Questions & Answers about Arkadaşım bir bira içti.
Why does arkadaşım mean my friend? Where is the word for my?
In Turkish, possession is often shown with a suffix instead of a separate word.
- arkadaş = friend
- -ım = my
So:
- arkadaşım = my friend
This is very natural in Turkish. Instead of saying something like my friend with a separate my, Turkish usually attaches the possessive ending directly to the noun.
Why is the ending -ım and not -im?
This is because of vowel harmony, a very important Turkish sound pattern.
The noun arkadaş has a as its last vowel, so the possessive suffix appears in the matching form -ım.
The 1st person singular possessive suffix can appear as:
- -ım
- -im
- -um
- -üm
Which one you get depends on the last vowel of the word.
So:
- arkadaş + ım → arkadaşım
What does bir mean here?