Nohut pişerken annem bana “havuçları unutma” dedi, ben de hemen doğradım.

In Turkish, nohut is commonly used as a general food noun, so singular is very natural. It can refer to chickpeas as an ingredient or dish without needing a plural ending.

So nohut pişerken is a normal way to say while the chickpeas were cooking.

Using nohutlar is possible, but it would sound more like you are emphasizing separate chickpeas or specific groups of them, which is not usually needed here.

It means while the chickpeas were cooking.

That is because pişmek is an intransitive verb, meaning to cook / be cooked. The subject is nohut.

If you wanted to say while my mother was cooking the chickpeas, you would normally use the transitive verb pişirmek:

Annem nohudu pişirirken...

So the original sentence is about the chickpeas being in the process of cooking, not about the mother actively cooking them.

Pişerken is built from pişmek plus -ken, which gives the meaning while ... is/was doing.

In practice, pişerken means while cooking or while being cooked, depending on the subject.

So:

• pişmek = to cook / be cooked
• pişerken = while cooking / while being cooked

This is a very common Turkish way to make a while clause without needing a separate word like English while plus a full finite verb.

Turkish usually shows possession with a suffix attached to the noun.

• anne = mother
• annem = my mother

The -m here is the first-person singular possessive ending.

You can also say benim annem, but that is more explicit or emphatic. In many normal sentences, just annem is enough.

Bana means to me. It is the dative form of ben.

• ben = I
• bana = to me

With demek in this kind of sentence, the person being spoken to is often put in the dative:

• annem bana dedi = my mother said to me

So bana marks the listener/recipient.

That word order is very natural in Turkish.

Turkish often puts the direct speech first, then the reporting verb:

... dedi = ... she/he said

So the structure is basically:

• Annem bana ... dedi = My mother said ... to me
• or more literally in this order, My mother to me ... said

This is one of the most common ways to report direct speech in Turkish.

Unutma is a negative singular imperative, meaning don’t forget.

It comes from:

• unutmak = to forget
• unut = forget
• unutma = don’t forget

So the -ma here is the negative marker.

If the speaker were addressing more than one person, or using a more polite form, you would often get:

• unutmayın = don’t forget

Here havuçları is the definite plural direct object form, meaning the carrots.

Breakdown:

• havuç = carrot
• havuçlar = carrots
• havuçları = the carrots

The extra ending marks the object as specific/definite. In this sentence, the mother is talking about particular carrots that are already understood in the situation.

That is why havuçlar would not sound as good here. Havuçlar is just carrots in a more general sense, while havuçları is the carrots.

Yes, technically it can be.

Havuçları can mean either:

• the carrots
  or
• his/her/their carrots, depending on context

This happens because some Turkish endings look the same on the surface.

But in this sentence, the meaning is clearly the carrots, because it is the object of unutma.

Because this de means also / too, and that word is written separately in Turkish.

So:

• ben de = I too / me too / and I

This is different from the locative suffix -de, which is attached to the word:

• evde = in the house / at home

So:

• ben de = separate word, meaning also
• evde = attached suffix, meaning in/at

This is a very common spelling point for learners.

Literally, ben de means I too or me too.

But in a sentence like this, it often has a more natural English sense like:

• so I
• and I then
• I, in turn

So ben de hemen doğradım is not necessarily emphasizing too very strongly. It often just helps move the story forward: your mother said that, and then you acted.

Because the object is already clear from the previous clause: havuçları.

Turkish very often leaves out repeated words when the meaning is obvious.

So:

• ben de hemen doğradım = I immediately chopped them

The full version could be:

Ben de havuçları hemen doğradım.

But repeating havuçları is not necessary.

Doğradım means I chopped.

It is made from:

• doğramak = to chop
• doğra- = verb stem
• -dı = past tense
• -m = first person singular

So:

doğra + dı + m = doğradım

This is a very common Turkish verb pattern for the simple past.

Because the sentence tells a sequence of completed events in a story-like way.

• dedi = she said
• doğradım = I chopped

This tense is the normal Turkish tense for reporting finished actions. It works very much like a straightforward narrative past in English.