Pardon, sizi yanlış anladım.

Pardon is a common way to say sorry?, excuse me, or pardon me in Turkish.

In this sentence, it softens what follows, so it works like:

• Sorry,
• Excuse me,
• Pardon me,

It is very common in spoken Turkish.

Sizi is the form for:

• you plural, or
• you singular formal/polite

Seni is singular informal.

So:

• seni yanlış anladım = I misunderstood you (informal, one person)
• sizi yanlış anladım = I misunderstood you (formal one person, or more than one person)

This sentence sounds polite because of sizi.

Because anlamak takes a direct object, and direct objects are often marked in Turkish.

Here, siz becomes sizi, which is the accusative form.

• siz = you
• sizi = you (as the object)

So sizi yanlış anladım literally means I understood you wrongly.

Yanlış means wrong or incorrect.

In yanlış anladım, it functions like wrongly or incorrectly:

• yanlış anladım = I understood wrongly
• natural English meaning: I misunderstood

Turkish often uses a word like yanlış without adding a special -ly ending the way English does.

Turkish usually expresses this idea with yanlış anlamak, literally to understand wrongly.

So instead of one separate verb, Turkish commonly uses:

• anlamak = to understand
• yanlış anlamak = to misunderstand

That is the normal, natural way to say it.

Anladım comes from the verb anlamak = to understand.

Breakdown:

• anla- = verb stem
• -dı = past tense
• -m = I

So:

• anladım = I understood

In this sentence, with yanlış, it means I misunderstood.

Because Turkish usually does not need a separate subject pronoun when the verb ending already shows the person.

Anladım already means I understood, because the -m ending tells you the subject is I.

So:

• Ben sizi yanlış anladım = I misunderstood you
• Sizi yanlış anladım = I misunderstood you

Both are correct, but the version without ben is more natural unless you want emphasis.

Turkish normally places the verb at the end of the sentence.

So the structure here is:

• Pardon, = Sorry / Excuse me
• sizi = you
• yanlış = wrongly
• anladım = I understood

This verb-final order is very typical in Turkish.

Yes, if it is already clear whom you misunderstood.

• Pardon, yanlış anladım. = Sorry, I misunderstood.
• Pardon, sizi yanlış anladım. = Sorry, I misunderstood you.

Including sizi makes the object explicit and can sound clearer.

Yes. It is polite and natural.

It sounds polite for two reasons:

• pardon softens the statement
• sizi is formal/polite or plural

It is a very normal way to apologize for misunderstanding someone.

Yes, depending on context.

Sizi yanlış anladım can mean:

• I misunderstood what you meant
• I understood your words incorrectly
• I took what you said the wrong way

It is a broad, useful phrase for many kinds of misunderstanding.

Yes. Some common alternatives are:

• Affedersiniz, sizi yanlış anladım. = Excuse me, I misunderstood you.
• Özür dilerim, sizi yanlış anladım. = I am sorry, I misunderstood you.
• Kusura bakmayın, sizi yanlış anladım. = Sorry, I misunderstood you.

Compared with these:

• pardon is short and common
• özür dilerim sounds more explicitly apologetic
• kusura bakmayın is also very common and polite

A simple approximation is:

par-don, see-zee yan-lush an-la-duhm

A few helpful notes:

• sizi = see-zee
• yanlış has the Turkish ş, pronounced like sh
• ı in anladım is not the English ee sound; it is a deeper, central vowel, so duhm is only an approximation

A more careful pronunciation guide:

Pardon, sizi yanlış anladım
par-don, si-zi yan-lısh an-la-dım