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- "The dogs eat bread."
"The dogs eat bread."
Translation:Köpekler ekmek yer.
34 Comments
Adding 3rd person plural to verbs is usually done to actions taken by humans, however I don't think most people know or follow this rule. (Even I learnt it from another mod here!) So it wouldn't be grammatically correct however not the worst mistake either.
"it" is almost never used in modern Turkish. You should really stick to "köpek"
"yersiniz" is means "you (all) eat." This does not match with the subject. :)
"The dogs-Köpekler" in the sentence above are the agents taking action. "Köpekleri" would make the word accusative. There is not an accusative word in the sentence.
In English you use the article to signify accusative in some cases but not always, which I believe is the reason for your confusion.
"köpekler ekmek yer-the dogs eat bread"
"köpekler ekmeği yer-the dogs eat the bread" --> here you can see "the" article acting as both roles.
I hope this helps!
Why not ekmegi? I honestly can't tell if anyone else had asked this already, since this website doesn't work on the mobile side well. Can't wait for them to add turkish to the app.
The English sentence is "The dogs eat bread" which doesn't have accusative case on "bread". If it did, the English sentence would be "The dogs eat the bread."
Since "bread" is not in accusative, the Turkish translation will be "Köpekler ekmek yer" rather than the "Köpekler ekmeği yer". The -i at the end of "ekmeği" indicates accusative case, so, that would be wrong.
Does this help?
I think your understanding of the accusative case isn’t correct. In most languages that have it (e.g. Latin or German), the accusative is used for both definite and indefinite objects.
It’s actually the other way round: Turkish doesn’t mark the accusative on indefinite nouns, only on definite ones; but it’s still accusative. And since the indefinite accusative form is the same as the nominative, people treat it like the nominative.
You could say that English has the accusative, too, although it doesn’t mark it on nouns. In the personal pronouns, accusative still exists (‘I’ vs. ‘me’, ‘he’ vs. ‘him’).
I always thought that a noun in English is already in the accusative when it is the object of a predicate. Perhaps I need to learn better English.
No, you're right about English (and other European languages); in Turkish, the "accusative" seems to mean something different than it does in those languages! In German, for example, the accusative case has the same basic declination regardless of whether it's a definitive or indefinite article.
1766
Because bread is not a specific direct object. The sentence refers to eating bread in general as opposed to "...eating the bread" so the accusative ending is not necessary. I'm a beginner too, so please correct me if I'm wrong!
Excuse me I wanna know why it is (yer) and not (yerler), since Köpekler is plural?
köpekler
The former is "(The) dogs eat bread." The latter is "(The) dogs eat the bread."
why not say:
Köpeğler ekmek yer
since we are including "The" at the beginning of the sentence?
There is no such thing as changing a consonant the get the meaning of "the" in English. I think you were wanting to use the accusative case. However, subjects never ever ever get the accusative case. It is only for direct objects.
I think he changed <k> to <ğ> because it makes sense to do that if you follow regressive assimilation.
yer => he eats/they (non-human) eat
yerim => I eat
And then I don't know if you mean "yersin" (you eat) or "yersiniz" (you (plural) eat)
please answer me why is not correct Kopekleri i am speaking about - i - because it is written THE before dogs . Thanks
Army974aa
Hello.
The (accusative) case in Turkish is used to mark specific direct objects.
A specific direct object is one that uses the article “the.”
For example: Neyi açtı? - What did she open? Buzdolabını açtı - She opened the fridge.
Neyi özledi? - What did he miss? Okulu özledi. He missed school.
Yarın kimi arayacağım? - Who will I call tomorrow? Seni yarın arayacağım. - I will call you tomorrow.
Telefon (telephone) + "-u" (accusative suffix) Telefonu (the phone) - the last vowel was "o"
Çatal (fork) + "-ı" (accusative suffix) Çatalı (the fork) - the last vowel was "-a"
Thank you.
Hilmi, it's a good idea to use the question you have to ask, more clear. Later for me...
Have a look to those explanations in http://duolingo.com/comment/7738393 > accusative case.Accusative means that a noun "elma" for exemple is specific direct object "elmalari yerim" "i eat the apples", not any apples but the ones you have picked up yesterday in your orchard. Is it clear for you?
zahra, ladyNurrington gives a fine explanation in his comment above. Should read it.
