Word
Hiç tesadüfen eski bir arkadaşını gördün mü?
Meaning
Have you ever seen an old friend by chance?
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Breakdown of Hiç tesadüfen eski bir arkadaşını gördün mü?
bir
a / an
arkadaş
friend
hiç
at all / any
görmek
to see
Questions & Answers about Hiç tesadüfen eski bir arkadaşını gördün mü?
Why does the Turkish sentence use the simple past tense (gördün) when the English translation says "Have you ever seen"?
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?).
What suffixes are attached to arkadaşını, and why does it have a possessive ending?
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.
Why is bir placed between the adjective and the noun (eski bir arkadaş) instead of at the beginning?
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".
How does the word tesadüfen (by chance) get its meaning, and what does the suffix do?