Learn Turkish: O kadar vurdumduymaz ki kâh bizi görmez kâh çok sevecen olur. - He is so aloof that he sometimes doesn't see us, sometimes he becomes very affectionate.

O kadar vurdumduymaz ki kâh bizi görmez kâh çok sevecen olur.

He is so aloof that he sometimes doesn't see us, sometimes he becomes very affectionate.

Breakdown of O kadar vurdumduymaz ki kâh bizi görmez kâh çok sevecen olur.

Questions & Answers about O kadar vurdumduymaz ki kâh bizi görmez kâh çok sevecen olur.

Vurdumduymaz is translated as aloof, but what is the literal meaning of this word?

It literally translates to I hit, he didn't hear/feel (vurdum + duymaz). It is a colorful compound word used to describe someone who is thick-skinned, insensitive, careless, or aloof—someone who doesn't react to things they normally should react to.

How do we use the kâh ... kâh conjunction in this sentence?

The kâh ... kâh structure means sometimes ... sometimes ... or now ... now .... It links two alternating states or actions. Notice how it is placed directly before the contrasting parts: first before bizi görmez (he doesn't see us) and then before çok sevecen olur (he becomes very affectionate).

Do the verbs after kâh ... kâh always have to be in the same tense? Here we have görmez and olur.

Yes, they generally need to match in tense to keep the sentence balanced. Here, both verbs are in the aorist (simple present) tense, even though one is negative (görmez) and the other is positive (olur). The aorist is used because we are describing his general, ongoing personality traits.

Why does the second part of the sentence come after ki instead of following the usual rule of putting the main verb at the very end?