The aorist -r: habits, rules, and politeness

This is the tense English speakers underuse the most, because English hides it. Compare «I am drinking tea» with «I drink tea». The first is a report on right now; the second is a fact about you. Turkish keeps those apart with two different tenses, and the second one is the aorist. Use it for three things: 1) habits and general truths — Her sabah çay içerim. Güneş doğudan doğar. 2) willingness and offers — Yardım ederim. I'll help. 3) polite requests — Bir bardak su alır mısınız? Would you have a glass of water? The shape: a stem ending in a vowel just takes -r (bekle → bekler). A one-syllable stem ending in a consonant usually takes -ar/-er (gel → gelir is the common irregular; yap → yapar). Longer stems take -ir/-ır/-ur/-ür. There is a handful of irregular one-syllable verbs — al, bil, bul, gel, gör, kal, ol, öl, ver, var, vur, gel — and that short list is the only memorization in the chapter. The negative is genuinely odd and worth learning as a chunk: içmem (I don't drink), içmezsin (you don't drink), içmez (he doesn't drink). The -mez form is what you will hear in signs and rules.