"Bu olay iki ülke arasında bir krize neden oldu."

Translation: This event led to a crisis between two countries.

[SuhaylaHamed]

I cannot really get how does "neden" work here !!!!

[Jacques_JD]

The word neden is actually the Ablative case of the pronoun ne = "what?". You've probably encountered this word already here on DL, as a word for "why", along with niçin and niye.

It might make more sense to you now, to realise that when you're asking "why?" in Turkish, using neden, you're literally asking “from what?”, “(out) of what?” something happened.

Now, when something causes something else to happen or, in other words, leads to it, it is the…reason, the cause, the grounds of it! As the usual case in Turkish is, there’s an Arabic synonym for it: sebep.

A very common expression in Turkish containing the word neden is “bu nedenle”, literally “with this reason”. It means “for this reason”, “that’s why”, “therefore”, “consequently”, “thus”. Similarly, using the synonym sebep, we have “bu sebeple” and “bu sebepten dolayı”.

As for "neden olmak", it's a compound verb. There are quite a lot of compound verbs in Turkish, formed by a noun along with an auxiliary verb, such as etmek, yapmak and olmak — the first two meaning to do / to make and the third one is the verb to be / to become. In order to say “to cause sth”, you’d have to use the syntax “-e neden olmak” or “-e sebep olmak”, literally "to become the reason / the cause towards sth":

• Aşırı hız ve alkol kazaya neden oldu., or
• Aşırı hız ve alkol kazaya sebep oldu.

A similar way of saying that, would be by using the expression “-e yol açmak”, literally “to open the way towards” which translates into “to lead to sth”:

• Aşırı hız ve alkol kazaya yol açtı.

The examples, by the way, have the exact same meaning: “High speed and alcohol caused (or led to) the / an accident”.

Hope this helps :)

[Marie_goforit]

It does, thanks a lot!

[Ektoraskan]

"Neden olmak" is a fixed expression that means 'to lead' or 'to cause'. Better memorize it as it is :-]

[rolandcassar]

I don't mind learning new expressions, but happening upon them as if you were supposed to already know them ("strengthen...") is immensely frustrating, since it makes you feel like a moron ("now why in heavens can't I make sense of this sentence?" - "oh, because I've never been told the sense of this construction"...)

[CayAr]

Learning means feeling like a moron a lot of the time.

[modene1]

As far as I recall, it's the only one in the entire Turkish tree.

[Dovahfluun]

For comparison, how would one say "Why did this event lead to a crisis between the two countries?"

[Ektoraskan]

Neden bu olay iki ülke arasında bir krize neden oldu?

[modene1]

2x neden. {my brain quietly dies}

[Ektoraskan]

;p Here's Mandarin written in Mandarin inside a mandarin, possibly by a Mandarin speaker:

[MouhBeiraq]

This will definitely take some getting used to. Is there no other way to say "lead/led to" other than neden oldu?

[RumenT]

If I wanted to say "This event between 2 countries caused a crisis.", it would be "Iki ülke arasında bu olay bir krize neden oldu." or "Bu iki ülke arasında olay bir krize neden oldu."? I guess the 1-st one, but I'm not sure.

[Selcen_Ozturk]

you are close. "Iki ülke arasındaki bu olay bir krize neden oldu."

[modene1]

olmak seems a bit weak for lead. Is there a specific verb for lead? Actually, I re-read it and realised it's neden oldu which is even more peculiar. And have just read Ekto's comment. Enough said :)

[SedatKlc]

i think 'lead to' can be translated as 'yol açmak'

[Samia732007]

yes and sebep olmak too!

Jacques_JD explained it in much detail above!

[MetroWestJP]

I noticed that "krize" is in the ablative. Is this always the case with "neden olmak?"

[Jacques_JD]

Yes; but it's actually the dative, not the ablative.

Please read my comment above for more information.

[tahani929521]

!!!