Breakdown of Çocuk albüme bakıyordu ve kaset dinliyordu.
çocuk
child
ve
and
dinlemek
to listen
bakmak
to look
albüm
album
kaset
cassette
Questions & Answers about Çocuk albüme bakıyordu ve kaset dinliyordu.
How do we build the past continuous tense in bakıyordu?
It combines the present continuous and the past tense. We take the verb root bak- (look), add the continuous suffix -ıyor (is looking), and finally add the past tense suffix -du to make it "was looking".
The verb for "to listen" is dinlemek, so why is it spelled dinliyordu here?
When a verb root ends in a wide vowel like e or a (as in dinle-), that vowel narrows when you add the -iyor suffix. Here, the e changes to i to match vowel harmony rules, giving us dinliyor before we add the past suffix -du.
Why is it albüme with an -e at the end instead of being a direct object?
The verb bakmak (to look) always takes the dative case, which shows direction (to/towards). In English you look at something, but in Turkish you look to it. So we must add the -e ending to albüm.
Why is there no case ending on kaset?
Kaset is the object of the listening, but it doesn't have the accusative case ending (which would make it kaseti) because it is indefinite. The child is listening to "a cassette" in general, not a specific, previously mentioned cassette.
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