Breakdown of Ben burada yaşıyorum ve bir kuş görüyorum.
bir
a / an
kuş
bird
ben
I
burada
here
ve
and
yaşamak
to live / to experience / to undergo
görmek
to see
Questions & Answers about Ben burada yaşıyorum ve bir kuş görüyorum.
How do the verbs yaşıyorum and görüyorum show that I am the one doing the action?
Both verbs end with the personal subject suffix -um. In the present continuous tense, you always add -um (or its vowel-harmony variations) after the -yor suffix to mean I. Because of this suffix, the word ben at the start of the sentence is actually optional.
The root of the verb to live is yaşa-. Why is it spelled yaşıyorum instead of yaşayorum?
When a verb root ends in the wide vowels a or e (like yaşa-), that vowel narrows when you add the present continuous suffix. Because of vowel harmony, the a turns into an ı, giving us yaşı- + yor + um.
Why does görüyorum take the -ü- vowel before -yor, but yaşıyorum takes -ı-?
This is due to 4-way vowel harmony. The connecting vowel changes to match the last vowel of the verb root. The root gör- has an ö, so it takes ü to make görüyorum. The root yaşa- has an a, so its connecting vowel is ı.
Why is görüyorum translated as I see and not I am seeing?
In Turkish, the present continuous tense with -iyor is often used for verbs of the senses, emotions, or thoughts (like seeing, hearing, or loving) where English naturally prefers the simple present tense.
What is the -da suffix doing on the word burada?
The word bura means this place. The -da suffix is the locative case, which tells us where something is happening (meaning in, on, or at). So burada literally means at this place, which we translate to here.
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