Word
Koşucu dörde çeyrek kala geçişi bitiriyor.
Meaning
The runner finishes the crossing at a quarter to four.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Breakdown of Koşucu dörde çeyrek kala geçişi bitiriyor.
dört
four
bitirmek
to finish (something)
çeyrek
quarter (of an hour)
kala
to (the hour)
Questions & Answers about Koşucu dörde çeyrek kala geçişi bitiriyor.
Why is the word for four written as dörde instead of dört?
To say that an event happens at some minutes to the hour, Turkish adds the dative suffix (to/towards) to the hour. Here, dört gets the suffix -e. When adding a vowel to dört, the t softens to a d, making it dörde.
How does kala work in this sentence?
Kala comes from the verb kalmak and acts like the word remaining in time expressions. The formula [Hour + Dative] + [Minutes] + kala tells us when an action happens. So dörde çeyrek kala literally translates to with a quarter remaining to four.
Why does geçiş (crossing) have an -i at the end?
The word geçiş is the specific direct object of the verb bitiriyor (the runner is finishing the crossing). Therefore, it requires the definite accusative case suffix -i, becoming geçişi.
What is the difference between bitiyor and bitiriyor?