Seher olunca kuş sesleri bahçeyi renklendiriyor.

At dawn, the sounds of birds color the garden.

Breakdown of Seher olunca kuş sesleri bahçeyi renklendiriyor.

• bahçe: the garden
• renklendirmek: to color
• olunca: when
• ses: the sound

Questions & Answers about Seher olunca kuş sesleri bahçeyi renklendiriyor.

What does Seher olunca mean and how does the suffix -unca function?

• Seher means “dawn.”
• The suffix -unca attaches to a verb (here ol-, “to become/arrive”) to form a temporal conjunction meaning “when.”
• So seher olunca literally means “when dawn comes” or “once it becomes dawn.”

Why not use olduğunda or olursa instead of olunca?

• olunca and olduğunda both mean “when,” but -unca is a bound conjunctional suffix (faster, more idiomatic) while olduğunda is a full participle + case ending (“when it has become”).
• olursa means “if it becomes,” so that’s conditional, not purely temporal.
• In everyday Turkish, olunca is the most natural for “when X happens.”

Can you break down renklendiriyor into its parts?

Certainly:

1. renk – “color” (noun root)
2. -li – adjective suffix “having/with” → renk­li “colorful”
3. -dir – causative suffix “to make/cause to be” → renklendir- “to make colorful”
4. -iyor – present continuous suffix “is/are …ing” → renklendiriyor “is making (something) colorful,” i.e. “is coloring”

Why is bahçeyi in the accusative case with -yi?