Learn Turkish: Biz ahıra saman taşıyorduk. - We were carrying straw to the barn.

It uses two time suffixes together to create the past continuous tense. The root is taşı (carry). First we add the continuous suffix -yor (carrying), then the past tense suffix -du (were), and finally the personal ending -k for "we". Together, taşı-yor-du-k means "we were carrying".

Why is saman (straw) not written as samanı with the accusative object ending?

Because we are talking about carrying straw in general, not a specific pile of straw that was already mentioned. If the sentence meant "we were carrying THE straw", it would be samanı. Since it is just an indefinite "straw", it stays in its plain dictionary form without an object suffix.

Why does ahır (barn) have an -a at the end?

The -a is the dative case suffix, which translates to "to" or "towards" in English. It shows the destination of the carrying action. Because the last vowel in ahır is an undotted "ı", vowel harmony rules tell us to use the a-type suffix, making it ahıra (to the barn).

Why is ahıra placed before saman in the sentence?

In Turkish, words that are more closely linked to the verb tend to go right in front of it. Because saman is a general, non-specific object (straw, not THE straw), it loves to sit directly next to the verb taşıyorduk. Therefore, the destination ahıra is placed right before the object.