Breakdown of Sessiz sokağa bakan cepheyi kendimiz seçtik.
sokak
street
bakmak
to look
seçmek
to choose
sessiz
quiet
kendi
self
cephe
facade / front (building, military)
Questions & Answers about Sessiz sokağa bakan cepheyi kendimiz seçtik.
How does bakan translate to "that faces"?
Bakan comes from the verb bakmak (to look/face) plus the subject relative participle suffix -an. This suffix turns a verb into an adjective describing a noun that does the action. Here, it modifies cephe (facade), so bakan cephe literally means "the looking facade" or "the facade that faces".
Why is it sokağa instead of just sokak?
When you say what something is looking at or facing, Turkish uses the dative case (meaning "to/towards"). So, the facade faces to the street. Additionally, the word sokak ends in a hard k, which softens to ğ when the dative vowel suffix -a is added.
Why does cephe have -yi at the end of it?
The entire phrase sessiz sokağa bakan cephe (the facade that faces the quiet street) is the specific, direct object of what we chose (seçtik). Because it is a specific thing, the core noun (cephe) needs the definite accusative suffix -i. Since it ends in a vowel, it takes the buffer letter y, making it cepheyi.
How is the word kendimiz formed to mean "ourselves"?
The root word kendi means "self". By adding the first-person plural possessive suffix -miz (our), it becomes "our self" or "ourselves". In this sentence, it emphasizes that we did the choosing, rather than someone else doing it for us.
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