"Senin ayakkabını görmüyorlar."

Translation: They do not see your shoes.

[MustafaRadwan]

Why can't I say: They are not seeing your shoes as -yor is a prresent continuous tense???

[AlexinNotTurkey]

"they are not seeing" is not comonly used in Englsih. "to see" is a stative verb which means it is rarely used in the present continuous.

[Anna694674]

It would be nice to know in advance when DL expects a literal translation, rejecting more natural English versions, or when they expect the most natural English, rejecting more literal translations :-((

[OlavSurlan]

"They may be looking right now, but they are not seeing anything suspicious."

Isn't this a good example contradicting your statement?

[Todd940413]

True, while "I am not seeing your shoes" may certainly be said sometimes, "I don't see your shoes" is more standard. In a different usage, if you're dating someone, we say "I'm seeing someone" (implying that it's an ongoing thing), NOT "I see someone."

[Shahrazad26]

Why is "lar" not needed here for shoes?

[HeraxL]

Becuse Türkçede ayakkabı tekil bir kelimedir

[Todd940413]

My understanding is that "ayakkabı" can mean either one shoe or a pair of them.

[JeremyWyat1]

Why is this using the iyor tense? My books seem to disagree with you about the use of the r tense and the iyor tense. You only use iyor for present continuous but my books say that this is taking over r for things that are generally correct.

[gabiideh1]

Another silly sentence

[SyedGhazan]

Ayakkabı and "nı". Why we use nı here

[Salih_Dz.]

N is possessive for Senin. And "ı" is accusative. That's how I understood it...

[hedayatyazdani]

is "görmüyorlar", "They are not seeing"?

[SineadMaireNB]

I thought it meant "they are not looking at your shoes" how would you say that?

[Ly_Mar]

“Senin ayakkabına bakmıyorlar”, if I'm not mistaken.

[SineadMaireNB]

Thanks

[SedatKlc]

you can use both of them

[SEmuranahA]

So, is it's they did not see your shoes, how would it be written?

[Ly_Mar]

That would use the past tense, so: ‘(senin) ayakkabını görmediler’ or ‘[…] görmemişler’ (the latter is inferential past, used when the event has only been reported to you, but you haven't witnessed it, something like ‘they say that …’ or ‘I was told that …’).

[qasiam]

Why is "They can not see your shoes" not accepted? Is there a difference between can't and don't in Turkish?

[Mark57311]

Why could this sentence not mean your shoes do not see

[Ly_Mar]

Because “ayakkabını” is accusative (the last “ı”) and the verb doesn't agree in number. “Your shoes do not see” would be “(senin) ayakkabın görmüyor”.

[MadhuriDut2]

Why? 'they do not see your shoes', as a sentence, does not make sense. They do not looking at your shoes makes sense

[Todd940413]

Hi, MadhuriDut2. The Turkish uses a form of görmek, which is often translated as "see" or "view." The English "look," on the other hand, is usually translated with bakmak. Just as "to look" and "to see" are not always the same, neither are bakmak and görmek. (I may hear a bird singing and look to try to see it, yet still not be able to.)

To translate "They are not looking at your shoes," we might use "Ayakkabılarına bakmıyorlar." "They do not looking at your shoes" is not grammatical English; you would have to say "They are not looking ..." or "They do not look...."

If you were getting at the logic of the English translation (Why would "They" not be able to "see your shoes" if they were looking for them?), that's a bit of a different thing. Perhaps your shoes are locked away in a closet, where they cannot be seen by anyone. Or perhaps "They" are blind. "They do not see your shoes" is quite grammatical, and can also make sense logically.

[RyuYan]

English makes learning Turkish harder. It's a stative verb this time.

We have no issues at all in Japanese: miru = görmek, and miteiru = görüyor. Even "to know" remains same: shiru = bilmek, and shitteiru = biliyor.

Chinese is somewhere in between. "to see" can take "yor", but "to know" can't: 在看 vs 知道.