Breakdown of Kimse yabancı ile tanışmak istemiyor.
istemek
to want / to require / to call for
ile
with / by / and (linking nouns)
kimse
no one / anyone
yabancı
stranger / foreigner
tanışmak
to meet (for the first time) / to get acquainted
Questions & Answers about Kimse yabancı ile tanışmak istemiyor.
Why is the verb negative (istemiyor) when kimse already translates to "no one"?
In Turkish, kimse actually means "anyone." To mean "no one," you must pair it with a negative verb. This creates a double negative, which is the standard and correct way to express "nobody" in Turkish. Literally, the sentence is structured like "Anyone does not want..."
In English we say "meet the stranger", but the Turkish says yabancı ile (with the stranger). Why?
The Turkish verb tanışmak specifically means "to make someone's acquaintance" or "to meet for the first time." It always requires the postposition ile (with). In Turkish, you don't "meet someone" directly—you always "meet with someone."
How exactly is the negative formed in the verb istemiyor?
The verb root is iste- (to want). To make it negative, you add the suffix -me, making it isteme-. However, Turkish has a rule where adding the present continuous suffix -yor causes a preceding a or e to narrow into an ı, i, u, or ü. Therefore, isteme-yor smoothly changes into istemiyor.
Does kimse (no one) take a singular or plural verb?
It takes a third-person singular verb. Even though "nobody" might feel like it refers to a whole group of people being excluded, Turkish treats kimse grammatically as a single unit (just like "he/she/it"). That is why the verb is istemiyor rather than the plural istemiyorlar.
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