Breakdown of İyi ki o belayı kıl payı atlattık.
o
that / he / she / it
iyi ki
fortunately / it is a good thing that
bela
trouble
kıl payı
narrowly
Questions & Answers about İyi ki o belayı kıl payı atlattık.
How does iyi ki work in this sentence?
İyi ki translates to "fortunately," "luckily," or "it's a good thing that." Unlike some Turkish expressions that require special verb endings, iyi ki simply takes a regular, fully conjugated verb (a "finite" verb). Here, it pairs directly with the standard past tense verb atlattık (we dodged) without requiring any extra grammar rules.
What does kıl payı mean literally?
Literally, kıl means "hair" and payı means "share" or "portion" (from pay). Together, kıl payı is a very common idiom meaning "by a hair's breadth" or "narrowly." You will often see it paired with verbs about escaping, surviving, or missing something.
Why is there a -yı attached to bela?
The word is bela (trouble, nuisance). Because we are talking about a specific trouble ("that trouble" or o bela), it needs the specific direct object marker (the accusative case). Since bela ends in a vowel, we add the buffer letter -y- followed by the accusative suffix -ı, giving us belayı.
What is the base form of atlattık and what does it mean?