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- "Öksürmekten canım acıyor."
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Why is can used in the set phrase canı acımak? As I understand it, can is "spirit, soul" etc. which would make me think of emotional pain, but, as this sentence shows, it gets used of physical pain (i.e. coughing too much). What's going on?
There are lots of cool idioms using can, by the way, commonly used and useful! If you're planning on speaking Turkish, here are a few:
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birinin canını sıkmak = to vex or annoy someone
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canım sıkıldı. = (my soul feels squeezed, haha) I'm bored. (sometimes = embarrassed/mildly upset too)
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canım X istiyor = I feel like X (esp. useful for "canım istemiyor." = I don't feel like (doing) it.)
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canım X çekiyor = I REALLY feel like X/crave X.
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Canın sağ olsun! = "Aw, don't worry about it, it's not a problem."
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birinin canını yakmak = to emotionally hurt someone deeply
Lots more than just this but these are some fun and useful ones!
Thanks, this is really useful! Looking at Nişanyan Sözlük it seems that it comes into Turkish from Persian at some point in the Seljuk period (which makes sense, given the history). I wonder whether it's just can or also the idioms that go with it that come across (maybe MaeeSafaee will know).
I believe Persian also has everyday expressions using the word "spirit", but I can't tell if they use the word "can" itself.
1264
You are correct. They spell it "جان". Probably the most famous phrase is "نوش جان" (nooshe jan) meaning bon appétit.
It's just an expression. Nothing emotional.
Canı acımak, canı yanmak, canı istemek… these are established idiomatic expressions not to be taken literally.
Canım acıyor = it hurts me.
We do not say "acıyorum" or "beni acıtıyor" or things like that.
I am hurting because of coughing is not at all a natural sentence in english. The more natural I hurt from coughing is marked as wrong.
I also keep getting tripped up by this. It makes it sound like you're hurting because someone else is coughing and you're really sensitive to noise or something.
I used "It hurts because I'm coughing"... also not accepted. The english translation isn't very good on this particular one. "I'm hurting" just sounds weird to me.
Really? Are you American? I am kind of surprised. I hear it used in the Midwest and Northeast all of the time. It kind of denotes being sore vs. being in a short temporary pain.
"It hurts..." doesn't denote that "I hurt/am in pain" :)
Yes. I actually live in the midwest. :) Wichita, KS, so... really, really Midwest.
To me, "it hurts" does denote the pain, in context: "It hurts, because I am coughing."
"I am hurting" sounds okay. You might say that after a hard day at the gym. But in the context of being sick... not so much. It's the "because of coughing" part that makes it odd to me. So basically to me, the beginning of the sentence doesn't jive with the end of the sentence.
Luckily we accept "I am hurting/I am in pain/My body hurts" for this :) I think there is a lot of variation in the usage of "I am hurting" in English.
We might say, "I'm sore because I've been coughing," but when you say "I'm hurting because of coughing," my automatic question is, "because of whose coughing?"
Please explain how you get öküşüyor from öksürmek. Or am I remembering the wrong words?
Normally to get the meaning of "because of X," you attach the ablative case to the infinitive. I wish I had a better answer than that, but it is just the say Turkish works :)
Wouldn't "öksürmeden" mean "without coughing"? That would be a good enough reason not to use it for something completely different. :) In other words, that construction is already taken, used for something else. Is that correct?
the english counterpart doesn't sound correct to me... It is like I complain that someone's coughing..?
