Learn Turkish: Köpek korkuyor. Tüylerini okşar mısın? - The dog is scared. Will you stroke its fur?

To make a polite request in Turkish, we often use the aorist tense as a question. The verb is okşamak (to stroke). We add the aorist ending -r to get okşar, followed by the question word and the informal 'you' ending: mısın. While it literally means 'Do you stroke?', it functions exactly like 'Will you stroke?' or 'Would you stroke?' in English.

Could I say okşuyor musun instead to ask someone to stroke the dog?

No, because okşuyor musun uses the present continuous tense (-üyor). That translates to 'Are you stroking?' and is just a factual question about what someone is doing right now. For asking someone to do a favor, you need the aorist form okşar mısın?.

What are all the suffixes at the end of tüylerini?

Let's break it down! The root is tüy (hair/fur). We add -ler to make it plural (tüyler). Next comes the possessive suffix -i to mean 'its' (tüyleri). Because the fur is the direct object receiving the action of the verb, it needs the accusative case ending. We use the buffer letter -n- to separate the vowels, and then add the accusative -i, resulting in tüylerini.

Doesn't tüy mean feather? Why is it used for a dog?