Put The Verb In The Right Form What Are We Doing Tonight: Fill & Download for Free

The writer tries to move stuff from his brain into the brains of his readers, using words as his only tools. Good writing doesn't just transport ideas—it gives the reader a visceral experience, as if the writer is reaching inside his skull, grabbing fistfuls of neurons, twisting them, petting them, and sometimes crushing them.before you add the clutter, keep it simple stupidThe most basic skill a writer can have is the ability to describe things simply and clearly, which means either painting a concrete picture or making a clear argument. It also means using easy but exacting words and to-the-point syntax.For example, this sentence ..."Worrying about his sick kitten and puzzling over the situation in the Middle East, he hurried—all the while checking his watch—towards the train."... would be much clearer (though not necessarily better) as ..."He hurried towards the train, all the while checking his watch, worrying about his sick kitten, and puzzling over the situation in the Middle East."The easiest form of sentence to understand is "subject verb." The more words you cram between those two parts of speech (or before them), the tougher it is for the reader to understand. The reader wants to know who is doing what to whom. In my sentence, the "who" is "he" and the "what" is "hurried towards the train."I am not advocating prose in which every sentence (or even any sentence) follows that form. I am saying you should understand how to write that way, why it's a clear way to write, and, when you deviate from it, why you're doing so. In the above example, maybe my goal is to highlight the sick kitten and the Middle-East situation, and that's why I begin with them. Or maybe I'm trying to create tension by delaying getting-to-the-point. That's fine, as long as I understand what I'm doing.Complex phrasing, challenging words, and baroque sentence structures are all useful tools, but you should know how to use them, when to use them, and how to make do without them. Walk before you can run.lick the reader all over, soaking him with spitNext, writers should understand that it's much easier to make readers have sensory experiences than feelings or ideas. Whenever possible, writers should use that to their advantage. An essay on democracy will benefit from descriptions of flipping switches inside voting booths; and geometry texts are digestible when the reader can imagine putting on running shoes and sprinting around the circumference of a circle.As much as you can, evoke sounds, sights, tastes, touches, and smells. Punch and pinch the reader; fill his nostrils with urine or the scent of cherry pie; rub him all over with wet paper towels; tune his inner radio to cool jazz or static; sprinkle cinnamon on his tongue... Sometimes you can evoke sensations by raw description: explaining what an object or scene looks like, smells like, etc. Sometimes you can animate a non-sensual abstraction via metaphor:"She raged, accusing him of one thing after another. Each accusation was like a firecracker detonating in his sinus cavities."Humans have a sixth sense, which is just as evocative as the famous five—and I'm not talking about ESP. I'm talking about our kinetic sense, our sense of movement. Verbs that move are always strong: push, pull, kick, bend, straighten, leap, stretch, roll, amble, crouch, sprint... You can use them literally ("The penguin waddled") or figuratively ("I toppled her argument").time for show and tellWriting teachers sometimes say "show don't tell." It's not a bad heuristic for beginners, but it's oversimplified. I prefer to say, "Earn the right to tell." Telling—as in explaining rather than evoking—is harder for readers to relate to than the sorts of sensory data I outlined, above. So if you have something to tell, make sure that you've either prepped the reader by helping him picture (smell, etc.) the scene or by quickly following your telling with a sensory picture that illustrates it.The show is the setup; the tell is the punchline.The tell is the thesis; the show is the proof.Example of showing and then telling:My girlfriend kept drinking all my beer. She would hog the remote control and force me to watch hours of 'Sex in the City.' She packed my suits into boxes and filled my closets with her dresses, jackets, and sweaters. She insisted on smoking inside, and my apartment still reeks of nicotine. She was a selfish bitch, and that's why I broke up with her.The last sentence is telling, but I earned the right to tell from my earlier sentences that showed.Example of telling and then showing:Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.Everything was in confusion in the Oblonskys' house. The wife had discovered that the husband was carrying on an intrigue with a French girl, who had been a governess in their family, and she had announced to her husband that she could not go on living in the same house with him...This famous opening, from Tolstoy's "Anna Karenina," starts by telling and then, to anchor the idea into the reader's brain, switches to showing.You don't always need to formulaically tell first and then show or show first and then tell. What you need to do is just keep in mind that we sense easier than we understand ideas—and that we understand mostly through sensing. So by all means tell. Just make sure your telling is linked to sensations.Also, keep in mind that "showing" means evoking. If you're wondering whether "It was raining" is showing or telling, ask yourself whether or not it evokes the sensation of rain. I don't think it does, do you? Try something like "the rain soaked through his shirt, plastering it to his chest...."And keep in mind this excellent advice from novelist Chuck Palahniuk:In six seconds, you’ll hate me.But in six months, you’ll be a better writer.From this point forward – at least for the next half year – you may not use “thought” verbs. These include: Thinks, Knows, Understands, Realizes, Believes, Wants, Remembers, Imagines, Desires, and a hundred others you love to use.The list should also include: Loves and Hates.... Until some time around Christmas, you can’t write: Kenny wondered if Monica didn’t like him going out at night…”Instead, you’ll have to Un-pack that to something like: “The mornings after Kenny had stayed out, beyond the last bus, until he’d had to bum a ride or pay for a cab and got home to find Monica faking sleep, faking because she never slept that quiet, those mornings, she’d only put her own cup of coffee in the microwave. Never his.”Instead of characters knowing anything, you must now present the details that allow the reader to know them. Instead of a character wanting something, you must now describe the thing so that the reader wants it.Instead of saying: “Adam knew Gwen liked him.”You’ll have to say: “Between classes, Gwen was always leaned on his locker when he’d go to open it. She’d roll her eyes and shove off with one foot, leaving a black-heel mark on the painted metal, but she also left the smell of her perfume. The combination lock would still be warm from her ass. And the next break, Gwen would be leaned there, again.”In short, no more short-cuts. Only specific sensory detail: action, smell, taste, sound, and feeling.— http://litreactor.com/essays/chuck-palahniuk/nuts-and-bolts-%E2%80%9Cthought%E2%80%9D-verbswrite sensually and you can forget most other rulesIf you commit to evoking sights, sounds, smells, tastes, movements, and textures in the reader's brain, you can quit sweating the small stuff. For instance, you've probably heard that strong verbs and specific nouns are better than adverbs and adjectives.This isn't necessarily true, but it often turns out to be the case—not because modifiers are bad, but because it's easier to evoke sensations via concrete, easy-to-grasp objects and actions.If you write, "he looked at her quizzically," that's harder to instantly picture than, "he cocked his head" or "he furrowed his brow."Don't worry about adjectives and adverbs. Just work to evoke images and other sensations. Make your images strong and specific.the three biggiesBeginners often need to learn three things:(1) write every day;(2) read everything you write out loud;(3) and make multiple drafts.Almost every writing book makes these suggestions, but when I first started writing, I refused to follow them. Why? Because I was egotistical and lazy. I thought maybe other writers needed to write every day, but surely I didn't need to. Besides, it was too much work. And I felt the same way about reading aloud and making multiple drafts.Writing well is hard. You need to practice every day, because it's the only way you'll improve—and you can easily backslide. So you need to "practice scales," like a pianist.If you can't think of anything to write today, just describe your morning: "The alarm went off. I groaned and refused to get out of bed. But it kept ringing, so finally I threw the covers aside and stumbled to the bathroom..." It doesn't matter what you write. It doesn't have to be interesting. You don't need to show it to anyone. Just write, write, write...You don't get to call yourself a writer unless you write every day. But if you write every day, you're an official writer, even if you've never had anything published.You need to read everything you've written out loud, because that's the only way you'll know if it sounds natural. As soon as I mouth my words, I find all sorts of forced and awkward-sounding passages. (TIP: if you're at work or a coffee shop and can't read out loud, at least move your lips. It will force your brain to imagine you're reading out loud.)You have to make multiple drafts because editing is easier than writing. And you need to first get something down on paper so you have something to edit. Think of your first draft as a data dump. Then you start chiseling away at it, going over each word, adding and subtracting.Stephen King, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Jane Austen ... they all work (or worked) with multiple drafts. If you're a serious writer, you need to do that, too.Every once in a while, you'll hear about an amazing writer who doesn't redraft. Yes, they exist. They are freaks of nature. Don't assume you're one of them.PS. You don't have writer's block! See Marcus Geduld's answer to How can I deal with writer's block when I have so many ideas in my head, but no way to write them down? I don't feel confident enough to write and I suppose I am not literate enough in TV and film. How can I get more confident to write?And keep in mind what Ira Glass has to say about taste (emphasis added):Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste.But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase, they quit.Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesn’t have this special thing that we want it to have. We all go through this. And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know its normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work.Put yourself on a deadline so that every week you will finish one story. It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions.And I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I’ve ever met. It’s gonna take awhile. It’s normal to take awhile. You’ve just gotta fight your way through.every piece of writing countsIf you want to be a writer, you should always be "on." Give up the idea of "tossed off writing that's not real writing." Proof-read and redraft your emails, your text messages, your shopping lists. If you're a writer, you care about writing. You always care. You always take care.The flip version of this "law" is: you know you're a writer when you start proof-reading your text messages, worrying over each word—when you can no-longer conceive of not caring how you write a sentence.Do you know any professional chefs? I do. They don't say, "I know I'm a chef, but I'm just making a sandwich for a snack." They are incapable of being around food without caring. When they are around food, they care.write to somebodyIt's much easier to write to a specific person than "the general reader." Sometimes, when I'm stuck, I write in gmail instead of MS Word. I start a letter to a friend—with no intention of sending it—and start describing, storytelling, arguing or whatever.We evolved to talk to specific people, not people in general. So use that part of your nature! When you're writing, make a case to your mom; argue with your husband; write a love letter to your teddy bear... Later, you can generalize it.By the way, writing to a specific person can help you find a "voice." You will find yourself writing differently if it's an "email" to a six-year-old than if it's an email to your boss.This technique tends to work for programmers, too. It's useful in many fields. We're social animals. Understand that fact and use it to your advantage*. See Rubber duck debugging.read every day...... and when a writer gives you a strong sensation, surprises you, or makes an idea pop into focus in your brain, stop and ask, "How did he do that?"study rhetoricThe ancient Greeks formalized the study of persuasion and coined all sorts of terms for various writing structures. A well-known example is "antithesis"—the tension between opposites. For instance, let's say I'm trying to convince you to move to New York. Here's a way to do with using antithesis:"New York is a a dirty city. Gum wrappers and soda cans decorate the gutters; used condoms float in Central Park's lakes; and, at night, you'll see rats scurrying around the subway tracks; but you'll never find a city more full of life! New York will dazzle you with color and light; it will seduce you with its scents of jerk chicken, gyros, spicy corn and candied peanuts; you'll follow proud, long-legged women up Madison Avenue, and everywhere you'll grab fistfuls of money."See Rhetoric, Figure of speech, and Rhetorical device.Here's a clearly-written, inexpensive book on rhetoric for writers: Amazon.com: Rhetorical Devices: A Handbook and Activities for Student Writers eBook: Brendan McGuigan, Douglas Grudzina and Paul Moliken: Kindle Storewrite rule-based poetryWriters need to become word experts, and one of the best ways to do that is to challenge yourself with constraints, like writing in e-prime (see below) or refusing to use any word containing the letter 'e.'Whenever you constrain your prose, you should always do so with the goal of sounding natural. Can you give your e-less essay to a friend without him noticing anything odd? When you can write fluidly with constraints, you'll be able to write wonderfully without them. (I remember when my dad taught me to drive with a stick shift, telling me that I'd find automatic transmission a cinch if I mastered shifting gears, first.)The most common form of constrained writing is poetic verse. There are many forms you can try, for instance the Shakespearean sonnet. Here are its rules:1. Each line must be ten syllables long.2. You should be able to speak each line —without it sounding forced —with every other syllable (starting with the second) getting more stress than the one before it.Example: "She stood and tortured me then slammed the door.3. There must be 14 lines total.4. The rhyme scheme for the first 12 lines is ABAB, with every other line rhyming:Example:She stood and tortured me then slammed the door.I cried, "Please stop!" but she ignored my pleas.She laughed and sang and danced and laughed some more,While I unraveled, shaken, ill at ease...5. The last two lines (the final couplet) should rhyme with each other:Though cruelty was her skill and pain her art,I loved her even as she broke my heart.If sonnets are too complicated, try a simpler from, like the haiku or the limerick. Look it up on wikipedia, learn the rules, and have a go. See Category:Poetic form.And I urge all writers —no matter what form of writing they do—to read Stephen Sondheim's two books on lyric writing. They trap you in the mind of a writer who cares about each and every word he writes.Hat Box: The Collected Lyrics of Stephen Sondheim: Stephen Sondheim: 9780307957726: Amazon.com: Bookstry e-primeE-Prime, a constrained English, forbids you to use any form of the verb "to be," so instead of writing, "She was scared," you must write, "She shivered" or "She ran screaming to her mother." I spent a year writing in e-prime (always working to make my prose sound natural, despite the constraint), allowing myself to use "to be" forms only in quotes, as in this paragraph. E-prime forces you to craft every sentence around an agent doing something, e.g. a woman shivering, a dog peeing, or a bomb exploding. My e-prime year improved my writing more than any other exercise.break a ruleYou've heard teachers say, "You have to know the rules before you can break them." Okay, well: you know the rules. So now go ahead and smash them to pieces. You may not be a grammarian, but you know at least some rules of writing. Those are the ones you're allowed to break, and those are the ones you must break.Why? Because writers don't let words own or dominate them. Writers own words. Writers hypnotize nouns and order them to act like verbs; they gleefully stick square pegs in round holes; they spit in the eyes of their fifth-grade English teachers.I am not excusing shoddy, lazy work. What I am saying is this: if you don't know the rules, the words control you. If you're controlled by the rules, the words still control you. You must become the master of the words and the rules, using them as tools, not as bosses.Obviously, if you're a student and writing "ain't" will get you an F, don't do it. But in your own writing, be the boss and don't let anyone else push you around.Unless you're writing experimental poetry or prose (or colloquial dialogue), go easy on the departures from standard English. They should be the spice, not the main course. If every word is surprising, none of them are surprising. The eccentric is only effective when it's hidden within the ordinary.You don't have to keep all your experiments. You're also in control over what goes into the final draft. Just keep playing. Keep loose with language."My Lit professor assigned Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, and Othello, and now my brain is totally Shakespeared, and I don't know whether to be or not to be.""She ordered me to get her lunch, then she made me fix the toilet, then she told me to wash all the dishes, then she ordered me to drive her mom to the airport, then she gribbled me to grickle her grapper grouper until I smashed her head with a doodle doodle doo!"extend metaphorsIn Metaphors We Live By, George Lakoff and Mark Johnson explain that our writing and speech is laced with metaphors we fail to notice. For instance, here are a couple of sentences from earlier in this post:"It's much easier to write to a specific person than 'the general reader.' Sometimes, when I'm stuck, I write in gmail instead of MS Word."Note that I likened being unable to write with being physically trapped and using gmail as being inside something. Such metaphors should convince you—if you still need convincing—that we're sensual creatures: that when faced with something murky like writer's block or interacting with a computer, we evoke physical concepts, like being stuck and being inside a container.Here's a fun and useful exercise: find a passage written by yourself or someone else, locate all the buried metaphors and extend them:In my passage, in addition to "stuck" and "in," there's "writing to," which seems to evoke the idea of words traveling towards a person, as if they're birds or arrows.Here's my attempt of an extended version:"It's much easier to write to a specific person—pushing each word towards him and watching them waddle off like baby ducks—then it is writing to a general reader. Sometimes, when I'm stuck in a deep well with nothing at the bottom except blunt pencils and blank pieces of paper, I claw my way to the top, stumble out onto the grass, rush inside, open my laptop and dive into gmail, as if it was an olympic pool, and I swim frantically towards a friend or former lover."I'm not suggesting you should write this way normally. But it's a great, playful exercise that turns words into toys and makes you deeply aware of what you're writing.Turn words into toys!inspiration... The ego is the enemy of the imagination. Anything that you think about writing when you're not writing, is a product of the ego and is absolutely wrong. One hundred percent, all the time, wrong. And if you take a step back and think how much time you spend trying to purify yourself in order to get ready to write, that's like 95% of the time. And the reason for that is the ego has a stake in perpetuating the behavior that you've already engaged in. We do not think our way to right action; we act our way to right thinking.So what I do is I start writing. If I think about my writing before I start to write, what I'm really doing is justifying not writing, because ... I'm not writing. ... I'm going to find a way to keep not writing. So what I say is I don't have the idea yet; it's not fully realized yet... Not only that: I don't have pencils; my pencils are not sharpened; I don't have the right notebook. ... Whoa! Eleven-forty five already. Time for lunch.... When you think about exercising, what you invariably say to yourself is, "You know, I'm too fat. What's the point? I'm too old; I'm too fat; I'm too old; I'm too slow; I'm too this; I'm too that..." And all you're doing is justifying the fact that you're not exercising.-- David Milch, creator of "Deadwood."You can decide if Milch is going overboard or not, but in my opinion what he's saying is basically sound. The more time you waste on "Which word processor should I use?" and "outlining," the less time you are writing. And it's all about writing! Honestly, if a member of your team is stuck for ideas, tell him to write about what he had for breakfast that morning. Writing anything is a step forward.Don't tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass.-- Anton ChekhovSome films are slices of life. Mine are slices of cake.-- Alfred HitchcockStyle is the art of getting yourself out of the way, not putting yourself in it.-- David Hareif it sounds like writing, I rewrite it.-- Elmore LeonardHe was doing a film, and he explained to his writer that the beginning of the film had to show that this man had been married a long time and that he is kind of tired of it. He had gotten used to his wife and had a roving eye. So the writer brought him four pages of introductory exposition of character. Lubitsch looked at it and said, 'You don’t need all that.' He took all four pages out. 'Just put down this—the man walks into the elevator with his wife, and keeps his hat on. On the seventh floor a pretty blonde walks in, and the man takes his hat off.'-- Director Rouben Mamoulian (Love Me Tonight, The Mark of Zorro, Blood and Sand) remembering director Ernst Lubitsch.Sometimes magic is just someone spending more time on something than anyone else might reasonably expect.-- TellerThere is a great difference, whether the poet seeks the particular for the sake of the general or sees the general in the particular. From the former procedure there ensues allegory, in which the particular serves only as illustration, as example of the general. The latter procedure, however, is genuinely the nature of poetry; it expresses something particular, without thinking of the general or pointing to it.-- GoethePeople are very good [at] thinking about agents. The mind is set really beautifully to think about agents. Agents have traits. Agents have behaviors. We understand agents. We form global impression of their personalities. We are really not very good at remembering sentences where the subject of the sentence is an abstract notion.-- Daniel KahnemanBegin with an individual and you find that you have created a type; begin with a type and you find that you have created — nothing.-- F. Scott FitzgeraldAnd make sure you read this: David Mamet on Dramatic Writing.* I experienced the benefit of "social thinking" today, after writing "School is a form of child abuse." I then wanted to add a sentence admitting that I'd made an over-the-top, rhetorical claim. I wanted to write, "When I say 'school is child abuse,' know I'm being _________," but I couldn't fill in the blank. The word wasn't even on the tip of my tongue. It had fallen off and was lodged somewhere under the sofa or coffee table. And my pleas to various thesauri and dictionaries proved fruitless.Finally, I called my wife, who is good with words. But I got her voice mail, so instead of explaining my problem, I hung up.Then I gave up and wrote, "I know that's a loaded phrase," which was okay, but it wasn't exactly what I intended. What was I being when I coined the loaded phrase? What's a word for someone who uses loaded phrases? Arg!An hour later, my wife called me back. She'd seen my number pop up on her phone and was curious about what I wanted and why I hadn't left a message."Oh, it's no big deal," I said. "I was trying to think of a word for ... provocative! That's it! That's what I was trying to think of! I'm being provocative! I'm a provocateur! Thanks so much! You're a life saver!""Uh ... I didn't do anything."But she did! She existed. She was a person for me to talk to, and she is an important person in my life—one that my brain is used to trying to explain things to clearly. "I'm not going to dredge up the word for you," said my brain. "But I'll do it for her!"Until I talked to her, everything had failed: straining my memory, relaxing my mind, using references materials, etc. But just the act of socializing—just the intention to socialize—made the word appear!Magic!

Some “interesting” facts about Turkish;1- Since Turkish is an agglutinative language, words are quite suffixed; but this is not the interesting part, because there are a quite number of agglutinative languages out there; but as far as I know, none of them have this rule for words; “vowel harmony”. (Edit: Hungarian also has vowel harmony kind of same to Turkish) You can spot many loan words in the language, just because they fail to comply with this harmony.Like; “Aksiyon” doesn’t comply with the rule but “eylem” does. They have the same meaning but one of them is easily spotted that it’s a loan. (“Action”)Of course not all of the complying ones are native Turkish, there are exceptions for both sides. There might be loan words complying coincidentally or some native examples which wouldn’t comply. But again, most of the such native exceptions are actually also loans but from centuries ago and they are rooted in the language.Vowel harmony in short is, the vowels in a word should be of the same type with the first vowel. If the first vowel is “thin”, the following ones must be too. If the first vowel is “round” the others must follow too; and as such. This rule applies to the suffixes as well. Hence there are suffixes which have the same functionality but they have different vowels within.Like;-cı, -cu, -ci, -cü are all the same suffixes; the only difference is that they each suffix only the words which they comply the rule with.Duvar is “wall” and duvarcı is “person whose profession is to build walls”Koru is “wood, forest” and korucu is “ranger”.Kale is “goal” and kaleci is “goalkeeper”.Sömürü is “exploitation” and sömürücü is “exploitative”.Oh well, there’s also a harmony between the consonants too, wouldn’t you think? For example;-çı,-çi, -çu, -çü are all the same suffixes with those above. (Yes that makes 8 different suffixes for the same functionality.) The difference is as you guessed, they suffix the words which end in suitable consonants with them. Like;Kitap is “book” and kitapçı is “person who sells books”Cumhuriyet is “republic” and cumhuriyetçi is “republican”Top is “ball” and topçu is “person who plays well with balls or whose profession is football”Süt is milk and sütçü is “person who sells milk”.2- This agglutination also brings another interesting thing; very short or “one-word” sentences or expressions. Like;Yapamayabilirim. (I may not be able to do.)Yes, that whole sentence is only one word in Turkish.Yap- (Verb “to do” in imperative form.)Yap-a (Being able to do.)Yap-a-ma (Being not able to do, in subjunctive mood.)Yap-a-ma-ya-bil (Imperative “do not be able to do”.)Yap-a-ma-ya-bil-ir (He/she/it may not be able to do.)Yap-a-ma-ya-bil-ir-im. (I may not be able to do.)Or another word like;Düşecektim. (I was going to fall.)Düş- (Verb “to fall” in imperative form.)Düş-ecek (He/she/it will fall.)Düş-ecek-ti (He/she/it was going to fall.)Düşe-ecek-ti-m (I was going to fall.)3- There’s no grammatical gender. As you saw in the examples above, you can’t mostly know if it was “he” or “she” in many expressions. Probably for that reason again; there are no direct translations for simple words like “brother” and “sister” in Turkish. Because a sibling is a sibling for us; so we just say “kardeş” (sibling) and if we want to explicitly point out the gender; we use the gender directly like “erkek kardeş” (male sibling). But interestingly, there is an old Turkic word for “sister” which is “bacı” and which is old-fashion today i.e. not much used; but there isn’t one for “brother” even in old language. (Edit: word “bacı” came to be not Old Turkic after a little investigation, origin is unknown but most probably comes from “baca” (sister) from Mongolic languages, see comments for it.)Further reading on this one; Turab Garib's answer to What is the correct way to say "Brother" in Turkish, "Abi" or "Erkek kardeş"?4- Turkish is a phonetic language. Each letter represent one sound and it represents always the same sound. We call it “you pronounce as how you spell it” in Turkish. So you will know how to pronounce even if you don’t know the word. There are of course exceptions like “open e” and “closed e” but if you are not a linguist; you won’t notice it in speech. Yes interestingly, even the native speakers are not aware of those exceptions. For example the word “seksen” (eighty) has two “e” letters in it and they both have different sounds but even the native speakers don’t notice unless you tell them the difference with distinctive examples.5- There is another exception in spoken language to its phoneticity. I don’t know how it developed but first person singular and plural and second person singular future tense conjugations are tend to be shortened. Like;Geleceğim. (I will come. Formal. This is the right form of writing. But in spoken language, if you use it this way a lot; you will be considered as “too kind or too formal to be normal” or “a freaky language fanatic” or just “stereotype”.)Gelecem. (I will come. Informal. This is the pronunciation of the above word. It’s incorrect spelling and thus considered incorrect in written language; but it’s accepted as the spoken version.)Gelicem. (I will come. Formal of the above. But still incorrect in written language.)Gelcem (I will come. There’s even this, lately. Informal, incorrect, wanky, but still.. Some people say it.)Interestingly this has developed as I said only for the first person singular and plural and second person singular conjugations of future tense. The other pronouns and tenses just do it fine with phoneticity.There’s also a tend to drop letter “r” from the continuous tense like;Geliyor becomes geliyo just like how coming becomes comin’.“Toplatıya sen de geliyo musun” (Are you too comin’ to the meeting?)There are some more minor tendencies like this.6- There is one more exception of phoneticity in Turkish which is caused by a mark called “düzeltme işareti”. (Correction sign. Circumflex. ^) This sign is also known as “hat sign”, because it looks like a hat on the letter. It’s used to lengthen the pronunciation of the vowel or somethimes to “thin” the sound of it. Like turning a to æ.Most people don’t use it while typing or writing but everyone knows when it’s there. Almost none of the native speakers even know how to type a circumflexed vowel on a Turkish keyboard. Some examples;Kar (Snow), Kâr (Profit)Hakim (Wise), Hâkim ((1)Sovereign, (2)Judge)Hala (Aunt), Hâlâ (Still)Resmi (Related to picture), Resmî (Official)As you see, these kinds of words are different words if they are written and pronounced with or without circumflex. But as I said, most people do not prefer or know how to use the sign and they find out the meaning from the context. Sometimes it leads to pretty bad misunderstandings but people are accustomed to understand from the context. Like;Karı seviyorum. (I love snow.)Kârı seviyorum. (I love profit.)If you omit the circumflex altough you want to mean the second one, people would probably make joke of it like you wanted to mean “karı” (Woman, slang.) (Yes kar means “snow” and “kar-ı” means “the snow” (accusative) but “karı” as an alone word also means “woman, slang”. (There are so many coincidences like that; check article 17 for more.) So it would be understood you said “I love slut”.)Or;Hala seni seviyorum. (I love you aunty.)Hâlâ seni seviyorum. (I still love you.)This is why it’s called “correction” sign. Because it “corrects” the pronunciation and thus the meaning so there wouldn’t be misunderstandings. This sign is valid for vowels “u, i and a” only. It’s not used with other vowels, but in old scriptures, you can also find ê and ô in some poems, just to indicate those words are pronounced differently; not it’s because that is a word legit only with a circumflex. When a vowel takes this sign, it’s called like “letter a with hat”.Another interesting fact about this sign is, all of the words which include a vowel “with hat” are certainly loan words. Mostly from Arabic or Persian.Yet another interesting fact about this sign is, people so often use some words without circumflex so that the word made it in the dictionary without it; although it is pronounced with it. Like “katil” is “murder (noun)” and “kâtil” is “murderer” but both are accepted as “katil” right now officialy; while the latter is still pronounced differently as it has the circumflex originally. It’s pronounced like “kaatil” (a is pronounced longer).7- There is a tense in Turkish which doesn’t exist in many languages including English. It’s called “mişli geçmiş zaman” or “geçmiş zamanın rivayeti” and it means “narrative of the past”. It’s used when you are telling someone that you have heard something that happened in the past but you haven’t seen or witnessed if it really did. Like;Question: Bugün sınav olacak mı? (Will there be an exam today?)Answer 1: Öğretmen olacağını söyledi. (The teacher said there will be.)Answer 2: Öğretmen olacağını söylemiş. (The teacher said there will be.)These two answers are translated into English completely the same way. But in Turkish there’s a huge difference. Because answer 1 is plain past tense, which in Turkish means the speaking person heard the teacher say it directly; while answer 2 is “past narrative”, which means someone told the speaking person that he/she heard the teacher say it; so that the speaker haven’t witnessed directly. It’s called narrative because the speaker is actually narrating what he/she was informed about something that happened in the past.8- Inverted sentences are used a lot in Turkish. Normal word order is usually subject-object-verb (SOV) most of the times but it’s not a must. Changing the word order in a sentence usually changes the emphasis and therefore the meaning. Like;Abim bana anahtarı verdi. (My brother gave me the key.)This is a normal SOV syntax. But let’s play with it a bit. The below examples are all translated to English the same way; but in fact all have nuances which will “add” to the meaning.“Abim bana verdi anahtarı” or “Bana verdi abim anahtarı” or even “Abim anahtarı bana verdi”. (My brother gave the key to me, not to anyone else.)“Abim anahtarı verdi bana” or “Anahtarı verdi abim bana”. (My brother gave the key to me, not anything else.)“Abim verdi anahtarı bana” or “Anahtarı abim verdi bana”. (It was my brother who gave the key to me, not anyone else.)Verdi abim anahtarı bana. (My brother gave me the key, there was no problem, he didn’t resist.) Though VSO and VOS structres are less frequent and less “valid”.Another interesting fact about inverted sentences is, most Turkish linguists mostly said that it’s wrong to use the language this way altough it’s been used like this for centuries. Using inverted sentences was considered wrong for quite some time. They soon realized that we can’t just deny a living thing in the language just because of a “rule” which even didn’t exist. In the last 2 decades, most of the people accepted these as normal and now they teach it in language faculties. But of course, this doesn’t mean we can always change the word order and put the word in anywhere of the sentence we want. It should be suitable.See another question about it; Turab Garib's answer to What is the difference between "Bu Kim" and "Kim Bu" in Turkish?(Edit: This “inverted sentences” changing the emphasis and therefore the meaning is also very much samely present in Hungarian too. Another jackpot for Hungarian.)9- Verb conjugation is formed according to the subject and therefore most of the times the subject word itself isn’t needed. It’s called “hidden subject”.Ben eve geldim. (I came home.)Eve geldim. (I came home.)“Ben” is “I” here and it’s perfectly omittable unless you explicitly want to emphasize the subject. Many people already omit it for most of the times. Because verb “gelmek” is conjugated like;gel- (to come)gel-di (came) The plain form also represents “third person” (He/she/it)gel-di-m (I came.)Let’s see some other examples;Geldin. (You came.) Representing “sen” (you, singular) in Turkish.Geldiniz. (You came.) Representing “siz” (you, plural).Geldi. (He/she/it came.) Representing “o”.Geldiler.( They came.) Represenging “onlar” (they).As you see, none of the expressions have a visible subject and in fact, in some of the cases, it will even be awkward to add it.(Edit: Guess what, this “hidden subject” is present in Hungarian.. Again. And I guess some more agglutinative languages have this as agglutination mostly conjugate according to the subject. But I don’t know if they call it the same like “hidden subject”.)10- There is such a rule called “ulama” which is very interesting and that I’ve never heard in any other language. It’s even not a “rule” in fact. It’s just “an information” out there no one knows why existed. It’s explained like; if the former of the two consecutive words ends with a consonant and the latter starts with a vowel, then they can be pronounced like the latter borrowed the former’s last letter. I hear you say, “what??”. Here go some examples with Turkish actor names;Fikret Hakan. (There’s no “ulama”.)Tarık Akan. (There’s ulama. The first word ends with a consonant and the second word starts with a vowel. Therefore these two words sound like “Tarı Kakan” together. Interesting isn’t it? By the way “tarık” as a word has a circumflex originally, but as you see it’s not typed but yet it’s still pronounced as if it’s there.Cüneyt Arkın. (There’s ulama. It sounds like Cüney Tarkın.)It’s not actually a rule and no one knows, then why it’s a grammar subject standing there for decades. In the books it says “you may pronounce this way”. And in some poems, there are some “syllable rhythms” which require you to pronounce with ulama.Edit: There’s a discussion below about this. In fact ulama helps easing pronunciation. Because in such cases, if you don’t use ulama, you need to give a break between the words so that they wouldn’t mix up. Ulama makes it easier so you pronounce two words together. Why I find it interesting is, why we needed to define such a thing while it was already the normal way of speaking. It’s like saying “you can call a house as home”. Consider how many “rules” you would have constructed like that.11- One of the most interesting things about Turkish grammar is, noun form of the verbs (verbal nouns) are the same with negative imperative forms of themselves. Like;Gel-mek (To come)Gel- (Come, imperative)Gel-me (Do not come, imperative)Gel-me (The act of coming)The last two are the same. So is it “coming” or “not coming”? That is the question. Another example;Oturum açma (The act of signing in; you will see these two words on the welcoming screen of your computer.)Oturum açma (Do not sign in, imperative.)Now deal with it; will you sign in or will you not?You will see “Arama” for “calling” on your phone. But as you guessed, “arama” also means “do not call”. Consider you are glancing at your ex’s number on the phone and the green button says “Arama”. Take that a message mother nature gives to you and “do not call”.The reason for this confusion is; both imperative negation suffix and verb nouning suffix are the same two letters (-me, -ma) coincidentally.What makes this more interesting is; most of the natives are not aware of this weird coincidence and they find it very normal; just because of the context. For example the computer can not be dictating you “not to sign in”, right? So they never notice the weirdness; they just see it as “sign in”. Even myself as being interested in linguistics, came to be aware of this fact in my 20s.12- In Turkish alphabet, there are some letters which are exclusive to Turkic languages only. Like “ı and ğ”. Altough debatable, I believe “ğ” is invented for “ğayn” letter of Arabic. Because Turkish has thousands of Arabic loan words for centuries and I haven’t seen a native Turkish word which included letter “ğ” from the beginning. There are also other letters in Turkish which are uncommon in most of the languages like “ş, ü, ö, ç”.But the most interesting one is “ı” for sure. Because it’s the small form of “I”, while in Latin alphabets, small form for “I” is “i”; but “i” is another letter in Turkish. Pretty confusing isn’t it? Let’s visualize better;In Latin, “i” becomes “I” for capital. Loses the dot.In Turkish “i” becomes “İ” for capital. Preserves the dot.In Turkish “ı” becomes “I” for capital. Also preserves the shape. That makes “I” in Turkish a different letter than “I” in many languages including English.Here is a question about the difference between these two letters and my answer about it: Turab Garib's answer to What is the diffrence between i and ı in Turkish?Besides, Turkish alphabet doesn’t have common Latin letters “q, x and w”. Because their representing sounds are already met by other letters. Like “q” is represented with “k”; “x” is represented with “iks” and in fact we don’t have native words which need this sound. Because it’s consisting of three different sounds which are already represented with three letters. Therefore there’s no need for another letter. And finally “w” is represented with “v”.Now this letter resemblance brings this;13. Vowels’ being pairs like with dot / without dot make it hard for non-natives to understand that sometimes they make a lot different words. Like “o” and “ö”; “ı” and “i”; “u” and ü”.Remember we said “ı” and “i” are completely different vowels and has nothing to do with each other? Well, if you omit the dots, you see that the whole thing changes; sometimes pretty badly. Consider this notorious example;Tebrikler kızınız oldu! (Congratulations you had a daughter!)Tebrikler kızınız öldü! (Congratulations your daughter died!) Or vice versa;Çok üzgünüm kızınız öldü. (I am so sorry your daughter died.)Çok üzgünüm kızınız oldu. (I am so sorry you had a daughter.)So you need to be carefull when texting on mobile; because those uncommon letters are unicode and most of the carriers turn these into their counterparts. You type “ö” but it arrives as “o” to the receiver; since “o” is one character and “ö” is two characters in an SMS.Again on computers; if you have an English keyboard, you might mistype these words. This is one of the biggest dangers of texting and typing in Turkish but on a non-compliant system. (Yes “danger” is the right word here.) Because since you can’t type “ı” on the keyboard of the computer; or the mobile carrier replaces it automatically; you will happen to type “i” instead, innocently, because those letters are the same right? What could a dot change that big? Well, don’t. Consider you will ask someone “sıkıldın mı” (are you bored)? If you make that mistake and send the message “ı” replaced with “i”; it will mean “are you f*ed”.Nevertheless, there aren’t very much real-life examples; so if you learn quite a few; you will dogde this one. Because there aren’t much words that coincide perfectly having only the vowels differentiate with dots. So when you type or text non-coinciding words with or without dots incorrectly; it won’t a be problem. Like if you type “agiz” instead of “ağız”; people will perfectly understand you meant “ağız” (mouth); because there’s no such word like “agiz” in Turkish.14- There is an auxiliary verb in Turkish, which is taught in every language class; but it’s literally never ever used. “Yazmak” as a verb, it means “to write” but it is also a helper verb which we call “yaklaşma fiili” (closing verb). Closing by means of “getting close to doing something”, “near miss”, “be almost”, “was just about to .... something”; blank is the verb which our helping verb “helps”. Like;Düş-e-yazmak. Düş-mek is verb “to fall” and “düşeyazmak” is another verb “to almost fall”. You can use it with any other verbs like;Çocuk kazada öleyazdı. (The kid almost died in the accident.)Soğukta donayazdık. (We almost froze in the cold.)But as I said, it’s never, never ever used neither in written language nor colloquially. I haven’t looked up for its history as a grammar subject, but it wasn’t used in the past either for sure. You will find very very rare examples if you ever can. I don’t think it was ever publicly accepted and used but interestingly it survives yet and it’s still being taught, all the time. Natives only enjoy talking “about” it rather using it. Because funny combinations can be formed with it. For example “donayazmak” as in my second example consists of;“don-mak” (verb to freeze)“yaz-mak” (closing verb, auxiliary)Donayazmak (to almost freeze)But you know, Turkish is an agglutinative language. Therefore sometimes plain words coincide with suffixed other words. So if you split up “donayazmak” as “dona yazmak”; it will mean “to write on the underpants” because while “don-mak” is “to freeze”, don standalone is “underpants” (informal). So the sentence in whole makes; “we wrote on our panties in the cold”. Remember “yazmak” also meant “to write”? Now you can make a lot of jokes on it with other verbs as well;Düş-e-yazmak (To almost fall) (-e- is coalescing letter)Düşe yazmak (To write on the dream)Düşey azmak (To get horny vertically (????))There’s also a quite number of natives who don’t know about this auxiliary verb, as they have forgotten they took the lesson years ago. So what are we using to imply the same meaning if we are not using this one? There are other words or verbs to give the same meaning. Like;1. Neredeyse (almost). Like “Çocuk kazada neredeyse ölüyordu”. (The kid almost died in the accident.) or “Soğukta neredeyse donuyorduk”. (We were just about to freeze in the cold.) Notice that also the tense has changed in the translation. It’s a past continuos expression in Turkish like saying “the kid was almost dying in the accident”; but proper translation into English is plain past tense.2. Az kalmak (a little left to …). Like “Az kalsın soğukta donuyorduk”. (It was a little (time) left for us to freeze in the cold.) So it’s still “almost”.3. Ramak kalmak. (No English equivalent.) Now that’s an interesting one stand alone. Because “ramak” is not an alone word by itself; this makes it very exceptional in Turkish. This word doesn’t even have a place in the dictionary. Its only appearence in the whole language is this phrasal verb; “ramak kalmak”. Can be translated like “being very close to doing something” or “something being very close to happen”. It’s origin is a loan from Arabic and in Arabic it means “the last spark of life or the last look just before death”. In Turkish we use it in this phrase like; “Soğuktan donmamıza ramak kaldı/kalmıştı”. (We are/were very close to freezing in the cold.)15- There are some interesting doublings in Turkish that are not present in many languages. They are used for several reasons like intesfying the meaning, adding feelings to the expression etc.1. Doubling the whole word; (I heard this one also in Indian English.)Şu koca koca yıldızlar nasıl da küçük görünüyor. (How those massive massive stars look so tiny.) You can even double “tiny” too.Bak, deniz mavi mavi parıldıyor. (Look, the sea shines blue blue.)It’s not solely intensying the massiveness and blueness; it also adds wonder to the expression.Bebeği gördün mü, küçük küçük elleri var, yumuk yumuk. (Have you seen the baby, he/she has tiny tiny hands, gnarled gnarled.)Showing compassion and love.There are a quite number of addings into the meaning, with such doubling. You can also add “question preposition” between the doubling. Like;Sıcak mı sıcak bir gündü. (It was a hot, was it, hot day.)Doesn’t make sense in English, does it? But yet, it’s something like “ask yourself, asnswer yourself” expression. So it makes a lot of sense if you put it this way; “Was it hot? Yes it was a very hot day”.2. Doubling the first syllable;It is used to emphasize the characteristics of something/someone. It’s grammar name in Turkish is “intensification of adjectives”. The first syllable of the adjective is doubled having a coalescing letter in between.Like “büyük” is big; and “büsbüyük” is... Well there’s no such word in the dictionary. This is how we double the first syllable. Bü-yük are two syllables of this word; so you repeat the first one (“bü-”) to construct the doubling; bü-s-bü-yük. “-s-” is the coalescing letter here and don’t think it’s fixed. Remember “consonant harmony”? “M, p, r, s” letters are used for coalescing in this kind of doubling. So “büsbüyük” means “very big”. See some other examples;“Sarı” is yellow; “sapsarı” (sa-p-sarı) is “very yellow”.“Mavi” is blue; “masmavi” is “very blue”.“Kocaman” is huge, enourmous; “koskocaman” is “very huge”.As in the first doubling method; this one may add emotions into the meaning too. Like;O masmavi denizi özledim. (I missed that (very) blue sea.) It’s not intensifying only the “blueness”; but it also expresses the intense feeling.If the adjective starts with a vowel; we still double the first syllable which happens to be the starter vowel alone; but with a difference. For a reason no one knows why; only “p” is used as the coalescing letter in this condition; not all “m, p, r, s” that I mentioned before. So if it starts with a vowel; then you add one of these prefixes; “ap-, ep-, ıp-, ip-, up-, üp-” as “p” being the coalescing letter. Like;“Açık” means open, it starts with a vowel, ergo it’s first syllable is “a” alone. That means we will repeat “a” and use “p” for coalescing (hence the prefix “ap-”); now “ap-açık” means wide open.“Islak” is wet, “ıpıslak” is very wet. “Uzun” is long, “upuzun” is “very long”.Here is another fun fact about it, again; ask a native about it like <<why not “apuzun” instead of “upuzun”>>; most of the people will say, “it is just the way it is..”; because they are already very well accustomed with the nature of the language; but they don’t know “why” and “how”. Well; now you learnt why; vowel harmony plus syllable doubling. Therefore it can not be “ap-uzun” or “ıp-uzun” instead of “upuzun”.But wait a minute; there are 8 vowels (a, e, ı, i, o, ö, u, ü) in Turkish alphabet but we counted only 6 prefixes? So what happens with the adjectives that start with “o” and “ö”? Well, that’s another fun fact about it; for a reason nobody knows why again; adjectives starting with “o” and “ö” can not be intensified this way. Like;“Olumlu” is positive or affirmative. But there’s no such thing like “op-olumlu”.“Ölümlü” is mortal; but there’s no such thing like “öpölümlü”.By the way notice “olumlu” and “ölümlü” are having only dots as difference; yet they are completely different words.3. Doubling the word with its first letter replaced with “m”;You just remove the first letter of the word, put an “m” instead and double it with the original word itself. (Again, no one knows why “m” exclusively.) It gives the meaning “… or something”. Like;Ben masanın üzerinde kalem malem görmedim. (I haven’t seen a pen or something on the table.)Akşam dışarı çıkalım da çorba morba içelim. (We shall get out tonight and drink soup or something.)Natives like to joke on this one but it’s sometimes a bad wheeze. Like (above examples continued);Kalem gördüm de malem nerede ben de bilmiyorum. (I have seen the pen (kalem) but I don’t know where the “malem” is either.)Çorba içelim de morba bana dokunuyor. (Ok we shall drink soup (çorba) but “morba” doesn’t agree with my stomach.) As if there’s something like “morba”; which you know, there isn’t.Another interesting thing about this doubling is; as you might have guessed; what happens if the word is already starting with letter “m”? Well; you simply can’t double that one; but people are accustomed to doubling; so sometimes their feelings want to speak it out but their tongue wouldn’t allow; so you notice that a native breaking there for a second. That’s an interesting feeling for the natives. There comes in “falan”. Because you want to double that word but you can’t.. So we use a junk word. Like;Ben orada makas makas bırakmadım. (I didn’t leave scissors or something there.) That’s wrong; because “makas” (scissors) already starts with “m”; so you can’t replace it with itself. Now the speaking person stops there for a second and instead he/she says;Ben orada makas falan bırakmadım. (I didn’t leave any scissors there.) Doubling is accomplished, he/she is relieved.“Falan” is a loan from Arabic and it represents something you don’t want to mention or talk about or you don’t have the proper knowledge to say at that point or it’s an unnecessary detail in the context. In this doubling, it again gives a meaning “… or something” and “… or so”. So it doesn’t have to be used only in a doubling like this. When it’s used with words which don’t start with “m”, it gives the same meaning with which do. Like;Ben masanın üzerinde kalem malem görmedim. Same with;Ben masanın üzerinde kalem falan görmedim.16- Context is very much important in Turkish language. It is of course important in every single language; but in Turkish, it also morphs the language functionaly and alters the perceiving of the people a lot.Remember “oturum açma” meant both “sign in” and “do not sign in” and “arama” meant both “call” and “don’t call”? If you remove the context; you are left with a great conflict here.There are even some words which has the same meaning in the same sentence; but to decide which one to use; you need to have a context. Like;A teacher is in the class trying to keep the children quiet;Çocuklar sessiz olun! (Children be quiet!) Right.Evlatlar sessiz olun! Wrong, although “evlatlar” means children here. Because the context is not suitable.On the other hand the same teacher to the students;Hepiniz benim çocuklarımsınız. (You all are my children.) Right but closer to literal meaning of children.Hepiniz benim evlatlarımsınız. Right and preferred.Now this time “evlatlar” is preferred over “çocuklar”.Further reading about this one; Turab Garib's answer to Does "Evladı" mean "son" in Turkish?See how a junk word plays with context; Turab Garib's answer to How should I translate “eyvallah” from Turkish to English?And see a very good example of this context functionality in another question; it’s about 3 words which all mean “heart” in Turkish: Tufan Karadere's answer to What is the difference between the words “kalp”, “gönül” and “yürek”?17- Since being agglutinative, words in plain forms coincide with suffixed ones. That sometimes brings a confusion which natives call “elasticity”.We had some examples here like “düşeyazmak” could mean 3 different things; not as a homonym or homophone but only by coincidence. A famous example is the talent competition TV show of Turkey; it’s named “Yetenek Sizsiniz”. Well; hold tight. Because this means “You Are The Talent”. Hold still. It also means “You Are Untalented”. What? How? Just a space changes that. Let’s go suffix by suffix;Yetenek in plain means talentYeteneksiz is untalentedYeteneksizsin is “you are untalented” (singular).Yeteneksizsiniz is “you are untalented” (plural). On the other hand;Yetenek is talent againYetenek Siz is “talent, you”Yetenek Sizsiniz is “you are the talent”. Yes, there is just a space differentiating these two. (Well that also means there’s no colloquial difference between them.) Because “-siz” is a suffix to add inexistence or lacking to the word. Completely the same suffix with “-less” in English. Like “hope” is “ümit” and “hopeless” is “ümitsiz”. But “siz” as a stand alone word also means “you” (plural); hence the coincidence. You can even use them together like “sizsiz” which will mean “without you” (“youless”, for that matter) (plural).Here another famous saying; “Çaresizseniz, çare sizsiniz” (If you are helpless, you are/be the help). As you guessed, it’s the same with above. If you remove the space; it will mean “if you are helpless, you are helpless”. (Like saying “I can’t do aynthing for it”.) You can also replace the space between the words (çare sizseniz, çaresizsiniz) and then the same sentence will mean “If you are the help, then you are helpless”, again reverting the meaning to quite the opposite.Gelin konuşalım. (Let’s talk) (Word “gel” with “-in” suffix; means “let’s”.)Gelin konuşalım. (Bride (or daughter in law), we shall talk) (Word “gelin” as stond alone, means bride.)Yapma öyle şeyler. (Don’t do such things.) (Yap is “to do” and “yapma” is “don’t do”)Yapma öyle şeyler. (Those kind of things are sham.) (Yapma alone is “sham”.)Sakatat yer misin? (Do you eat (edible) offals of an animal?)Sakat at yer misin? (Do you eat crippled horse?)Here is a coincidence king;Oya Bilir (This is reportedly full name of a dentist in Turkey; which is very possible and native. Oya as a stand alone word means “lace” and it’s also a female given name.)Oyabilir (He/she can excavate.) What a suitable name for a dentist. “Oy-mak” is “to carve, to excavate, to incise”. Here comes another coincidence; “oymak” is also a stand alone word which means “clan”. Yet another coincidence, “oy” means “vote (noun)” and oya means “to vote (noun accusative)”. Well yet another coincidence is with her surname; because “-e-bil-mek” as a suffix means “be able to” and “can” at the same time; but “bil-mek” as stand alone means “to know”. So “Oya Bilir” also means “Oya knows” along with “can excavate” or “able to excavate”. Hell yeah.Here another one from a newspaper slogan;Haber Veri Yorum (News, Data, Commentary)Haber veriyorum (I am giving the news.) Because “veri” is data but “ver-mek” is “to give” and “yorum” is “commentary” but it’s also the first person singular conjugation suffix of the present continuos tense. So when you bring two different words (veri + yorum) (data + commentary) together, it will form another word (veriyorum) which will mean “I am giving”. Triple coincidences in one word. What a nice slogan for a newspaper, isn’t it?Here is a current TV commercial of ice tea slogan; “kolaya kaçma”. Kolay is “easy” and “kolay-a” is (to easy, accusative) and kaçmak is to “run away” so the phrase in whole means “cut corner” or “take the easy way” (it has a negative meaning, that’s why “run (away)” is used). But “kola” is as you know, “cola” (coke) and “kola-y-a” is “to cola, accusative” (“y” is coalescing letter) and now the phrase meant “don’t run away to coke (stick with ice tea)”. They mean it like “we didn’t take the easy way out and took pains to prepare ice tea, so you don’t run away to coke (don’t choose the easy one)”.There are countless of coincidences like that which make meaningful distinctions, really countless; so much that sometimes natives pretend like it coincided even if it didn’t. Like;Person 1: Ne pişiriyorsun? (What are you cooking?)Person 2: Menemen. (A spicy Turkish omlette-ish)Person 1: Ne biliyorsun belki menebilirim? (How can you be sure, maybe I can “men”?)Weird enough huh? “Menemen” is a meal name; if there had been a verb like “menmek” in Turkish; this meal name would have coincided with it; and by that coincidence the meal name would have also meant “you can’t men” (informally). But of course there is no such word like “menmek” in Turkish but person 2 pretends like there is; just for fun; because they are so much accustomed to such coincidences. (By the way, “men” is another coincidental word and it means “warning off” but what a coincidence again; it’s not a regular verb like “menmek”; rather it has to be verbalized with an auxiliary verb like “men etmek” (to warn off).An example for this one in English could be like “therapist” coinciding with “the rapist” differentiating with only a space. But such examples are very rare in other languages. So note that, we are not talking about homonyms, homographs or homophones. These I mention are two completely different words, differently spelled and differently pronounced but only conciding with and without suffixes. Homographs are a different thing like;Bana atsın. (He/she shall throw it to me.)Bana atsın. (You are a horse to me.)Here “at” means both “throw” (verb) and “horse” (noun); there are many homographs like this in many languages. (Like there are more than 300 known homographs in English for example.) So this is a different thing than this coincidences I am talking about. Though the suffixes coincide in this example too. Because -sın is a suffix which conjugates the verb into subjunctive mood for third person pronoun; but also -sın, -sınız is another suffix which means “you are”. Like “güzelsin” is “you are beautiful”. (You see, I am trying to give an example which is “not a coincidence” but even in that there comes to be one.) But still; it’s a homograph coincidence at the base and it won’t work always. Like as “güzelsin” was “you are beautiful” and there is no such thing like “he shall <<güzel>>” because there is no verb like “güzel”. And “gel-sin” is “he shall come”; but there is no such thing like “you are a gel”; because there is no noun like “gel”. It worked with “at” because it has a homograph (i.e same word by spelling having more than one meaning like “fall” is a season name and it’s also a verb which means to descend freely).These are some interesting facts about Turkish grammar, syntax and the language itself.Edit: I have made a lot of additions to this answer. But I should say that if you are a new learner; don’t be freaked out reading all these. I just tried to put some of the “interesting facts” here; just for the sake of the question. When you pass that point getting used to the language; as I said many times as it happens with natives; you won’t notice most of it; you will just “know” it is the way it is.Edit: You will see that in some of them I added little notes about the similarities with Hungarian. It could rouse an idea that Hungarian and Turkish could be related, but they are not. They have similar kinkies like I mentioned in here; but they are not mutually intelligible, not even close. There are of course shared words coming from old times when the two nations were neighbours; but they are few and that’s all. (At least per what we know today.)

This is definitely a difficult area of English grammar and usage. The textbooks don’t give you any help and confuse the issue by putting all usages into one category. The key to understanding and then hopefully using prepositions is to try to sort them into categories.We do this with other grammar areas; nouns have categories, (uncountable, plural, singular, etc.), verbs have categories, (auxiliary, main, linking etc.), adverbs as well, (frequency, degree, place etc.) so it shouldn’t be surprising that prepositions also have categories.As with everything, we need to start with the known and move up slowly to the unknown. I have divided prepositions into 4 categories: literal, collocation, phrasal verb & idiom. The category of literal has three subcategories, (place, time & manner). Think about climbing a tree; the higher up you go the less clear the ground is. We move from the ground, a basic idea, up towards the sky, a much more metaphorical concept.As we go along try to keep in mind that our categories are not closed boxes. Keep the lines fluid so that the concepts can flow into each other. One concept can help you understand a less literal concept and so on.The first and probably fairly well-known category is prepositions with a literal meaning. There are three subcategories of literal meaning: place, time & manner. (We won’t explore manner in depth here.) Prepositions of place are the most basic and easiest to understand, so start there.We can look at the ten most commonly used prepositions and try to get ahold of those first.of, in, to, for, with, on, at, from, by, aboutCheck in the dictionary for each of these. Some can be eliminated at this stage because they are not used strictly as prepositions of place.Start with the ones you know. I suggest: in, to, on, at & fromCopy some example sentences with these prepositions from a good dictionary and then make a few of your own. Learn these words well. This is your foundation so build it well.Next, you can move up the metaphorical tree to prepositions of time. Do the same exercise. Copy example sentences from a good dictionary and make a few of your own.Learn every stage well. You need a new branch of the metaphorical tree to stand on before you move up to the next level.You may have heard the term prepositions of manner. These are quite tricky to understand and might best be put into a category higher than literal. Prepositions of manner are not place and they’re not time; they are all about ‘how’. If you’re not comfortable with this concept, don’t worry for now. If you have place and time clear in your head we can leave manner for a while. You might prefer to put the idea of manner higher up the metaphorical tree than I have.Let’s see what we have so far with the preposition ON.Placedefinition: in or into a position covering, touching or forming part of a surfaceExamplesThere is a glass on the table.Jake put a picture on the wall.Celia was sitting on the chair.Timedefinition: used to show a day or dateexamplesJake came to visit on Tuesday.Celia goes shopping on Fridays.Sammy’s birthday is on the 7th.Now you’re ready to move up to the next category, collocations. Preposition collocations are phrases that consist of a verb + preposition, adjective + preposition or a noun + preposition. The first two are by far the most numerous, so I suggest leaving nouns for now. Most nouns that take prepositions have verb or adjective forms anyway, (believe in - a belief in).Preposition collocations are built mostly with Latinate words and rarely with words that have a Saxon origin. Don’t confuse collocations with phrasal verbs. If the verb can take many prepositions, (go in, go out, go away etc.), then it’s a phrasal verb. Collocations only take one preposition, (sometimes, but not often, they can take two). Think about the example above. ‘Believe’ can only be followed by one preposition, ‘in’. You can’t use *believe on or *believe at or any other preposition with the verb believe.Preposition collocations slightly change the meaning of the verb, adjective or noun. Believe is different from believe in, although we can see the connection quite clearly.Jake believes what Celia has said. (He doesn’t think she is lying)Sammy believes in ghosts. (He thinks ghosts exist)If a verb or adjective can take two prepositions, usually one is used for people and the other is used for things.Sammy agreed with Jake.Jake agreed on the plan.To study these, you can use some lists from the internet. Make sure you use high-frequency phrases. Don’t study obscure rare phrases that you’ll never use.Look up a Latinate verb or adjective in the dictionary. If you use the Oxford Learner’s Dictionary, you will see a pink box that says ‘Collocations’. Click it open and look for the prepositions commonly used with the word you have looked up. (You have to scroll far down the page to find this box.The next category is phrasal verbs. These are tricky but you’ve climbed halfway up the metaphorical tree so you’re ready! As I said above, the difference between phrasal verbs and collocations is that collocations have only one, sometimes two prepositions whereas phrasal verbs have many. Different verbs have a different set of prepositions, (and adverbs) that are possible for forming a phrasal verb. Unlike collocations, the meaning of the verb often changes radically when it is in a phrasal verb. Sometimes the sense is quite literal. Also most phrasal verbs are made from verbs with a Saxon origin. The irregular verb list is a good place to start, (get, come/go, take, put, bring)Celia is going to the opera tonight so she’s putting on some lipstick.“Hi Jake, I want to talk to Celia. Can you put her on the phone?”The opera is putting on Figaro tonight.You’ll find lists of possible phrasal verbs at the end of each verb entry, (below the collocations box) in the Oxford Larner’s dictionary. Learn possible verbs for a preposition, for example ‘ON’. Don’t learn all the prepositions for verbs! That’s far too confusing. Focus on the preposition, not the verb.For example, learn these together: go on, put on, get on etc.Don’t learn these together: get in, get on, get away etc.The final category in the metaphorical tree is everything else! That is phrases, expressions and idioms that didn’t fit into any of the other three categories, (manner might work best for you here). There is no ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ to any of this. If YOU think it’s literal, then that’s fine. If you think it’s an expression that’s fine too! The only category that is quite definite is collocations, but even that has fuzzy borders.You can find lists of idioms in the dictionary near the bottom of the entry. If the word is a verb the box of idioms is just above the list of phrasal verbs.In a flashPut in a good wordIn no timeI hope you tackle this difficult area of English. Focus on a few prepositions and you’ll soon get the idea. The more data you give your brain, the more it will have to work with. Read plenty, keep your ears open and take extensive notes.If you would like to read more about this I have a few pages on my website that you can look at.In this post, I outline what you have just read and then give guided practice.:PREPOSITIONS- 4 categories - Insider's EnglishPrepositions are little words, that cause very big problems. One of the problems is that many grammar books put every possible usage of randomly selected prepositions into one big exercise. If we can separate the different uses, and focus on a small number of prepositions, we may have a better chance to fully understand where ... Read morehttps://insidersenglish.com/prepositions-4-categories/There is a quiz embedded in the post to check your understanding of the 4 categories.There is also a video that accompanies the guided practice:A post that focuses on ON:On - explore all the uses of ON , meanings, collocations and phrasal verbsOn- prepositions cause many problems for English students. Explore the many uses of this little word through collocations, expressions and phrasal verbshttps://insidersenglish.com/weekly-words/And one that focuses on IN:Prepositions - In - Insider's EnglishTake a look at the various usages of the word “IN”. Scroll down to find the literal meaning, collocations, phrasal verbs and expressions. Once in a Blue Blue Moon Someone like you comes along Van Morrison   IN- LITERAL MEANING Place In- surrounded by real or imaginary borders real borders: in your house imaginary borders: ... Read morehttps://insidersenglish.com/in/Good luck and let us know how you make out!