Learn Turkish: Gecikmenin sebebi trafikti, ben taksi bulamadım. - The reason for the delay was traffic, I could not find a taxi.

The root is bul- (to find). To show inability, we add -ama (or -eme) right after the root. Here, bul- takes -ama, becoming bulama-. Then we add the past tense -dı and the "I" ending -m, giving us bulamadım (I could not find).

Why is it sebebi instead of sebep?

Sebep means "reason." The phrase "reason for the delay" is a possessive connection in Turkish: gecikmenin (the delay's) + sebep + -i (its). When we add the vowel-starting suffix -i to sebep, the hard p softens to a b, making it sebebi.

What is the -ti doing at the end of trafikti?

It is the past tense ending for nouns, meaning "was." The word is trafik (traffic). Because trafik ends in a hard consonant (k), the standard past tense suffix -di changes to -ti to match it, forming trafikti (was traffic).

Why do we use the word ben here if bulamadım already means "I could not find"?