Kimisi rolü harika canlandırıyor, kimisi unutuyor.
Some portray the role wonderfully, some forget it.
Breakdown of Kimisi rolü harika canlandırıyor, kimisi unutuyor.
unutmak
to forget
harika
wonderful
rol
role
kimi
some / some of them
canlandırmak
to portray
Questions & Answers about Kimisi rolü harika canlandırıyor, kimisi unutuyor.
Why use kimisi instead of bazıları here, and what does the -si suffix do?
Both kimisi and bazıları mean "some" or "some of them." Kimisi is formed from the pronoun kimi (some) plus the 3rd person possessive suffix -si, which emphasizes "some of a specific group" (like the actors in a play). It is very natural to use the paired structure kimisi..., kimisi... (some do this, some do that) to contrast different people within that group.
Why is the accusative suffix on rol written as -ü (rolü) instead of -u (rolu) despite the back vowel "o"?
Rol is a loanword (from French) that ends in a palatalized or "soft" 'l' sound. In Turkish, certain loanwords ending in 'l' or 't' take front-vowel suffixes even if their final vowel is a back vowel. You have likely seen this exception before with words like saat (saati) or gol (golü).
How does the word canlandırıyor literally translate to "portrays"?
It is built from the noun can (life/soul). Adding -lan creates the verb canlanmak (to come to life), and adding the causative suffix -dır creates canlandırmak (to bring to life). In a theatrical context, "bringing a role to life" is the standard way to say you are portraying, acting, or playing a part.
Why isn't there an adverbial word like şekilde after harika to make it "wonderfully"?
While you could say harika bir şekilde (in a wonderful way), Turkish grammar allows many adjectives of quality (like harika, güzel, kötü) to act directly as adverbs modifying a verb. Saying harika canlandırıyor is the most natural and concise way to say "portrays wonderfully."
The English translation says "some forget it", but where is the "it" (onu) in the second half of the Turkish sentence?
Turkish frequently drops the direct object in connected clauses if it is already clearly understood from the context. Since rolü (the role) was explicitly stated as the object in the first half of the sentence, adding onu (it) before unutuyor is entirely optional and dropping it sounds much more natural.
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