Word
Duvarı fırçayla boyuyoruz.
Meaning
We are painting the wall with a brush.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Breakdown of Duvarı fırçayla boyuyoruz.
duvar
wall
boyamak
to paint
ile
with / by / and (linking nouns)
fırça
brush
Questions & Answers about Duvarı fırçayla boyuyoruz.
Why is "with a brush" written as fırçayla instead of using a separate word for "with"?
In Turkish, "with" or "by means of" is usually expressed by adding the suffix -(y)la or -(y)le to the noun, rather than using the separate word ile. Since fırça (brush) ends in a vowel, we add the buffer letter y, followed by -la to match A-type vowel harmony.
Why does duvar (wall) have an -ı at the end?
The -ı is the specific direct object (accusative) case suffix. We add it to duvar because we are doing something to a specific wall ("the wall"), rather than just painting walls in general.
The dictionary form of "to paint" is boyamak, so the stem is boya-. Why is it spelled boyuyoruz here?
When a verb stem ends in the vowels a or e, and we add the present continuous suffix -yor, that final vowel "narrows" to ı, i, u, or ü. Because the first vowel in boya- is o, the a changes to u, making it boyuyoruz.
Which part of boyuyoruz tells us who is painting?