Word
Sanki sihir yapmış gibi siyah bir pelerin istiyor.
Meaning
He wants a black cape as if he has done magic.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Breakdown of Sanki sihir yapmış gibi siyah bir pelerin istiyor.
bir
a / an
yapmak
to do / to make
istemek
to want / to require / to call for
siyah
black
Questions & Answers about Sanki sihir yapmış gibi siyah bir pelerin istiyor.
Why do we have both sanki and gibi in this sentence? Don't they both mean "as if"?
Yes, they do! In Turkish, it's very common to use sanki at the beginning of a clause and gibi at the end to emphasize the "as if" feeling. You could drop sanki and just say sihir yapmış gibi, but using both makes the comparison stronger and sounds very natural.
How does the -mış gibi structure work in yapmış gibi?
The structure verb + -mIş gibi means "as if [subject] has/had done [verb]". Here, we take the verb root yap- (to do), add the perfective suffix -mış, and follow it with gibi. It describes a completed action in the imaginary comparison: "as if he has done magic".
Could we say sihir yapıyor gibi instead of sihir yapmış gibi here?
You could, but it changes the timeline of the imaginary action. yapıyor gibi uses the present continuous tense (-Iyor), so it would mean "as if he is doing magic" (right now). Because the sentence uses yapmış gibi, it specifically means "as if he has done magic" (an action that is already complete).
Just as a quick refresher, why is it siyah bir pelerin and not bir siyah pelerin?