Breakdown of Yaşlı adam bir taksi bekliyor.
bir
a / an
adam
man
yaşlı
old (people)
beklemek
to wait
taksi
taxi
Questions & Answers about Yaşlı adam bir taksi bekliyor.
The verb root is bekle- (to wait). Why is it spelled bekliyor instead of bekleyor?
This happens because of a rule called 'vowel narrowing.' When a verb stem ends in the wide vowels a or e, and you add the present continuous -iyor suffix, that final vowel 'narrows' into ı, i, u, or ü. Because the preceding vowel in bekle- is an e, the final e changes to i to match it, giving us bekliyor.
The translation says 'waiting for a taxi'. Where is the word for 'for'?
Turkish doesn't use a separate word for 'for' with the verb beklemek (to wait). You just put the thing you are waiting for directly in front of the verb. So, bir taksi bekliyor literally translates to 'is waiting a taxi'.
Why don't we need the pronoun 'o' (he) in this sentence?
Because yaşlı adam (the old man) is already the subject! You only need to use o if you are replacing the noun entirely (like saying 'He is waiting for a taxi'). The verb bekliyor on its own also has no personal ending after -yor, which automatically points to a third-person subject ('he', 'she', or 'it').
Does the word yaşlı work for anything that is old?
No, yaşlı is specifically used for living things (like people or animals). It comes from yaş (age) plus the suffix -lı (with), so it literally means 'with age'. If you want to talk about an old object, like an old car or an old building, you must use the word eski.
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