Feigning ignorance (-mazlıktan gelmek)

Feigning Ignorance (-mazlıktan gelmek)

Sometimes you need to act like you didn't see, hear, or understand something. Turkish uses a highly descriptive compound verb structure for this: literally, "to come from the state of not doing" the action.

Verb Root + -mAz + -lIk + -tAn + gelmek

To build it, take the negative aorist suffix (-maz or -mez), turn it into a noun state with -lık or -lik, and add the ablative "from" case (-tan or -ten). Finally, add the verb gelmek (to come).

For example, with görmek (to see): gör + mez + lik + ten + gelmek ➔ görmezlikten gelmek (to pretend not to see)

With duymak (to hear): duy + maz + lık + tan + gelmek ➔ duymazlıktan gelmek (to pretend not to hear)

Pretending Not to Notice

In everyday social situations, you might deliberately pretend you didn't spot an acquaintance on the street, or you might ignore someone's tactless (patavatsız) behavior to avoid causing a scene.

Another highly useful phrase for dealing with difficult behavior is göz yummak (to turn a blind eye). While turning a blind eye means quietly tolerating something, görmezlikten gelmek implies you are putting on a performance of not even noticing it.

Playing Dumb

To describe someone playing dumb, you can apply this structure to verbs like anlamak (to understand) or bilmek (to know). This is perfect for when someone is intentionally acting like they don't grasp a question or pretending they don't know a secret.