Word
Dere kenarında yel değirmeni gördüm.
Meaning
I saw a windmill by the river.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Lesson
Elon.io is an online learning platform
We have an entire course teaching Turkish grammar and vocabulary.
Questions & Answers about Dere kenarında yel değirmeni gördüm.
What does Dere kenarında mean?
Dere means “stream” and kenarında means “at its edge.” So together Dere kenarında literally translates to “at the edge of the stream.”
How is kenarında formed, and what do its suffixes do?
Kenar is “edge.” It takes two suffixes:
- -ı (3rd-person singular possessive) → “its edge”
- -nda (locative) → “at/on/in”
So kenar + -ı + -nda = kenarında, meaning “at its edge.”
Why is there no genitive suffix on dere, as in derenin? Could you say Derenin kenarında instead?
In Dere kenarında, dere acts like an attributive noun (“stream edge”) without its own suffix. Native speakers often drop the genitive on the first noun in such compounds. If you want a fully marked genitive, you can say Derenin kenarında (“at the stream’s edge”), which is equally correct but slightly more formal.
Why is there no accusative suffix on yel değirmeni?
Turkish marks definite direct objects with -ı/-i. Here yel değirmeni (“windmill”) is indefinite (“a windmill”), so it stays unmarked. If you meant “the windmill,” you would say yel değirmenini gördüm.
What is the breakdown of the past-tense verb gördüm?
Gör- is the root “to see.”
-dü- is the simple past tense suffix, harmony-adjusted to ü because of the ö in gör-.
-m is the 1st-person singular ending (“I”).
Put together: gör + dü + m = gördüm (“I saw”).
Why is there no explicit subject pronoun like ben in the sentence?
Turkish is a pro-drop language: the verb ending -m already indicates “I,” so you don’t need to say ben (“I”) unless you want to add emphasis.
Could you use bir yel değirmeni instead of just yel değirmeni?
Yes. Adding bir (“a/an”) explicitly marks indefiniteness: Bir yel değirmeni gördüm also means “I saw a windmill.” However, native speakers often omit bir when context makes it clear.
Why is the verb at the end, and how flexible is the word order?
Standard Turkish word order is Subject–Object–Verb (SOV). Here the implied subject (I), then object yel değirmeni, then verb gördüm. Place phrases like Dere kenarında normally come before the object. You can rearrange for emphasis, but the verb almost always stays last.
How would you ask “Where did you see a windmill?” in Turkish?
You use the question word Nerede (“Where”) at the start:
Nerede yel değirmeni gördün?
Literally: “Where (did you) windmill see?”