Setting up a Turkish voice
- Record 5 to 15 seconds of a native Turkish speaker.
- Set the voice's Language to Turkish.
- Test with words containing ı, a number with a suffix and a proper name with an apostrophe.
Dotted and dotless i
Turkish has two different i's, and swapping them changes the word: sınır (border) and sinir (nerve), kır (countryside) and kir (dirt). Two things to know:
- Avoid capitals. Text is turned into lower case before it's read, using rules that make a capital I into a dotted i. So KIRMIZI in capitals can come out as "kirmizi". Write in normal lower case.
- Names that start with I. For the same reason, Işık or Irmak can come out as "işık" or "irmak" wherever they appear. Write them in lower case in the script (ışık, ırmak); fix the capital in captions afterwards.
- Watch the first word of a line. The first letter of every line is capitalized before it's read, so a line beginning with a word in ı, like ılık, can still get a dotted i. Rephrase so that word isn't first. Names starting with İ, like İstanbul, are worth a listen too.
Writing Turkish for the voice
- Numbers with suffixes: the suffix depends on how the number is said, so write it out: 3'te → üçte, 2026'da → iki bin yirmi altıda.
- Proper nouns: keep the apostrophe before suffixes (Ankara'ya, Ali'nin).
- Circumflex: keep it where it changes meaning: kâr (profit) and kar (snow).
- Money and times: ₺250 → iki yüz elli lira; 14.30 → on dört otuz, or iki buçuk.
- Abbreviations: vb. → ve benzeri, vs. → vesaire, Dr. → doktor, TL → lira.
A passage to record
Haftalardır bunu kaydetmek istiyordum, o yüzden başlıyoruz. Sakin bir akşam, kahve hazır ve sonunda kendime ayıracak
birkaç dakikam var. Bakalım kulağa nasıl gelecek.
"I've wanted to record this for weeks, so here we go. It's a calm evening, the coffee's ready, and at last I have a few minutes to set aside for myself. Let's see how it sounds."
A dialogue to test with
Elif: Geldin mi? Saat sekizden beri bekliyorum.
Emre: Kusura bakma! Trafik çok sıkışıktı.
Elif: Neyse, şimdi buradasın. Sipariş verelim mi?Games and series
Turkish dialogue for games and dubbed series benefits from a native sample per character, and a native listener for every line. See game dialogue and localizing video.