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Breakdown of Başarıya giden ilk adım, hedefini net bir şekilde belirlemektir.
bir
a
gitmek
to go
senin
your
adım
the step
başarı
the success
net
clear
ilk
first
hedef
the goal
-de
in
-ya
to
şekil
the manner
belirlemek
to define
Questions & Answers about Başarıya giden ilk adım, hedefini net bir şekilde belirlemektir.
What does the suffix -ya in Başarıya indicate?
The suffix -ya is the dative case marker in Turkish, meaning “to” or “toward.” So Başarıya literally means “to success.”
What is the function of giden here?
giden is the present‐participle (verbal adjective) form of gitmek (“to go”). It modifies adım, so giden adım means “the step that goes” or “the step going toward (something).”
Why is there a comma after adım?
The comma separates the noun phrase Başarıya giden ilk adım from the following infinitive clause hedefini net bir şekilde belirlemektir. It helps clarify that the second part is the predicate describing that “first step.”
How do we get hedefini, and what does it mean?
Hedefini breaks down as hedef (“goal”) + -in (2nd-person singular possessive “your”) + -i (definite-object/accusative). So hedefini means “your goal” as the definite object of the verb.
What kind of phrase is net bir şekilde and how do you translate it?
Net bir şekilde is an adverbial phrase formed from net (“clear”), bir (“a”), and şekilde (“way/manner”). Together they mean “in a clear way” or simply “clearly.”
What form is belirlemektir, and why is it used?
Belirlemektir is the infinitive belirlemek (“to determine”) plus the 3rd-person copula -tir. In Turkish you often use -mek/-mak + copula to turn a verb into a noun-like predicate meaning “is to [verb].” Here it means “is to determine.”
Why does the verb (infinitive + copula) appear at the end of the sentence?
Turkish follows Subject-Object-Verb (SOV) word order. Even in sentences with infinitival predicates, the verb (or verbal structure like belirlemektir) comes at the end.
Could this sentence be rephrased without the infinitival ending -mek?
If you want a finite verb ending, you’d need to change the structure. For example:
“Başarıya giden ilk adım, hedefini net bir şekilde belirlemek olmalıdır.”
Here olmalıdır (“must be”) is a finite verb, and belirlemek stays as an infinitive object of olmalıdır. But the original nominalized form with -mektir is the most concise way to say “the first step … is to determine.”
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