Breakdown of Omzum incindi ama neredeyse kolumu kırıyordum.
kol
arm / handle
ama
but
kırmak
to break
neredeyse
almost, nearly
Questions & Answers about Omzum incindi ama neredeyse kolumu kırıyordum.
Why is the past continuous tense (kırıyordum) used here when the English translation says "almost broke"?
In Turkish, to express an action that almost happened in the past but was narrowly avoided, you use words like neredeyse or az kalsın paired with the past continuous tense (-(i)yordum). Even though English uses the simple past ("almost broke"), Turkish treats the averted action as a process that was underway and then interrupted just before completion ("I was almost breaking").
Why does the word for shoulder, omuz, change to omzum here?
This is a classic example of vowel drop, an earlier rule that often pops up with body parts. Many two-syllable nouns lose their second vowel when a suffix starting with a vowel is added. So, omuz + -um (my) becomes omzum instead of "omuzum".
Both my shoulder (omzum) and my arm (kolumu) are body parts with the "my" suffix. Why does kolumu get an extra accusative -u at the end?
It depends on their grammatical role in the sentence. Omzum is the subject of the verb incindi (my shoulder got hurt), so it doesn't take an accusative ending. Kolumu, however, is the direct object of the verb kırıyordum (I almost broke my arm). Because it has the possessive suffix -um, it is a specific definite object, triggering the accusative case suffix -u.