Word
Gübre almadıkça hasadımız yok.
Meaning
Unless we buy fertilizer, we have no harvest.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Lesson
Breakdown of Gübre almadıkça hasadımız yok.
yok
there is not / non-existent
almak
to take, to buy
gübre
fertilizer
hasat
harvest
Questions & Answers about Gübre almadıkça hasadımız yok.
How does almadıkça mean "unless we buy"?
It uses the suffix -mAdIkçA added to the verb stem al- (to buy). This suffix translates to "as long as [verb] does not happen" or "unless [verb] happens." Notice that there is no separate word for "unless"—it is entirely contained within the suffix.
Why doesn't almadıkça have a personal ending to show who is buying?
Converbs (suffixes that turn verbs into linking words) like -mAdIkçA do not take personal endings. The subject ("we") is naturally understood from the main clause's possessive ending in hasadımız (our harvest). If you wanted to emphasize "we," you could add the pronoun biz at the beginning of the sentence.
Why does the word for harvest (hasat) end with a "d" in hasadımız?
This is a reminder of consonant softening, a rule you have seen before. The dictionary word is hasat. When we add a suffix starting with a vowel, like the possessive -ımız (our), the hard t softens to a d. Thus, hasat becomes hasadımız.
What would happen if we removed the negative -ma from almadıkça?
If you use the positive form -dIkçA to make aldıkça, the meaning flips to "as long as" or "the more." For example, Gübre aldıkça... would mean "As long as we buy fertilizer..." or "The more fertilizer we buy..." Adding the negative -ma- is what creates the "unless" meaning.