Question 1

Why does the Turkish sentence use the simple past tense (gördün) when the English translation says "Have you ever seen"?

Accepted Answer

In Turkish, to ask about someone's life experiences (like "Have you ever done something?"), we combine hiç (ever) with the simple past tense (-di). Even though English uses the present perfect ("Have you seen"), Turkish simply asks "Did you ever see?" (Hiç... gördün mü?).

Question 2

What suffixes are attached to arkadaşını, and why does it have a possessive ending?

Accepted Answer

It breaks down as arkadaş (friend) + -ın (your) + -ı (accusative case marker). While the English translation just says "an old friend", the Turkish literally asks if you have seen "an old friend of yours". Because the possessive -ın (your) makes the friend a specific direct object of the verb gördün (you saw), it must take the accusative case ending -ı.

Question 3

Why is bir placed between the adjective and the noun (eski bir arkadaş) instead of at the beginning?

Accepted Answer

In Turkish, placing bir (a/an) between the adjective and the noun is the standard, natural way to say "a [adjective] [noun]". If you placed it at the very beginning (bir eski arkadaş), it would put heavy emphasis on the number one, sounding more like "one old friend" rather than just "an old friend".

Question 4

How does the word tesadüfen (by chance) get its meaning, and what does the -en suffix do?

Accepted Answer

The root is the noun tesadüf, which means "coincidence" or "chance". The suffix -en (or -an) is an older suffix borrowed from Arabic that turns certain nouns into adverbs. So, tesadüf (coincidence) becomes tesadüfen (coincidentally / by chance).

Hiç tesadüfen eski bir arkadaşını gördün mü?

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