Breakdown of Akşam gitar çalmak istiyor musun?
istemek
to want / to require / to call for
akşam
evening
gitar
guitar
çalmak
to play (an instrument) / to play (a recording, music)
Questions & Answers about Akşam gitar çalmak istiyor musun?
How does the "want to" grammar work in this sentence?
To say you want to do something, you use the full dictionary form of the action verb (the infinitive ending in -mak or -mek), followed by the verb istemek (to want). Here, we have çalmak (to play) placed right before istiyor musun (do you want?).
Why do we use çalmak here instead of oynamak for "to play"?
In Turkish, you use different verbs for playing. Oynamak is for games and sports. Çalmak is used for playing musical instruments. As a fun fact, çalmak also means "to ring" or "to steal" depending on the context!
The root for "to want" is iste-. Why is it spelled istiyor and not "isteyiyor"?
When a verb root ends in a wide vowel like the e in iste- and you add the present continuous ending -iyor, that final vowel drops or narrows to make it flow better. Because of this vowel reduction rule, iste + iyor smoothly becomes istiyor.
Why isn't there a word for "in" before akşam?
In English we say "in the evening", but Turkish treats many time words as adverbs that don't need extra preposition words like "in" or "at". You can just use the plain word akşam to mean "in the evening".