Breakdown of Kar yağdıktan sonra dağlar bembeyaz görünüyordu.
yağmak
to rain / to snow
sonra
after
dağ
mountain
kar
snow
görünmek
to appear, to seem
bembeyaz
bright white
Questions & Answers about Kar yağdıktan sonra dağlar bembeyaz görünüyordu.
How is bembeyaz formed from beyaz?
To intensify an adjective in Turkish, we take the first syllable (up to the first vowel), add a consonant (m, p, r, or s), and then attach the whole adjective. For beyaz (white), we take be-, add m, and attach beyaz to get bembeyaz (bright white or completely white). There is no strict rule for which consonant to use, so you just have to memorize them!
Why do we use yağdıktan sonra instead of just yağmak sonra for "after it snowed"?
To say "after doing something" using a verb, Turkish uses the structure -DIktAn sonra. We take the verb stem (yağ-), add the past participle suffix (-dık), followed by the ablative case (-tan), and then sonra. It translates roughly to "after the having-snowed."
Why use görünüyordu here instead of görüyordu or bakıyordu?
Görmek means "to see" and bakmak means "to look at" (an action a person does). Görünmek is a related verb that means "to appear" or "to look a certain way." Since the mountains themselves aren't looking at anything, but rather appearing bright white, we use görünmek.
What tense is used in the verb görünüyordu?
It uses the past continuous tense. It combines the present continuous suffix -üyor and the past tense suffix -du. This translates to "were looking" or "were appearing," showing that this was an ongoing visual state in the past.
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