Questions & Answers about Sen balık ye, et yeme.
Why do the words balık and et come before the verbs?
This sentence shows the standard Turkish word order: Subject-Object-Verb. Unlike English where we say 'eat fish' (Verb-Object), Turkish places the objects (balık and et) directly before their verbs (ye and yeme).
Do I have to repeat sen (you) for the second half of the sentence?
No, you do not. Because the person doing the action remains the same, the single sen at the beginning is understood to apply to both balık ye and et yeme.
How do we get yeme for 'do not eat'?
The root of the verb 'to eat' is ye, which by itself is the informal command for 'eat!'. To tell someone not to do something, you add a negative suffix, which is either -me or -ma. Here, we add -me to get yeme (do not eat).
Since the command verbs ye and yeme are already directed at 'you', why is sen used at the start?
You actually do not need it to be understood! Turkish verbs carry enough information that you can usually drop the subject. Including sen here just adds emphasis, similar to saying 'As for you, eat fish...'.