As mentioned in my last journal entry, we have really devoted a lot of focus to forming the present progressive tense in Turkish. We also talked a little bit about the simple present tense, but did not devote much time to it because it is very uncommon to use the simple present tense in Turkish. It is just preferred to use the present progressive tense. Listed below is how the present progressive tense is formed:
Verb: (Pre. Prog) – take the root, add “yor”, then add pronoun
Okumak = study
Ben: Oku-yor-um = okuyorum Biz: oku-yor-uz = okuyoruz
Sen: Oku-yor-sun = okuyorsun Siz: oku-yor-sunuz = okuyorsunuz
O: Oku-yor = okuyor Onlar: oku-yor = okuyor
It is also important to note that if the root word ends in a consonant, you must add a transition sound after the root word depending on the vowel preceding the consonant.
Transition sounds
If the vowel preceding the consonant is:
“a”, “ı” it will transition to “ı”
“e”, “i” it will transition to “i”
“o”, “u” it will transition to “u”
“Ü”, “Ö” it will transition to “Ü”
Examples:
yazmak = yazıyorum
konuşmak = konuşuyorum
The present progressive is very easy to form. During this month, we also learned how to form the past tense of verbs. The past tense is also very simple to form. It is as follows:
Past tense: take root, add “-di, -dı, -ti, -tı”, then add personal suffix
Sevmek = to like
Ben: sev-di-m = sevdim Biz: sev-di-k = sevdik
Sen: sev-di-n = sevdin Siz: sev-di-niz = sevdiniz
O: sev-di = sevdi Onlar: sev-di = sevdi
One irregularity to in the past tense is that the first person plural conjugation always ends in “k”. this is specific to the past tense. It does not happen in the present or future tenses. Another thing we learned this month is how to negate verbs. The rule for negating verbs is listed below:
Negative verbs: take root, add “mı, mi, mu, mü”, and the rest is the same depending on tense and personal pronoun
Negative present progressive:
Ben: sev-mi-yor-um = sevmiyorum Biz: sev-mi-yor-uz = sevmiyoruz
Sen: sev-mi-yor-sun = sevmiyorsun Siz: sev-mi-yor-sunuz = sevmiyorsunuz
O: sev-mi-yor = sevmiyor Onlar: sev-mi-yor = sevmiyor
Negative past:
Ben: sev-me-dim = sevmedim Biz: sev-me-dik = sevmedik
Sen: sev-me-din = sevmedin Siz: sev-me-diniz = sevmediniz
O: sev-me-di = sevmedi Onlar: sev-me-di = sevmedi
It is important to note that there are some differences in the negative suffixes for the present progressive tense and past tense. The negative past tense uses the exact same preceding vowel while the negative present progressive uses the paired counterpart vowel. In other words, there are 8 possible vowels for the negative past tense suffix while there are only 4 possible vowels for the negative present progressive tense suffix. In my opinion, learning how to negate verbs in Turkish was one of the easiest grammar rules for me to master. So far I am very content with my language learning journey so far. It really makes me happy to be able to learn a language that is not Latin based.
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