Kazakh With: the Instrumental

Kazakh grammar for beginners · Who you did it with, and what you did it with

The instrumental case marks the instrument or tool used to perform an action ("with a spoon"), the means of transportation ("by bus"), accompaniment ("with a friend"), and routes of motion ("along the street").

Unlike all other Kazakh cases, the instrumental suffix does not change its vowel for vowel harmony — its vowel is always front e (е). Only the initial consonant assimilates to the preceding sound: -men (-мен), -ben (-бен), or -pen (-пен).

Choosing the shape

Sound before the ending	Back vowels (a, o, ū, y (а, о, ұ, ы))	Front vowels (ä, e, ı, ö, ü (ә, е, і, ө, ү))
a vowel, a sonorant (r, l, i, u (р, л, й, у)), or a nasal (m, n, ñ (м, н, ң))	-men (-мен)	-men (-мен)
a voiced fricative: j, z (ж, з)	-ben (-бен)	-ben (-бен)
a voiceless consonant: k, q, p, s, t, f, h, ş (к, қ, п, с, т, ф, х, ш), or b, v, g, d (б, в, г, д)	-pen (-пен)	-pen (-пен)

The three shapes

Personal pronouns in the instrumental case

Instead of attaching directly to the bare pronoun (which would produce awkward repetition like *menmen (*менмен)), the singular pronouns attach the instrumental ending to their accusative forms (menı (мені), senı (сені), and ony (оны)): menımen (менімен) ("with me"), senımen (сенімен) ("with you"), and onymen (онымен) ("with him / her / it").

In comparison, Turkish builds these singular pronoun instrumentals on the genitive case (benimle, seninle, onunla).

All other personal pronouns attach regular endings to their standard base forms: sızben (сізбен), bızben (бізбен), sendermen (сендермен), sızdermen (сіздермен), and olarmen (олармен).

Asking with whom and with what: kımmen? (кіммен?), nemen? (немен?)

Tools, vehicles, and means of action

The instrumental case marks the vehicle used for travel, the tool used for an action, and the formal manner or order under which an action is performed.

The conjunction "and": men / ben / pen (мен / бен / пен)

When written as a separate word between two nouns, men / ben / pen (мен / бен / пен) functions as the coordinating conjunction "and" (joining pairs of nouns). It follows the exact same phonetic harmony rules as the suffix.

To connect longer clauses or elements other than paired nouns, Kazakh uses jäne (және) ("and").

Accompaniment: doing things together

The person you do something together with takes the instrumental case ("with the girls", "with the children").

Routes of movement: along a street or road

When describing motion along a path, street, or route, Kazakh marks the route with the instrumental case ("along this street").

Instrumental case after possessive suffixes

When attaching to possessive suffixes, the instrumental ending follows the regular consonant harmony rules:

- 1st person -m (-м) and 2nd person -ñ (-ң) end in nasals → take -men (-мен).

- Polite 2nd person -ñyz / -ñız (-ңыз / -ңіз) ends in voiced z (з) → takes -ben (-бен).

- 3rd person possessives (-y / -ı / -sy / -sı (-ы / -і / -сы / -сі)) end in vowels → take -men (-мен) (unlike other cases, no buffer -n- (-н-) is inserted).

Parallel structures in Turkish

Both Kazakh and Turkish use the exact same root for both the case ending ("with / by") and the conjunction ("and"): Turkish ile (cliticized as -le / -la) matches Kazakh men / ben / pen (мен / бен / пен).

In vowel harmony, Turkish -le / -la alternates between front and back vowels (evle, arabayla), whereas Kazakh instrumental has an invariant front vowel e (е) across all words (üimen (үймен), balamen (баламен)). Instead, Kazakh alternates its initial consonant (-men (-мен), -ben (-бен), -pen (-пен)).

Both languages share the primary roles of tools (kaşıkla ↔ qasyqpen (қасықпен)), transportation (trenle ↔ poiyzben (пойызбен)), and accompaniment (arkadaşımla ↔ dosymmen (досыммен)). For routes, Turkish uses the ablative case (bu caddeden git), whereas Kazakh uses the instrumental case (osy köşemen baryñyz (осы көшемен барыңыз)).

Personal pronouns in both languages use a modified base to avoid repetition: Turkish attaches to the genitive stem (benimle, seninle, onunla), whereas Kazakh attaches to the accusative stem (menımen (менімен), senımen (сенімен), onymen (онымен)).

Keep going

← What: the Accusative · All Seven Together →

All Kazakh lessons

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• How the Letters Behave — The things spelling does not tell you
• Turkish ↔ Kazakh Sound Laws — Six rules that unlock hundreds of words for free
• Vowel Harmony — The same system as Turkish — with one simplification
• Numbers — One to a thousand, and what a number does to the word after it
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• Months — Twelve names to learn outright
• Seasons — The four, and the weather that comes with them
• The Plural — One suffix, six written shapes
• Body Parts — From the top of the head to the sole of the foot, and the organs in between
• Personal Pronouns — Four ways to say "you", one word for "he" and "she"
• Possessive — The ending goes on the thing owned
• Family and Kinship — Lineages, generational ties, and reciprocal kinship
• The Copula — Saying "I am a teacher" with no verb at all
• Saying What Something Is Not — One extra word, and the personal ending moves onto it
• Asking a Question — One small word at the end, and nothing else moves
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• Where: the Locative — Location and time: one ending
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• Where from: the Ablative — Starting points, origins, and standards of comparison
• Whose: the Genitive — Possession, definite noun phrases, and relationships
• What: the Accusative — The thing an action is done to — marked only when it is a particular one
• All Seven Together — What each ending marks, and every shape it takes
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• Simple Past Tense — Witnessed and completed past actions in {{-ды / -ді / -ты / -ті}}
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• Verb Differences & False Friends — How common Kazakh and Turkish verbs parted ways over time

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