Word
Özür diledim ama o dinlemedi.
Meaning
I apologized but she didn't listen.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Breakdown of Özür diledim ama o dinlemedi.
o
that / he / she / it
dinlemek
to listen
ama
but
özür dilemek
to apologize
Questions & Answers about Özür diledim ama o dinlemedi.
How do we form the negative past tense in dinlemedi?
The verb is dinlemek (to listen). We take the root dinle-, add the negative suffix -me, and then the past tense suffix -di. Because the subject is o (he/she/it), we don't need to add a personal ending at the very end.
Why does özür diledim translate to "I apologized"?
Apologizing in Turkish is a two-word phrase. Özür means "apology" or "excuse", and the verb dilemek means "to wish" or "to ask for". Literally, you are saying "I asked for an apology." The -m at the end of diledim shows that "I" am the one who did the action.
Why did we use -me- instead of -ma- for the negative part of dinlemedi?
This is due to vowel harmony. The negative suffix is either -me or -ma. We look at the last vowel of the verb root (dinle). Since 'e' is a front vowel, the negative suffix must also use a front vowel, so it becomes -me-. If the verb root had a back vowel (like al-), we would use -ma- instead.
The translation says "she", but how do we know o doesn't mean "he"?
It absolutely could mean "he"! Turkish does not use gendered pronouns, so o can mean "he", "she", or "it". The translation uses "she" to give a natural English sentence, but "I apologized but he didn't listen" is an equally correct translation.