Word
Onlar çok geç kaldılar ve uçağa binemediler.
Meaning
They were very late and they could not board the plane.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Breakdown of Onlar çok geç kaldılar ve uçağa binemediler.
onlar
they
çok
very
ve
and
kalmak
to stay / to be left / to remain (in a state)
Questions & Answers about Onlar çok geç kaldılar ve uçağa binemediler.
How is "could not board" formed in binemediler?
This uses the past inability form from your current lesson. Let's break it down: bin (board) + e (the inability marker) + me (negative) + di (past tense) + ler (they). That little -e- right before the negative -me- is the key: it changes the meaning from "they did not board" (binmediler) to "they could not board" (binemediler).
Why is the word for "were" missing in geç kaldılar? It looks like "late stayed".
In Turkish, "to be late" is expressed with the fixed phrase geç kalmak, which literally translates to "to stay late". Because it's an action rather than a state of being in Turkish, geç kaldılar is the standard way to say "they were late".
Why does uçak (plane) become uçağa here?
Two things happen here. First, the verb binmek (to board, to get on) always takes the dative case suffix, because you are directing your action "towards" the vehicle. Second, when we add the dative suffix -a to uçak, the hard k softens into a ğ (consonant mutation), making it uçağa.
Do we need the -lar and -ler suffixes on both verbs if Onlar is already at the start?