Past general necessity (-mAk lazımdı)

Past General Necessity

When you look back at past mistakes and want to express that something was necessary to do—often translating to "should have" or "needed to"—you can use the infinitive form of a verb followed by either lazımdı or gerekiyordu.

To build this, take the dictionary form of the verb, which ends in -mak or -mek. Then, add one of the past necessity words:

• lazımdı: "it was necessary" (from the adjective lazım
  • past tense -dı)
• gerekiyordu: "it was necessary" (from the continuous verb gerekiyor
  • past tense -du)

Because these words express a general necessity, they don't take personal endings to specify who should have done the action; the context makes it clear.

Negative Necessity: Shouldn't Have

If you want to say that it was necessary not to do something, you make the infinitive negative. Add the negative suffix -ma or -me right before the infinitive ending, giving you -mamak or -memek.

Describing the Right Course of Action

Both lazımdı and gerekiyordu are interchangeable and very common in everyday Turkish. You will frequently hear them paired with descriptive phrases to explain exactly how a situation should have been handled.