Breakdown of O şarküteri bizi uğraştırmışken hiçbir şey almayalım.
o
that / he / she / it
biz
we
almak
to take, to buy
şey
thing
hiçbir
no / not any (determiner)
şarküteri
delicatessen
uğraştırmak
to cause trouble for / to occupy
Questions & Answers about O şarküteri bizi uğraştırmışken hiçbir şey almayalım.
How does -mışken translate to 'since' here? I thought -ken meant 'while'.
You're right that -ken usually means 'while'. However, when it attaches to the perfective suffix -mış, it describes a situation that has already happened and is now creating a new opportunity or a reason to do something. So uğraştırmışken literally means 'while it has [already] given us a hard time', which naturally translates to 'since it gave us trouble' or 'now that it has given us trouble'.
What is the root of uğraştırmışken, and how does it mean 'gave trouble'?
The base verb is uğraşmak, which means 'to struggle' or 'to deal with'. The -tır suffix is the causative marker, turning it into uğraştırmak—literally 'to make [someone] struggle' or 'to give [someone] trouble'. Also notice that because it is now making 'us' struggle, it takes the accusative pronoun bizi.
Can you break down the suffixes on almayalım?
Sure! It starts with the root al- (to buy/take). Next is the negative marker -ma. Finally, we add the 1st-person plural optative ending -alım (let's), with a -y- buffer to separate the vowels. This gives us almayalım (let's not buy).
Why does the Turkish use hiçbir şey (nothing) when the English translation says 'anything'?
In Turkish, indefinite words that start with hiç- (like hiçbir or hiç kimse) require the verb to be negative. Because the sentence uses the negative verb almayalım (let's not buy), we use hiçbir şey, creating what looks like a double negative to an English speaker but is perfectly standard in Turkish.
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