Salam! This Azerbaijani course was developed by the U.S. Peace Corps for its volunteers going to Azerbaijan. It can be useful as a primer for learning the basics of the Azerbaijani language. You can listen and follow along to each lesson or download the whole course directly.

Download Full Course (PDF and Audio Files)

Introduction

The Azerbaijani language is the official language of the Azerbaijan Republic. Azerbaijani is spoken by about 8 million people in Azerbaijan Republic and generally by 50 million people all over the world. Azerbaijani is a member of the Turkic branch of the Altaic language family, which includes about 20 languages. Close to 150 million people speak these languages in the area that stretches from the Adriatic Sea in the west to Mongolia, Siberia and China in the east. Specifically, Azerbaijani belongs to the Oghuz Seljuk sub-group, along with (Osmanli) Turkish. Other well-known members of the Turkic branch include: Uzbek, Kipchak, Kyrgyz, Tatar, and Kazakh. The Turkic languages closely resemble each other and form a complex  of mutually intelligible dialects.

Characteristic features of the Azerbaijani language are:

·         Like all of the Turkic languages, Azerbaijani is agglutinative, that is, grammatical functions are indicated by adding various suffixes to fixed stems.

·         Separate suffixes on nouns indicate both gender and number, but there is no grammatical gender.

·         Absence of initial and final consonant clusters (with some exceptions for the final consonant clusters)

·         Absence of articles

·         Instead of prepositions, it uses postpositions . For example: Anam ilə = with my mother

·         Nouns are inflected for case. There are five case endings.

·         It is subject-object-verb language

·         It has a vowel harmony

The Azerbaijani language has 32 letters. Stress always falls on the last syllable.

Lesson 1 – Azerbaijani Alphabet

[/expand]

Lesson 2 – Personal Pronouns

[/expand]

Lesson 3 – “To Be”

[/expand]

Lesson 4 – Greetings

Dialogue 1

Dialogue 2

Dialogue 3

Dialogue 4

Dialogue 5

[/expand]

Lesson 5 – More Greetings

Saying “salam” when you meet people is very important for Azerbaijanis. When someone doesn’t say “salam,” people think: “Where is your salam? You don’t even say God’s salam?”

“Necəsən?” (informal) or “Necəsiz?” (formal) is used when people know each other.

Note that “sən” is used for informal; “siz or siniz” is used for formal address for the second person singular. For example: yaxşısan? (informal), yazşısınız? (formal).

[/expand]

Lesson 6 – Goodbye

Dialogue 1

Dialogue 2

Dialogue 3

Dialogue 4

Dialogue 5

[/expand]

Lesson 7 – Possessive Pronouns

In Azerbaijani, Possession contains two parts: possessor and possessed. The possessor is a noun or a pronoun in genitive case: mənim (my), sənin (your), bacımın (my sister’s) etc. and possessed is a noun that has possessive suffixes: anam (my mother), qardaşın(your brother), atası (his/her father).

For example: Mənim bacım (My sister). Sənin bacın (Your sister). Onun bacısı (His/her sister). Bizim bacımız (Our sister). Sizin bacınız (Your sister). Onların bacısı (Their sister).

[/expand]

Lesson 8 – Getting Aquainted

Dialogue 1

Dialogue 2

Dialogue 3

Dialogue 4

[/expand]

Lesson 9 – Introductions

Dialogue 1

Dialogue 2

Azerbaijanis typically use first names followed by a title. For women, the title Xanım (KHAH-nim) is used. It means "woman or lady" and does not indicate if the woman is married or single, much like the Western term, "Ms." Example: Nargiz xanım, Fidan xanım.

The most frequently used titles for men are müəllim (teacher) (moh-al-LIM) for a person related to academics or intellectual life or cənab (Jənab)(sir) for officials or bəy mostly used by opposition parties. Locals use “xanım” or “cənab” too when they address the high rank foreign officials.

[/expand]

Lesson 10 – Politely Speaking

Dialogue 1

Dialogue 2

Dialogue 3

Dialogue 4

Dialogue 5

[/expand]

Lesson 11 – Command Verbs

[/expand]

Lesson 12 – Formal and Informal Commands

Note that, for commands, in formal and polite speech – in, -ın,- un,- ün is added to the verb stem according to the vowel harmony.

[/expand]

Lesson 13 – Present Tense

The present tense is formed by adding – (y)ir(ır,ur,ür) to the verb root.

For example: işləmək (to work) - işlə+y+ ir (works); gəlmək (to come)- gəl+ir (comes); oxumaq (to read)- oxu+y+ ur (reads). The negative is formed by adding-ma,-mə or -m to the root of the verb before adding the present tense suffix

For example: işlə+y+ir--------- işlə+M+ir (doesn’t work), gəl+ir------- gəl+M+ ir (doesn’t come).

[/expand]

Lesson 14 – Expressing Needs and Questions

Dialogue 1

Dialogue 2

Dialogue 3

[/expand]

Lesson 15 – Question Words

[/expand]

Lesson 16 – Adjectives

[/expand]

Lesson 17 – Agreeing and Disagreeing

[/expand]

Lesson 18 – Asking for Things and Offering Assistance

[/expand]

Lesson 19 – Talking About Language

[/expand]

Lesson 20 – Asking for Directions

Dialogue 1

Dialogue 2

Dialogue 3

Dialogue 4

Dialogue 5

Dialogue 6

[/expand]

Lesson 21 – Conversation With a Host Family

Dialogue 1

Dialogue 2

Dialogue 3

Dialogue 4

[/expand]

Lesson 22 – Expressing Likes and Dislikes

Dialogue 1

Dialogue 2

Dialogue 3

Dialogue 4

Dialogue 5

[/expand]

Lesson 23 – Numbers

[/expand]

Original Course Text

Download Full Course (PDF and Audio Files)

View other Peace Corps courses