will need Turkish. From B1, watch one dizi episode a week with dual subtitles.
Duolingo’s Turkish is A1 by an unofficial tracker, and was left out of the 9 courses Duolingo took to B2 in April 2026. Busuu’s Turkish page says A1 to B2 in 120+ lessons. Babbel’s Turkish page prints no level, Pimsleur sells one level, Mango and Memrise state no ceiling, and Language Transfer’s course is the first 30 to 40% of a complete one, by its FAQ. The Yunus Emre Institute’s videos teach from its Yedi İklim books, which run A1 to C2. Plan on the Institute’s portal or a tutor from A2, and dizi, books and a tutor past B2.
The TYS, the Yunus Emre Institute’s Turkish proficiency exam, certifies B2 or C1 in 80 items over 180 minutes, sits 3 times a year, and opened applications for its next sitting on 27 September 2026. Ankara University’s TÖMER issues certificates at A1 to B2 and a diploma at C1, sat online every Friday, at US$180 (7,500 TL) to US$300 (12,000 TL) from 1 September 2026, as its page converts them. Naturalisation asks for Turkish sufficient for daily life, judged at an interview, with no exam and no certificate. Book the exam your university or employer names.
Best free daily course
The Turkish course is A1 by an unofficial tracker’s label, with 67 units and 902 lessons in its July 2025 data, and Turkish was not among the 9 courses Duolingo took to B2 in April 2026. There are no Stories for Turkish. It builds a daily habit for the first months, then you need more.
Good
Where it stops
Best for: A free daily Turkish habit from zero to A1; on a laptop, without the Energy cap.
Best course with corrections
Complete Turkish is 120+ lessons and 50+ hours from A1 to B2 on Busuu’s Turkish page, with a Turkish for Travel side course, and Turkish speakers in the community correct your written and spoken answers. It is the one big app whose Turkish course states B2, though it is thinner than Busuu’s Dutch, at 375+ lessons.
Good
Where it stops
Best for: A1 to B2 learners who want one course to the end and a Turkish speaker checking their sentences.
Best free audio course
Introduction to Turkish is free audio in which a teacher builds sentences with a student while you pause and answer out loud, and it explains the suffixes and the verb-last order instead of drilling them. Language Transfer’s FAQ calls its introductions the first 30 to 40% of a complete course, so plan on a course after it.
Good
Where it stops
Best for: The first weeks of Turkish grammar by ear, on a walk or a commute, before or beside a course.
Best live tutors
Preply lists 1,052 Turkish tutors, at US$3 to US$40+ a lesson and US$16 a lesson on average, per its Turkish page. Below B1, pick a trained teacher who can explain the suffixes in your language; from B1 on, a weekly lesson gives you a person who keeps the conversation in Turkish and corrects you.
Good
Where it stops
Best for: Anyone from A1 who needs a person to talk to in Turkish and to explain the suffixes.
Best free structured course
The Turkish state’s own free course: a distance portal “prepared according to the Common European Framework”, a vocabulary module with reading, listening, writing and speaking activities, live online courses to apply for, and video lessons by the Institute’s teachers on the Yedi İklim Türkçe textbooks that need no enrolment. It is the free syllabus we would pair with Duolingo.
Good
Where it stops
Best for: A1 learners and up who want a full syllabus for free and will work through a state website.
Best for phrases with native video
Memrise has an official Turkish course of 200+ lessons in 15 topics, 3,000+ words pronounced by native speakers, 75+ videos of people saying the phrases and 75+ AI conversations with MemBot, per its Turkish page. It gives no CEFR level and teaches no grammar, so pair it with a course.
Good
Where it stops
Best for: The first few hundred Turkish phrases with real voices, at the yearly price.
Best free course with a library card
Mango’s Turkish course is built on conversations, with grammar notes and pronunciation tools, per its page, which gives no lesson count and no level for Turkish. Many US public libraries give it free with a library card, which makes it a second free course beside Duolingo; without a library, it is US$10 a month on the yearly plan.
Good
Where it stops
Best for: Beginners with a US library card who want a course at no cost, with the grammar noted along the way.
Best for reading real books
Lingo7 puts a translation in your own language under every sentence of a Turkish book (49 languages), reads it aloud and drills saved words in 12 kinds of exercise. It has no Turkish shelf, so you read its Stories, then the classics you import, free as text from Turkish Wikisource. It is our app, and it has no course.
Good
Where it stops
Best for: A2 learners reading the Stories, and B1 and up readers who import Ömer Seyfettin from Turkish Wikisource or a bought EPUB of Sabahattin Ali and want their own language under the text.
Best for speaking from lesson one
Pimsleur’s Turkish is one level of 30 audio lessons, in which you answer out loud and words come back at spaced intervals; Audible’s series page lists Level 1 only, and we found no Level 2. Pimsleur publishes no CEFR level for it. At one lesson a day the course lasts a month, and then it is over.
Good
Where it stops
Best for: A trip in a month, a commute, or anyone who wants to say their first Turkish sentences out loud before they read.
Best for everyday spoken Turkish
Street interviews in Istanbul with Turkish and English subtitles on a channel of 97,000 subscribers and 448 videos, running since November 2019 and still going: the latest, on talking about the past, came out on 28 September 2026. It gives you input only: no order to learn in and no feedback on your own Turkish.
Good
Where it stops
Best for: A2 learners and up who want to hear how people in Istanbul talk, with subtitles in both languages.
Best for video input
Turkish subtitles and a translation into your language side by side on YouTube, with a dictionary on click, free for subtitles and lookups. It also works on Netflix, whose own Turkish series include The Protector, Ethos and The Club. The Netflix side broke in June 2026 and in September works with known bugs.
Good
Where it stops
Best for: B1 and up with a laptop, turning Turkish YouTube and Netflix’s dizi into listening practice.
Duolingo + Busuu + Language Transfer
Pick one course and do it every day: Busuu if you want a syllabus to B2 and a Turkish speaker correcting you, Duolingo if the game keeps you going, or the Yunus Emre Institute’s free portal for the state’s own syllabus. Listen to Language Transfer’s Introduction to Turkish for the suffixes and the word order, and learn the 29 letters in the first week. Pimsleur is the paid choice if you want to speak before you read; with a US library card, Mango is a second free start.
Memrise + Easy Turkish + Preply
Keep your course going to B1: Busuu’s runs to B2 and the Institute’s videos follow the Yedi İklim books, while Duolingo stops at A1 by the tracker’s label. Add Memrise for phrases with native video, watch Easy Turkish every week, and book a Preply tutor once a week who keeps the lesson in Turkish. Start reading with Lingo7’s Stories at A2, then graded readers you import, since it has no Turkish shelf.
Lingo7 + Language Reactor + Preply
Courses thin out here. Read Ömer Seyfettin from Turkish Wikisource or Sabahattin Ali from a bought EPUB in Lingo7, watch Netflix’s Turkish series and Easy Turkish with Language Reactor, move from learner channels to Turkish radio and podcasts made for Turks, and talk about all of it with your tutor. With a TYS or TÖMER date, book a tutor who has taught that exam.
| App | Role | Levels | Coverage for Turkish | Free | Price |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Duolingo | Best free daily course | A0 to A1 | Standard Turkish; A1 by an unofficial tracker’s label; 67 units and 902 lessons by that tracker, no Stories | Every lesson; Energy cap on a phone | US$13 to 17 a month, US$7 to 10 a month yearly |
| Busuu | Best course with corrections | A1 to B2 | 120+ lessons and 50+ hours, A1 to B2 on the course page; Turkish for Travel side course; no AI conversations for Turkish | Course with ads, not stated for Turkish | US$10 to 15 a month, US$6 to 12 a month yearly |
| Language Transfer | Best free audio course | A0 to A1 | Introduction to Turkish, the first 30 to 40% of a complete course by the vendor’s FAQ; A1 by our estimate, no vendor level | All of it | Free |
| Preply | Best live tutors | A1 to C2 | 1,052 Turkish tutors; hourly averages by country from US$14 to US$27 | None | Average US$16 a lesson, subscription only |
| Yunus Emre Institute Turkish Teaching Portal | Best free structured course | From A1 | CEFR-based state portal; video lessons on the Yedi İklim Türkçe books (a set that runs A1 to C2); live online courses on application; the portal’s own top level not printed | Portal and video lessons | Free |
| Memrise | Best for phrases with native video | A0 to A2 | Official Turkish course; 200+ lessons in 15 topics, 3,000+ words, 75+ native speaker videos; no CEFR mapping | Limited, with ads | US$25 a month, US$5 a month yearly |
| Mango Languages | Best free course with a library card | From A0 | Conversations with grammar notes and pronunciation tools; no lesson count and no level printed for Turkish | Free through many US libraries | Free via many libraries; US$10 a month yearly |
| Lingo7 | Best for reading real books | A2 to C1 | No Turkish public domain shelf; Stories in two versions, adapted for A1 to A2 and original for B1 to B2; your own books in 7 formats (EPUB, PDF, FB2, DOCX, TXT, Markdown, HTML); native audio in a Turkey accent; translation into 49 languages | First page of each book | US$5 a month, US$2.50 a month yearly |
| Pimsleur | Best for speaking from lesson one | A0 to A1 | Level 1 only: 30 lessons; no Level 2 on Audible’s series page; no vendor CEFR claim | 7 day trial | US$150 once, or about US$20 a month |
| Easy Turkish | Best for everyday spoken Turkish | A2 to B1 | Street interviews in Istanbul with dual subtitles; 448 videos, 97,000 YouTube subscribers, the latest on 28 September 2026 | All of it | Free |
| Language Reactor | Best for video input | B1 to C2 | Any Turkish YouTube video with subtitles; Netflix’s Turkish originals; Netflix working with known bugs in September 2026 | Most of it | US$6 a month, US$3.33 a month yearly |
Prices are US store or vendor prices as of September 2026, yearly plans shown as the monthly equivalent. The same app often costs less on its own site than in the App Store, and more in Europe than in the US.
Free on this site: short Turkish texts at A1, A2 and B1 with a translation.
We have no affiliate deals with any app named here, and none of the links pay us. Prices and coverage come from the vendor’s own help or pricing pages or its US store listing, checked in September 2026, and every other figure names its source in the text; the judgement calls lean on independent reviews, and on the one star reviews for the parts a landing page never shows, like what happens on renewal. Where a vendor’s pages contradict each other, the card says so.
Refund rules, the traps to avoid and the same apps compared by level for every language are on the best apps to learn a language page.
For a start, yes, and it is free: the Turkish course has 67 units and 902 lessons by an unofficial tracker’s count. On its own it is not enough: the tracker labels it A1, it has no Stories, Turkish was not among the 9 courses Duolingo took to B2 in April 2026, and its lessons teach the suffix chains and the verb-last order mostly by pattern; on a phone, Energy runs out after about 2 to 3 lessons a day, by a third-party count (the web version runs on hearts). Add Language Transfer for the structure, Busuu or the Yunus Emre Institute’s portal to go on, and a person to talk to once you can put a few sentences together.
Language Transfer’s Introduction to Turkish explains them by ear, for free, in the first 30 to 40% of a complete course by its own FAQ; Turkish Textbook explains them in plain English in writing, free; Busuu and Babbel explain grammar inside their lessons, Mango adds grammar notes to its conversations, and the Yunus Emre Institute’s portal and TÖMER teach them in a syllabus. Duolingo, Pimsleur, Memrise and Rosetta Stone leave the suffix chains to pattern. Whatever you use, learn each suffix with its vowel harmony, which decides its shape in every word (evler, başlardan).
No app does. Use the official material: the TYS sample paper, updated on 1 July 2026, for the exam that certifies B2 or C1 in 80 items and 180 minutes, with applications for the next sitting open since 27 September 2026; and TÖMER’s exams at Ankara University, certificates at A1 to B2 for US$180 (7,500 TL) to US$240 (10,000 TL) and a C1 diploma for US$300 (12,000 TL) from 1 September 2026, sat online every Friday. Naturalisation asks for Turkish sufficient for daily life, judged at an interview at the population directorate, with no exam and no certificate. Beyond that, book a Preply tutor who has taught the exam you need.
Reading shows you the suffix chains in every sentence, but the page does not teach you to follow speech, so read with audio. Lingo7, our app, puts a translation under each sentence of a Turkish book, reads it aloud in a Turkey accent and drills the words you save in 12 kinds of exercise, for US$5 a month or US$30 a year. It has no Turkish shelf, so begin with its Stories, then import the classics: Ömer Seyfettin’s stories free as text from Turkish Wikisource, and Sabahattin Ali’s Kürk Mantolu Madonna or Sait Faik’s stories, public domain in Turkey since 2019 and 2025, as a cheap EPUB from a Turkish e-book store. Project Gutenberg has no Turkish books.
For a course, Duolingo, with every lesson free and Energy capping study on a phone, to A1 by an unofficial tracker, or the Yunus Emre Institute’s portal and its video lessons on the Yedi İklim books, the state’s own syllabus; Busuu’s German and Portuguese pages give the whole course free with ads, and its Turkish page does not say. For the grammar, Language Transfer’s free audio and Turkish Textbook. For words, Sesli Sözlük and the TDK dictionary. For listening, Easy Turkish and TRT Çocuk. With a US library card, Mango. For a tutor you pay: Preply at US$16 a lesson on average on a subscription, or italki with none, from US$5 for a trial.
The FSI puts Turkish in its Category III of “hard languages”, with Finnish, Hungarian, Greek and Polish, for its distance from English. The hard part is not the sounds or the spelling: the 29 letter alphabet of 1928 is read as written, and the grammar is regular. The work is the order, the verb last and the meaning built by suffixes, which Language Transfer explains by ear and Turkish Textbook in writing. What you get for it is a family: Azerbaijani comes closest, and Iranian Azerbaijanis scored 56% receptive intelligibility of spoken Turkish in a 2017 study, though Turkish speakers find Azerbaijani harder than they expect, per a 2011 study.
From B1, yes. Netflix has its own Turkish series: The Protector (4 seasons, 32 episodes, 2018 to 2020), Ethos (8 episodes, 2020) and The Club (20 episodes, set in 1950s Istanbul). Language Reactor puts Turkish and your language side by side on YouTube for free, and on Netflix, which broke in June 2026 and in September 2026 works with known bugs. Easy Turkish gives you street Turkish with subtitles in both languages, a new video on 28 September 2026.
Read your first page free, in Turkish.