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- "The mouse eats bread."
"The mouse eats bread."
Translation:Fare ekmek yer.
33 Comments
I am not sure that I have completly understood Turkish accusative.. It is used when object in sentence is definite? And how do I know that? By the English grammar article the is definite, and a/an indefinite, and this is confusing, can someone help me a bit?
Your assumption is correct :) "the book" is specific/"a book" is general.
Warning: There are some verbs that almost always take the accusative regarless (sevmek comes to mind)
Alright, thank you.. :) I have just one more question. Would it then accusative been used if I would say: "Fare bir ekmegi yer" or "Fare bu ekmegi yer"? Because in previous examples there were some sentences where it would have been used "Ben elmayi yerim".. Thank you very much for helping :)
Both are correct. The former means "The mouse eats a loaf of bread." and this other means "The mouse eats this bread."
I could not reply on your last comment, so I will here! Alright, I understand much better now :) Yes, if I would use accusative for subject it would change meaning of sentence :)
Keep in mind though, "Fare bir ekmek yer" is a little more common than the other. :) If you use the accusative in this instance, it kind of gives the meaning of "any given loaf of bread" :)
Basically, if the "direct object" has "the" in it, it will normally correspond to the accusative case in Turkish. Remember, this is only for direct objects and not subjects of sentences :)
that would mean "the bread eats the mouse", as stated above, and all over the course, the subject CANNOT be in accusative case . Accusative case is an object case.
I did not know the subject couldn't be in the accusative. Thank you for clearing that up for me. I was also wondering why my answer was wrong, They should put that in the notes
but I am not changing bread, I changed mouse...The bread eats the mouse would be "ekmegi fareyi yer" and that is not what I put.
no that's completely wrong. The subject doesn't have to come first; if it is in accusative case, it is not the subject anymore. You cannot differentiate between a definite and indefinite subject in Turkish, remember, there are no articles in Turkish. Turkish only has a case for direct definite objects. You have the same problem if you have dative case for example. If you want to say "He gave bread to birds" or "He gave bread to the birds", they will both be "Kuşlara ekmek verdi". You simply cannot differentiate. If it is a countable singular noun, you can add "bir" to emphasize that it is indefinite. e.g. "A mouse eats bread" can be "Bir fare ekmeği yer".
Also the possessive suffix sometimes is the same as the accusative one. So your sentence "ekmegi fareyi yer" can only mean: "His/Her bread eats the mouse".
and I don't understand why the subject cannot be in accusative case...how then are you supposed to differentiate between "a mouse" and "the mouse"
601
You've probably figured it out since this was a year ago, but for anyone just finding this (since I had the same question) - the subject can't be in accusative case because accusative case only applies to objects :) So this is like asking why in English "The mouse eats bread" doesn't mean the same things as "The bread eats mouse"... it's just how the language works.
As for how you are supposed to differentiate "a mouse" from "the mouse" as a subject, we already know that there are no definite/indefinite articles, so you'll have to use bir I think if you want to emphasize indefinite. But I think you can only tell by context otherwise.
I'm not a Turkish pro, but wouldn't something like, "fare ekmeği yiyor." be valid as well?
"Fare ekmeği yiyor" would be "the mouse is eating the bread" so it wouldn't be correct as a translation of the sentence above.
Yiyor is in present tense and it means "is eating". It is not correct translation of "yer-eats".
- 601
This is wrong because the mouse is the subject. Accusative is only ever used to mark the object, as I understand it.
Since ''fareyi'' means ''the mouse'', the correct form should be ''fareyi ekmek yer''.
