How to Learn Badinî Kurdish

Short answer: Badinî is not a separate language from Kurmancî — it is the Kurmancî of Duhok, Zaxo and Amêdî. It uses the same 31-letter alphabet, the same word order and the same negation. What differs is the present tense (yêt- instead of di-), a handful of pronouns and question words, and a layer of everyday vocabulary. So if you learn Badinî, start with the letters, then about twenty sentences, then three grammar rules — and spend one afternoon on the twenty differences that separate Badinî from standard Kurmancî. Twenty minutes a day gets most people to a simple conversation in two to three months.

This guide lays that out as a twelve-week path, with every Badinî word taken from our own Badinî A1 textbook.

What you get here

• Where Badinî sits inside Kurmancî — and why that is good news for you
• A side-by-side table of the differences between Badinî and standard Kurmancî
• Twenty-two sentences that cover most first conversations
• The three grammar pieces that carry the rest: the bûn endings, yêt- and na-
• Why written Badinî often looks like Kurmancî, and what that means for your reading
• Five mistakes that are specific to Badinî learners
• A week-by-week plan you can actually follow

First: is Badinî really what you need?

Most people arrive at this question from one of two directions. Either your family is from Duhok, Zaxo, Amêdî or Şingal and you noticed that the Kurdish you hear at home does not match the Kurdish in the courses you found online. Or you started a Kurmancî course, got along fine, and then a relative told you “that is not how we say it”.

Both are the same observation, and it has a precise answer. In our own Badinî A1 book the position is stated plainly: Badinî is a regional form of Kurmancî, mainly spoken in northern Iraq, particularly in the regions of Duhok, Zaxo and Amêdî. It belongs to Kurmancî, but it differs noticeably in everyday pronunciation, vocabulary and sentence structure from other regional forms of Kurmancî.

That matters in both directions:

• Good news: a Kurmancî course is not wasted on you. The alphabet, the word order, the negation, the numbers and most of the vocabulary are shared. You are not starting a second language.
• Bad news: a Kurmancî course will quietly teach you verb forms your family does not use. The very first verb you learn is already different.

If you are not yet sure which Kurdish your family actually speaks, read which Kurdish dialect you should learn first. Kurmancî and Soranî are not mutually intelligible, so getting that decision wrong costs months — whereas Kurmancî and Badinî are close enough that a mistake there costs an afternoon.

Where Badinî is spoken

Badinî is the Kurmancî of the Behdinan region in the north of Iraqi Kurdistan — the Duhok area, Zaxo on the Turkish border, and Amêdî in the mountains. Dialect surveys place it slightly wider than that: as “Southeastern Kurmancî”, covering Hakkâri province in the southeast of Turkish Kurdistan, the Duhok Governorate and parts of the Erbil Governorate (Wikipedia, Kurmanji dialects). Through the diaspora it travelled with those families to Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden and the United Kingdom.

You will see the name written several ways — Badinî, Badini, Behdînî, Behdini, Bahdini. They are all the same variety. We write Badinî.

One more fact worth knowing before you start, because it explains something you will run into within a week: Badinî has no standardised writing system of its own. It is primarily spoken and used in daily life, and written texts therefore tend to follow Kurmancî spelling. In speech, the forms and structures typical of Badinî are the ones you hear. Keep that split in mind — it is the single most confusing thing about learning Badinî from written material, and we come back to it below.

Badinî vs standard Kurmancî: the differences that actually matter

This is the table most Badinî learners are looking for and rarely find. Every pair below is taken from our own two A1 textbooks — the Kurmancî column from Kurmancî A1, the Badinî column from Badinî A1 — so you are comparing like with like, not one book against a forum post.

Grammar

Everyday phrases

Question words

Vocabulary you will meet on day one

Look at that list as a whole and the shape of the job becomes clear. It is not a different language. It is one verb prefix, two pronouns, four question words and a vocabulary layer — on top of a Kurmancî skeleton you can learn from any good Kurmancî resource.

Week 1: The alphabet — you may already have it

Badinî, as a regional form of Kurmancî, uses the Kurmancî alphabet: the Latin system Celadet Alî Bedirxan built in the 1930s, 31 letters in total, on one principle — one sound, one letter. There are no silent letters. Every letter you see is a sound you say, which means you can read aloud a Badinî word you have never seen and be right.

The letters that do not exist in English are the ones to spend week one on:

Two warnings that save weeks. First, vowel length changes the word: min (me, my) is not mîn (stay!), and ser (head) is not sêr (full). These are different words, not the same word said carelessly. Second, xw- is not spelled the way it sounds. In Badinî, xwi- comes out close to “cho / chu”, with a hard “ch” as in Bach: Ez yêtxwim (“I eat”) sounds like yetchoom. Our A1 book marks every one of these spots with a 🗣 symbol for exactly this reason.

Most Badinî words follow a simple shape: consonant + vowel (+ consonant). Çav (eye), şev (night), dar (tree). Stress usually falls on the last syllable, though not always, and it shifts by region and in poetry. Do not chase perfect stress in week one; pronounce every letter clearly and the rhythm follows.

If you want the letters one by one with example words, we wrote that up separately: the Kurdish alphabet, all 31 letters of Kurmancî. It applies directly to Badinî.

Week 2: Twenty-two sentences

Do not collect random vocabulary. Learn these, in this order, out loud:

Here is what a first conversation actually sounds like:

A: Silav! Tu çawanî?
Hello! How are you?

B: Ez baş im, spas. Tu çi diki?
I'm fine, thanks. What do you do?

A: Ez mamoste me. Navê min Alî ye.
I am a teacher. My name is Alî.

B: Ez xwendekar im. Navê min Zîn e.
I am a student. My name is Zîn.

Two more that are worth learning early, because they carry respect rather than information. Tu ser çavan î — literally “you are on my eyes” — is a very common expression of respect with no real English equivalent. And Xwedê gel te bît, “may God be with you”, is how older relatives will often say goodbye to you.

Weeks 3–4: The three pieces that carry everything

1. The endings of bûn (to be)

“To be” is not a separate word you place in the sentence — it is a small ending that changes with the person. Badinî has one extra wrinkle Kurmancî learners should watch: the ending depends on whether the word before it ends in a consonant or a vowel.

So: Ez mazin im (I am tall), Tu şîrîn î (you are sweet), Ew mamoste ne (they are teachers), Ez mamoste me (I am a teacher — mamoste ends in a vowel). And note that ew covers “he”, “she” and “it”: there is no grammatical gender to memorise in the basic form, and context does the work.

Badinî also keeps two sets of personal pronouns, which is worth meeting now even if it only pays off later. The basic set is for “I am…” and “I go…”; the second set appears when you possess something or talk about the past:

2. The prefix yêt- for the present tense

This is the single most Badinî thing in the language. Present tense = yêt + verb stem + personal ending. With xwendin (to read):

The endings are not new — they come from the bûn forms you just learned (im, î, …). So once you have “to be”, you have the verb endings too.

Five verbs will carry you a long way: xwarin (to eat), xwendin (to read, to study), kirin (to do, to make), çunin (to go), hatin (to come). In context: Ew nanî yêtxwit (he eats bread), Tu çayekê yêtçediki (you make a tea), Em yêtdiçîne bazarê (we go to the market).

3. The prefix na- for the negative

Swap yêt- for na-. The ending never changes. This part is identical to Kurmancî.

• Ez yêtxwim → Ez naxwim. (I eat → I do not eat.)
• Tu yêtdiçî → Tu naçî. (You go → You do not go.)

And the fourth thing: there is no verb “to have”

Badinî does not conjugate “to have” as its own verb. Possession is built from the Form 2 pronoun plus heye — and this is where Badinî is stricter than you might expect, because the number matters:

• heye for one thing: Min muşkîla heye. — I have a problem.
• hene for two or more: Min muşkîla hene. — I have problems.

Also: Te … heye (you have), Wî / Wê … heye (he / she has — Wê pişîla heye, she has a cat), Me … heye (we have), Hingû … heye (you plural have), Wa … heye (they have). Learn the pattern as one unit instead of hunting for a word meaning “have”.

The thing nobody warns you about: written Badinî looks like Kurmancî

Remember that Badinî has no standardised written norm. In practice this means you will meet both verb forms in writing — Ez yêtxwînim in the grammar tables, and Ez pirtûkekê dixwînim in a letter, a WhatsApp message or a textbook example. Both are Badinî; the second is simply Badinî written in Kurmancî spelling, which is the normal thing to do because that is the written standard available.

Do not treat this as a contradiction to resolve. Treat it as two registers: learn to produce the yêt- forms, and learn to recognise the di- forms. That is exactly what a Badinî speaker in Duhok does — speaks one, writes the other — and it is why Badinî learners who also know some Kurmancî have an advantage rather than a problem.

Weeks 5–6: Word order and questions

English puts the verb in the middle. Badinî puts it at the end.

• English (Subject–Verb–Object): I see the dog.
• Badinî (Subject–Object–Verb): Ez segî yêtbînim. — literally “I the dog see.”

Add time and place and the order becomes time – place – object – verb. “In the morning I read a book at school” is built from these pieces, in this order:

You can move a piece to the front for emphasis — Li dibistanê ez kitabekê dixwînim puts the weight on “at school” — but the verb stays at the end. Always.

Asking questions

Unlike English, the verb stays at the end of a question too.

For yes/no questions you have two options. Raise your intonation, exactly like English — Tu xwendekar î? — or put ma at the front: Ma tu xwendekar î? The second is slightly more formal and leaves no doubt that you are asking.

Answers come in shades worth knowing: erê is the neutral yes, belê means “yes, exactly”, baş e or baş is a casual “yes, alright”, balê is a formal and traditional yes you will meet in official or poetic language, and na is no. To say “no, I am not”: Na, ez nînim.

Weeks 7–8: Numbers, days and family

Numbers are the fastest win in any language, and they unlock prices, dates and ages at once: yek, du, sê, çar, pênc, şeş, heft, heşt, neh, deh. Then the teens — yazde, duazde, sêzde, çarde, pazde, şazde, hefde, hejde, nozde — and the tens: bîst (20), sî (30), çil (40), pêncî (50), şêst (60), hefte (70), heştê (80), nod (90), sed (100). Above that it is simply built: hezar (1,000), çarsed û bîst û heşt hezar (428,000).

Weekdays follow a counting pattern you only have to notice once — şembi is Saturday, and the rest count forward from it:

So: Avro dûşembi ye — today is Monday. To ask the time you say Saet çend e? and answer Saet pênc û nîv e (half past five) or Saet çar û çarrek e (quarter past four). Months carry the old Kurdish names: Rêbendan (January), Adar (March), Gulan (May), Tîrmeh (July), Rezber (September), Berfanbar (December).

Family words come early, because they are the reason most people are learning:

Possession uses the Form 2 pronouns: min (my), te (your), wî / wê (his / her), me (our), hing (your, plural), wan (their). So Birayê min bîst salî ye — my brother is twenty years old. Xalê te gelek keyfxweş e — your uncle is very funny. Dayika min ya cwan e — my mother is beautiful.

Add a handful of adjectives and you can describe anyone: mazin (big, tall), biçîk (small), jihêl (young), pîr (old, of people), kevn (old, of things), delal (kind, lovely), zîrek (hardworking), tembel (lazy), aqilmend (intelligent), harîkar (helpful), şermin (shy), keyfxweş (funny).

Weeks 9–12: From describing to talking

By now you can say who you are and what you do. The last stretch is the everyday vocabulary that turns grammar into conversation — and these four areas cover almost every beginner exchange.

Your day. Ez radibim (I get up), ez xwarina spêdê dixwim (I have breakfast), ez diçime şûlî (I go to work), ez pirtûkekê dixwînim (I read a book), ez radizêm (I go to sleep). Add frequency and you can describe a whole week: her dem or hemî gav (always), gelek car (often), hindek car (sometimes), kêmcar (rarely), çe car (never), her roj (every day). So: Ez her roj riyazê dikim — I exercise every day. Ez çe car fast food naxwim — I never eat fast food.

Your home. The rooms — oda rîniştinê (living room), oda nivistine (bedroom), metbex (kitchen), hemam (bathroom), oda xwarinê (dining room), balkon (balcony) — plus the furniture: mêz (table), kûrsî (chair), kanape (sofa), nivînk (bed), dolab (wardrobe), mexvîr (carpet), gilop (lamp). Then the prepositions that place them: ser (on), bin (under), dev (next to), pêş (in front of), pişt (behind), navbera (between). So: Mêz li ser mexvîr î ye — the table is on the carpet. Mexvîr navbera kanepê û televîzyonê ye — the carpet is between the sofa and the TV.

And the two words for what exists: heye for one, hene for several. Mêzek heye — there is a table. Gelek ode hene — there are many rooms.

Food and shopping. Nan (bread), penîr (cheese), goşt (meat), mirîşk (chicken), masî (fish), fêqî (fruit), sêv (apple), birinc (rice), av (water), şîr (milk), çay (tea), qehwe (coffee). Two patterns turn that list into a market conversation: Nan bi çendê ye? — how much does the bread cost? And Min du nan divêt — I would like two breads. Quantities work with -ek: parçêk nan (a piece of bread), kîloyek sêvê (a kilo of apples), lîtirek şîrê (a litre of milk), şişeyek av (a bottle of water).

The weather, because it is how conversations start everywhere. Hewa avro çawa ye? — what is the weather like today? Then: hetavî (sunny), ewrî (cloudy), baran yêthêt (it is raining), berf yêthêt (it is snowing), germ (hot), sar (cold), pîjîdar (foggy). And the seasons: bihar, havîn, payîz, zivistan. So: Li havînê gelek car germ e — in summer it is often hot.

Five mistakes Badinî learners make

1. Learning Kurmancî and assuming it is Badinî

This is the big one, and it is nobody's fault: there is far more Kurmancî material available, so learners use it by default. That is fine — until you produce Ez dixwim to a grandmother who says Ez yêtxwim. Use Kurmancî resources deliberately, with the difference table above open beside them, rather than accidentally.

2. Assuming Badinî is a separate language and starting over

The opposite mistake, and just as expensive. People who discover their family speaks Badinî sometimes throw away months of Kurmancî study. Don't. The alphabet, the word order, the negation, the numbers and most of the vocabulary transfer directly. You are adjusting, not restarting.

3. Reading xw- the way it is written

Xwarin, xwendin, xwişk — the xw- cluster is pronounced close to “cho / chu”, not “ksw”. Get it wrong and the most common verbs in the language sound off in every sentence you say. This is the single highest-value pronunciation fix in week one.

4. Treating heye and hene as interchangeable

One thing is heye; two or more is hene. Badinî makes this distinction consistently, and using heye for plurals is one of the clearest markers of a learner.

5. Studying in bursts

Three hours on Sunday builds less than twenty minutes a day. This is true of every language, and it is the actual reason most learners stall — not difficulty, and not talent. If you understand Badinî already but freeze when you try to speak, that is a different problem with a different fix: why you understand Kurdish but can't speak it.

How long will this take?

These are the milestones we see with learners who practise several times a week. Treat them as orientation, not a promise — the variable is not talent, it is how often you show up. And if you already understand Badinî from childhood, the first two rows go much faster: your listening is built, and what is missing is active recall.

Frequently asked questions

Is Badinî a language or a dialect?

It is a regional form of Kurmancî — what dialect surveys call Southeastern Kurmancî. It is not a separate language from Kurmancî, and the two are mutually intelligible. It is, however, clearly distinct from Soranî, which is not mutually intelligible with Kurmancî at all.

What is the difference between Badinî and Kurmancî?

Same alphabet, same word order, same negation. The differences are the present tense prefix (yêt- in Badinî, di- in Kurmancî), a few pronouns (Hing instead of Hûn), several question words (Çe, Kîrê, Kişk) and a layer of everyday vocabulary (Bab not Bav, avro not îro, mazin not mezin). The full table is above.

Is Badinî the same as Behdini?

Yes. Badinî, Badini, Behdînî, Behdini and Bahdini are spellings of the same name, from the historical Behdinan region around Duhok. We write Badinî.

Can I learn Badinî from a Kurmancî course?

Mostly, yes — and for many learners it is the practical choice given how much more Kurmancî material exists. Work through a Kurmancî course, and convert as you go using the difference table in this article. The one thing a Kurmancî course will not give you is the yêt- present tense, which is the form your family actually speaks.

Which script does Badinî use?

The Latin alphabet of Kurmancî, 31 letters, is what you will see in everyday use and online. Badinî has no standardised writing system of its own, so written Badinî generally follows Kurmancî spelling. Our Badinî A1 and A2 books print the Latin and Persian script side by side so you can learn either or both.

Is Badinî hard to learn?

Less than people expect. There are no silent letters, the present tense follows one pattern, and there is no grammatical gender in the basic forms. The genuinely harder parts are a few throat sounds English does not have — x and q — and the xw- cluster.

Can I learn Badinî on my own?

Yes, and most of our learners do. What self-study needs is a resource that puts the material in order so you are not guessing what comes next, and a fixed daily slot so the habit survives busy weeks.

What comes after A1?

Badinî A2 moves from simple sentences to independent everyday conversation: describing yourself in detail, work and study, travel and directions, health and the body, shopping and services, and the past tense for talking about things that already happened. After that, Badinî B1 takes you into longer discussions.

Start with the difference table, today

Twelve weeks sounds long until you see what week one actually is: a set of letters you may already know, and one table of differences you can read in ten minutes.

Badinî learners have the strangest advantage in the Kurdish-learning world. You are not learning a language with no resources — you are learning a variety of the best-resourced Kurdish dialect there is, and the gap between the two is small enough to write on one page. The learners who get there are not the fastest ones. They are the ones who did twenty minutes on a Tuesday when they didn't feel like it.

The complete beginner's guide to Kurdish · Which dialect should you learn? · How to learn Kurmancî · How to learn Soranî · Badinî A1

Written by The Kurdish Academy · Language reviewed by a native Kurmancî speaker on our team · Last updated 3 October 2026
All Badinî words, sentences and grammar examples in this article are taken from our own textbook, Badinî A1 — Your First Steps. The Kurmancî forms in the comparison tables are from Kurmancî A1 — Your First Steps. The regional classification of Badinî as Southeastern Kurmancî is from Wikipedia's overview of Kurmanji dialects.