Learn Hardcore Turkish: Sabah bavulumu hazırlarken listeye son kez baktım. - While packing my suitcase in the morning, I looked at the list one last time.

Sabah
- Noun: morning
- Here used as a time adverb: in the morning / this morning
- No suffix.
bavulumu
- bavul = suitcase
- -um = my (1st person singular possessive)
- -u = accusative case (direct object: my suitcase – specifically, the one we know about)
- Whole word: my suitcase (as a specific object)
hazırlarken
- hazırla- = to prepare
- -r = part of the aorist stem (hazırlar-) used before -ken
- -ken = while …-ing
- Whole word: while (I was) preparing
listeye
- liste = list
- -y- = buffer consonant (to help pronunciation)
- -e = dative case (“to / toward / at”)
- Whole word: to the list / at the list
son
- Adjective: last / final
kez
- Noun: time, occurrence (as in “one time, two times”)
son kez
- Phrase: for the last time / one last time
baktım
- bak- = to look
- -tı- = past tense suffix (-DI form)
- -m = I (1st person singular)
- Whole word: I looked

So the structure is roughly:
Morning my-suitcase-ACC while-preparing list-DAT last time looked-I.

Why is it bavulumu and not just bavulum?

Bavulum and bavulumu are different:

bavulum
- bavul (suitcase) + -um (my)
- Means my suitcase (no case ending; “my suitcase” as a bare noun)
bavulumu
- bavul (suitcase) + -um (my) + -u (accusative case)
- Means my suitcase as a specific direct object of a verb.

In Turkish, a definite direct object usually takes the accusative case:

Bavulumu hazırladım. – I prepared my suitcase. (the one we know)
Bir bavul hazırladım. – I prepared a suitcase. (indefinite, no accusative)

In your sentence, you are talking about preparing your known suitcase, so it is definite, and Turkish marks that by using bavulumu (accusative), not just bavulum.

How exactly is bavulumu built up from the root bavul?

Step by step:

bavul – suitcase
Add 1st person singular possessive (my):
- bavul + -(I)m → bavulum (my suitcase)
Add accusative case marker for a vowel-final possessive form:
- bavulum + -(y)I → bavulumu

Why -u specifically? Because of vowel harmony:

The last vowel before the case suffix is u (in bavul / bavulum).
The accusative suffix -(I) appears as -ı, -i, -u, -ü depending on that last vowel.
After u, it becomes -u, so we get bavul-um-u → bavulumu.

So the structure is:
bavul + um + u
suitcase + my + (definite object)

Why is it listeye baktım and not something like listeme baktım or listeyi baktım?

Because the verb bakmak (“to look”) governs the dative case in Turkish, not the accusative.

bakmak (bir şeye) = to look at / to something

So you say:

listeye baktım – I looked at the list.
kitaba baktım – I looked at the book.
pencereye baktım – I looked at the window.

Using accusative (listeyi) would be ungrammatical with bakmak:

✗ listeyi baktım – incorrect

Using listeme baktım would change the meaning to I looked at my list (possessive) instead of the list in general:

listeme baktım – I looked at my list.
listeye baktım – I looked at the list (no possessive).

In your sentence, listeye is “to the list / at the list” in the dative case, matching the requirements of bakmak.

What does the -ken in hazırlarken mean, and how does it work?

The suffix -ken means “while …-ing” and turns a verb into a kind of time clause:

yemek yerken – while (I was) eating
yürürken – while (I was) walking
hazırlarken – while (I was) preparing

In your sentence:

bavulumu hazırlarken = while (I was) preparing my suitcase

Important points:

-ken attaches to the verb stem or the aorist stem, not the fully inflected verb:
- hazırla- → hazırlar- (aorist stem) → hazırlarken
The subject of the -ken part is understood to be the same as the subject of the main verb, unless stated otherwise.
So hazırlarken here automatically means while I was preparing (because baktım = I looked).

You could also see hazırlıyorken in some contexts, but hazırlarken is shorter and very natural.

Why is there no “I” (ben) in the sentence? How do we know the subject?

Turkish verbs always show the subject in their endings, so the subject pronoun is often dropped.

baktım
- bak- = look
- -tı- = past
- -m = I
- So it already means I looked.

Because the verb ending -m clearly shows that the subject is “I”, the pronoun ben is not needed:

Sabah bavulumu hazırlarken listeye son kez baktım. – correct, natural
Ben sabah bavulumu hazırlarken listeye son kez baktım. – also correct, but ben adds emphasis (as in “I (as opposed to someone else) looked at the list one last time”).

By default, Turkish drops subject pronouns unless you want to stress who did the action.

Can you explain the overall word order? Could we move the words around?

The basic Turkish sentence pattern is Subject – Object – Verb, with adverbs before the verb as well. Your sentence:

Sabah – time adverbial (when?)
bavulumu hazırlarken – time/manner clause (while doing what?)
listeye son kez – indirect object + frequency adverbial (to what / how many times?)
baktım – verb (I looked)

So the natural order is:

(Time) + (While-clause) + (Destination + Adverb) + Verb

In other words:

Sabah bavulumu hazırlarken listeye son kez baktım.

You can move some parts for emphasis, but the verb typically stays at the end:

Sabah listeye son kez baktım bavulumu hazırlarken. – awkward, sounds wrong.
Sabah listeye son kez, bavulumu hazırlarken baktım. – possible, but marked and less natural.

The original word order is the clearest and most natural: time first, then “while”-clause, then the phrase closest to the verb (listeye son kez), then the verb baktım at the end.

What is the difference between son kez and son defa? Could we say son defa here?

Both son kez and son defa mean “the last time / one last time.”

son kez – slightly more neutral, very common
son defa – also very common; sometimes can feel just a little more dramatic or emphatic depending on context, but in most everyday cases they are interchangeable.

In your sentence, you can say either:

… listeye son kez baktım.
… listeye son defa baktım.

Both are natural. There is no significant meaning change here.

Why is Sabah alone? What about sabahleyin or sabahları?

All three exist but have different uses:

Sabah (by itself, at the beginning of the sentence)
- Often means this morning / in the morning in context.
- Very common in narration:
  - Sabah işe gittim. – I went to work (this) morning.
sabahleyin
- More explicitly in the morning, often more general or habitual, but also used for a specific morning:
- Sabahleyin spor yaparım. – I (usually) exercise in the morning.
sabahları
- Means in the mornings / every morning / on mornings (generally).
- Strongly habitual:
  - Sabahları kahve içerim. – I drink coffee in the mornings.

In your sentence, you are narrating a specific event that happened this morning or a particular morning, so Sabah is perfect and very natural:

Sabah bavulumu hazırlarken… – (This) morning, while I was preparing my suitcase…

Why is the main verb baktım (simple past) and not something like bakıyordum (was looking)?

Turkish often uses the simple past (-DI) for single, completed actions in a narrative:

baktım – I looked (once, done, over)

In your sentence, looking at the list is a single, completed action that happened during the process of preparing your suitcase. That is why baktım is used.

If you used bakıyordum, it would sound like an ongoing action in the past (I was in the middle of looking), and the structure of the sentence would change:

Sabah bavulumu hazırlarken listeye son kez bakıyordum.
– This suggests “I was (in the process of) looking one last time at the list while preparing my suitcase,” which is odd because “one last time” itself implies a brief, completed action.

So baktım matches the idea of a quick, completed “final check” much better.

Could we say hazırlıyorken instead of hazırlarken? Is there any difference?

Both forms exist, but they’re not equally common.

hazırlarken
- From the aorist stem hazırlar-
  - -ken
- Very common and natural in modern Turkish.
hazırlıyorken
- From the progressive hazırlıyor
  - -ken
- Grammatically possible, but usually either:
  - sounds more colloquial/spoken, or
  - is avoided because it’s a bit heavier/longer.

In practice:

bavulumu hazırlarken – while (I was) preparing my suitcase → most natural.
bavulumu hazırlıyorken – understandable, but less common in careful written style.

So in this sentence, hazırlarken is the preferred and most idiomatic choice.

Does listeye son kez baktım mean I carefully checked the list, or just that I glanced at it?

The verb bakmak literally means “to look”, and on its own it is neutral about how carefully you looked:

It can be just a glance.
Or it can be a quick but purposeful check.

Context matters. In this sentence, because it’s about preparing a suitcase and looking at the list one last time, the natural interpretation is:

I checked the list one last time.

If you wanted to make the idea of carefully checking stronger and clearer, you could use:

listeyi son kez kontrol ettim – I checked the list one last time.
listeyi son kez gözden geçirdim – I went over the list one last time.

But listeye son kez baktım already very naturally suggests a final look-check at the list in this context.