Learn how to use the compound past tense
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| Intermediate Season 1 Lesson 4 - Apartment Hunting in Turkey |
| INTRODUCTION |
| Eric: Hi everyone, and welcome back to TurkishClass101.com. This is Intermediate Season 1 Lesson 4 - Apartment Hunting in Turkey. Eric here. |
| İçten: Merhaba, I'm İçten. |
| Eric: In this lesson, you’ll learn about the compound past tense. The conversation takes place at a real estate agent’s office. |
| İçten: It's between Özge and a real estate agent. |
| Eric: The speakers are strangers in a customer service context, so they’ll use both formal and informal Turkish. Okay, let's listen to the conversation. |
| DIALOGUE |
| Özge: Kadıköy civarında kiralık bir daire arıyordum da... |
| Emlakçı: Aa siz bir kere daha gelmemiş miydiniz? Hemen yardımcı olalım. Kadıköy'ün neresinde olsun istersiniz? |
| Özge: Evet. Doğru hatırladınız. Gelmiştim. Moda civarı olabilir ama bahçe katı olmasın lütfen. |
| Emlakçı: Tamam. Daireyle ilgili başka bir tercihiniz var mı? |
| Özge: Güneş alsın ve apartman çok eski olmasın lütfen. Aslında, deprem yönetmeliğine uygun yapılmış yeni binalardan istiyordum. |
| Emlakçı: Kira olarak, aylık 2500-3000 liraya çıkarsanız, Erenköy tarafında uygun daireler var. |
| Özge: Aa kulağa hoş geliyor! Ben küçükken o semti çok severdim. |
| Eric: Listen to the conversation with the English translation |
| Özge: I was looking for an apartment to rent around Kadıköy... |
| Real estate agent: Haven't you been here before? We’ll help you immediately. Do you have any place in mind in Kadıköy? |
| Özge: Yeah. You remembered right. I’ve been here before. Around Moda, maybe, but no garden level apartments please. |
| Real estate agent: Okay. Do you have any other preferences for the apartment? |
| Özge: A sunny apartment, and no old buildings please. In fact, I want it to be in a new apartment that was built according to the standards of the compulsory earthquake insurance law. |
| Real estate agent: There are apartments available if you can go up to 2500-3000 Turkish liras rent-wise. But they’re around Erenköy. |
| Özge: Oh, sounds good. I used to love that district when I was younger. |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Eric: This time we’re looking for a place to rent. |
| İçten: Yeah, where you live is pretty important! |
| Eric: I agree! What things should our listeners look out for if they want to rent or buy property in Turkey? |
| İçten: There are a lot of districts in Turkeys that have older buildings, ones that were built between the 1960s to 1980s. |
| Eric: Is that a problem? They’re not that old. |
| İçten: A lot of buildings in this age range are being knocked down and rebuilt, or at the very least reinforced if they’re thought to be at risk of earthquake damage. |
| Eric: Ah, so if you move into one of these buildings, there’s a chance that it will be knocked down. |
| İçten: That’s right. The companies get the residents to move out, and then rebuild the buildings to be taller and have more flats so that they can make more money. |
| Eric: So definitely check to see if that will happen before you sign any agreements. |
| İçten: While we’re on the subject of contracts, make sure that you check things like maintenance charges or if there are plumbing problems. |
| Eric: Always do your research. You can ask your potential neighbors about their experiences. |
| İçten: And sometimes there might be bulletins posted that list any issues. |
| Eric: Good to know. Okay, now onto the vocab. |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Eric: Let’s take a look at the vocabulary from this lesson. The first word is.. |
| İçten: kiralık [natural native speed] |
| Eric: for rent |
| İçten: kiralık[slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| İçten: kiralık [natural native speed] |
| Eric: Next we have.. |
| İçten: daire [natural native speed] |
| Eric: flat, apartment |
| İçten: daire[slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| İçten: daire [natural native speed] |
| Eric: Next we have.. |
| İçten: yardım [natural native speed] |
| Eric: help |
| İçten: yardım[slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| İçten: yardım [natural native speed] |
| Eric: Next we have.. |
| İçten: bahçe [natural native speed] |
| Eric: garden |
| İçten: bahçe[slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| İçten: bahçe [natural native speed] |
| Eric: Next we have.. |
| İçten: kat [natural native speed] |
| Eric: level, floor |
| İçten: kat[slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| İçten: kat [natural native speed] |
| Eric: Next we have.. |
| İçten: tercih [natural native speed] |
| Eric: choice, preference |
| İçten: tercih[slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| İçten: tercih [natural native speed] |
| Eric: Next we have.. |
| İçten: deprem [natural native speed] |
| Eric: earthquake |
| İçten: deprem[slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| İçten: deprem [natural native speed] |
| Eric: Next we have.. |
| İçten: yönetmelik [natural native speed] |
| Eric: legislation |
| İçten: yönetmelik[slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| İçten: yönetmelik [natural native speed] |
| Eric: Next we have.. |
| İçten: çıkmak [natural native speed] |
| Eric: to go up, to incline |
| İçten: çıkmak[slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| İçten: çıkmak [natural native speed] |
| Eric: And last.. |
| İçten: semt [natural native speed] |
| Eric: district |
| İçten: semt[slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| İçten: semt [natural native speed] |
| KEY VOCAB AND PHRASES |
| Eric: Let's have a closer look at some of the words and phrases from this lesson. The first phrase is.. |
| İçten: yardımcı olmak |
| Eric: meaning "to provide help." What can you tell us about this? |
| İçten: It is composed of a noun and an auxiliary verb. |
| Eric: Is there anything special about the noun? |
| İçten: Yes, yardımcı comes from the noun yardım meaning “help” and it has the suffix -cı. |
| Eric: How is it used? |
| İçten: It can be used both as an interrogative and a declarative. It’s also fine in both formal and informal situations. |
| Eric: Can you give us an example using this phrase? |
| İçten: Sure. For example, you can say.. Bana ödevimde çok yardımcı oldu. |
| Eric: ..which means "She helped me a lot with my homework." Okay, what's the next phrase? |
| İçten: kulağa hoş gelmek |
| Eric: meaning "to sound good." Can you explain this one to us, İçten? |
| İçten: This is an idiom. The more literal translation is “to sound pleasant.” |
| Eric: How is it used? |
| İçten: We mainly use this positively. Although you can conjugate it to the negative form, kulağa pek hoş gelmemek, and it would be grammatically correct, that isn’t really used. |
| Eric: Is this an informal expression? |
| İçten: It can be used both formally and informally. Turkish regularly uses idioms in everyday life. |
| Eric: Can you give us an example using this phrase? |
| İçten: Sure. For example, you can say.. Sömestr tatilinde Uludağ'a gitme fikri kulağa hoş geliyor. |
| Eric: .. which means "The idea of going to Uludağ during the semester break sounds good." Okay, now onto the lesson focus. |
Lesson focus |
|---|
| Eric: In this lesson, you'll learn about the compound past tense. Can you give us a brief introduction to the compound past tense in Turkish? |
| İçten: Sure. It’s formed when verbs with nominative tenses have a predicative suffix and form a second tense. |
| Eric: Okay, let’s get started then! First, let’s look at the past perfect compound tense. |
| İçten: The past perfect compound tense with definite suffix is formed when a past simple tense verb is conjugated with the predicative -dı. |
| Eric: Let’s work through an example. We’ll use the verb “come.” |
| İçten: The nominative form is gelmek. To conjugate it with the pronoun “I,” it becomes geldiydim. |
| Eric: It becomes quite different. And, as you mentioned, the conjugation may be different for different pronouns such as “you” or “they,” and there are examples of all of those in the lesson notes. |
| İçten: Making these forms takes a bit of conjugation. For example, to make the negative form “didn’t come,” the formula is the verb stem + a negative suffix + a definite past tense suffix + a narrative suffix + a personal pronoun - gelmediydim |
| Eric: That’s like a math formula! Again, that’s “come” being used with “I.” |
| İçten: To make the past perfect compound narrative with an indefinite suffix, you need -mış with the predicative -dı. |
| Eric: Let’s keep things simple, by again using the example of “come” with the pronoun “I,” so our listeners can hear the differences. |
| İçten: In this tense, it is gelmiştim. |
| Eric: What’s the formula for the negative form in this tense? |
| İçten: Verb stem+negative suffix+indefinite past tense suffix+definite past tense suffix+personal pronoun suffix - gelmemiştim. |
| Eric: This tense is similar to the past perfect tense in English or “I had come,” “I hadn’t come” and so on. |
| İçten: I want to introduce one last tense in this lesson. |
| Eric: Okay, what do you have for us now? |
| İçten: When we add the predicative -dı at the end of the present simple suffix, we get timeless past and simple compound narrative tense. |
| Eric: So again, let’s hear the same example of “come” when it’s to be used with “I.” |
| İçten: In this tense it becomes gelirdim. |
| Eric: And the negative formula is…? |
| İçten: The verb stem+simple present in negative form+ definite past tense suffix+personal pronoun suffix - gelmezdim. |
| Eric: How does this tense translate into English? |
| İçten: It’s colloquial, and it means something like ‘’I would come,’’ ‘’I used to come.’’ |
| Eric: We only had time to talk about a couple of conjugation patterns for each tense introduced here, but the lesson notes cover all of the tenses and pronouns, so make sure to check them out. |
Outro |
| Eric: Okay, that’s all for this lesson. Thank you for listening, everyone, and we’ll see you next time! Bye! |
| İçten: Güle güle. |
Comments
HideCan you describe the place where you would like to live in Turkish? Let's practice in the comments!
Hi ElizaT!
Great question! 😊
You're absolutely right that the past perfect tense in Turkish is usually formed with "-miş + di", as in "gelmiştim" (I had come). The construct "gel+di+di" (geldiydim) does exist but is a colloquial or regional variation, rather than standard grammar. It’s more commonly heard in some dialects or informal speech but is not typically used in formal writing or structured dialogues—which is likely why you didn’t see "geldiydim" in the lesson dialogue.
Your example "Umut arkadaşının evine gitmişti" (Umut had gone to his friend’s house) is correct and a great way to illustrate the standard past perfect tense!
If you have any more questions, feel free to ask. 😊
Teşekkürler! (Thank you!)
Team TurkishClass101.com
I am kind of confused about the Past perfect narrative tense - gel+di+di. I have never seen this construct before. As I understood the past perfect narrative tense is ge+miş+di
For example: Umut arkadaşının evi gitmişti. Umut had gone to his friend's house.
Or as in the dialogue case: Evet, doğru hatırlandınız. Gelmiştim.
I don't see "geldiydim" in the dialogue.
Merhaba Arnoud,
Thank you for your feedback. This tense is little bit hard to explain because we don't use it that much in daily life conversations anymore. We used to use it but it gets a little out of date lately.
So, it doesn't have a context to explain it anymore and there is no exact translation in English either.
Honestly, you can look at the sentences without translations just to have an idea but I don't think anyone would need to learn this tense...
Sevgiler
Seda
Team TurkishClass101.com
The explanation of the Past Perfect Compound Narrative with Definite Suffix was quite hard to catch.
The examples didn't make much sense
The first example say geldiyidim: it was known that I had come. But all the following examples use: have been or: have eaten kind of tense. No "it was known" part involved.
O filme daha önce gittiydik.
"We have been to that movie (before)."
Bu yemeği daha önce yediniz miydi?
"Have you ever eaten this food before?"
İstanbul'a geçen sefer geldiğimde size hiç uğramadıydım.
"I didn't drop by your place during my last visit to Istanbul."
Also I think there should be more of an informal way of explaining rather than terms like Past Perfect Compound Narrative with Definite Suffix. It would be more useful to explain when to use the tense
Merhaba William,
Which one do you refer to, I couldn't understand. I would appreciate if you explain again...
Sevgiler
Seda
Team TurkishClass101.com
One example given is incorrectly translated to English. ¨Onunla olkulda tanışmıştık¨ should say school and not party.
Geç yedilerinde Biz Yeni Levent cıvarında bir dört kat'taki daire'yi kiralıyorduk. Yepyeni olduğu söylenmişti.O büyük yalan sayılımıştı. Neyse on sekis aya kadar orada oturıyorduk İstanbul'un hem sicak yaz hem de soğuk kış mevsimlerinin eğlenmelerine katılıyorduk. O daire'nin kışın oturmamızı hıç bir zaman hatırlayamadık.Biz o kadar soğuk 'deki çünkü ısıtma yakıtı olmaduğunda donıyorduk.
Merhaba Bello,
Your sentences are correct. Just you don't need to say "kiralık için". You can say "kiralamak için" or just "kiralık"...
Sevgiler
Seda
Team TurkishClass101.com
Selamün aleyküm. Bello ben. Izmir'de kiralik için ev ariyorum. Ev geniş ve bir de bahçeli olsun.
Merhaba Bahiye :)
Rica ederim
Sevgiler
Seda
Team TurkishClass101.com
Tamam hocam,teşekkür ederim 😊
Merhaba Bahiye,
Çok iyi yazmışsın. Bir tane "typo" var o kadar. 😄
İstanbul'da
Sevgiler
Seda
Team TurkishClass101.com
Istanbu'da bir daire satın almak istiyorum.Geniş ve güneş alsın.Yeni ve ķüçük bir apartmanda.
Sakın bir mahallede,alişveriş merkezine ve okula yakın.