Lesson 14 — Seni seviyorum: the accusative and the hotel

1Seni seviyorum: whom? what?

The most famous sentence in Turkish is Seni seviyorum — “I love you”. And until today you couldn’t say it. Last lesson we even kept the verb sevmek out of sight and did “liking” with hoşlanmak, because sevmek can’t live without today’s case. Seni is sen, “you”, in the accusative — the “whom? what?” case.

You’ve actually been saying one of its forms for three lessons. In Lesson 11 the clock said üçü beş geçiyor — “five past three” — and we agreed to take üçü, dördü, altıyı as twelve special clock words. There’s nothing special about them. Geçmek is “to go past something”: five minutes have “gone past the three”. Üçü is that three, in the accusative. You’ve only learned its name today; the case has been working for you all along.

Which verbs want it? The ones that have a “what?”: okumak — reading what?, içmek — drinking what?, görmek, beklemek, yapmak, sevmek. Grammar calls them transitive. Gelmek, gitmek, uyumak, gülmek and oturmak have no “what?” at all, so this case never comes near them.

And one trap: an English object isn’t always a Turkish one. You’ve known bakmak since Lesson 5: you look at something, with the dative. But görmek, “to see”, takes the accusative. English splits “look at” and “see” the same way; Turkish just marks it with an ending. Korkmak and hoşlanmak take “from” — learn verbs like these together with their case, as you’ve been doing.

The ending itself is simple: -ı, in four teams, like mı. And after a vowel a y steps in — the same one as in the dative, where kapı gives kapıya.

Lesson 7’s softening works here too: before a vowel, p, ç, t and k become b, c, d and ğ. And short one-syllable words, as then, usually hold firm.

Notice anything? Kitabı looks exactly like Lesson 7’s “his book”. It is: for words ending in a consonant the two forms are identical, and only the sentence tells them apart. Words ending in a vowel keep them separate: arabası is “his car”, arabayı is “the car” as an object.

2Kitap or kitabı? When the -ı comes

Now the heart of it, and here English is actually a help. Wherever you’d say “the”, Turkish tends to want the -ı: the object is definite, the one you both know about. “A”, “some”, “any”, or things in general — no ending; the word stays bare.

Bir — “a, one” — says the thing is new, and there’s no ending with it either. While it’s any free room, it’s bir oda. Once you’ve been shown it, it’s odayı.

And a tip for the ear. A bare object sits right up against its verb, and the two sound almost like one word: çay içmek, kitap okumak, dizi izlemek. Pull them apart and the -ı has to come.

Then there are words that are definite all by themselves, and with them the -ı always comes. They’re easy to spot: they’re already pointing at the thing. First, bu, şu, o and hangi: “this”, “that”, “which”.

Next, anything that’s “my” or “your”. After “his” or “her”, an n steps in — the same one that turned up before a case in Lesson 7’s evinde. And Lesson 8’s izafet counts too: Türk çayı → Türk çayını.

Names — there’s only one Ayşe, after all. Orhan Veli, one of Türkiye’s best-loved poets, opened a poem in 1947 with the line İstanbul’u dinliyorum, gözlerim kapalı — “I’m listening to Istanbul, my eyes closed”. So last lesson’s Can, who “listened” to a horror film with his eyes shut, was in good company.

Pronouns: beni, seni, onu, bizi, sizi, onları — and bunu, şunu, “this, that”. “Who?” as an object is kimi? And a new verb that can’t do without them: tanımak, “to know a person”, to be acquainted. Bilmek is knowing a fact.

In the plural the -ı almost always comes too. And sevmek wants it even for things in general: Çayı seviyorum — “I love tea”, any tea at all.

That’s a lot of cases, but one idea: if you know exactly which thing you mean, add the -ı. Get it wrong and you’ll still be understood. And in time your ear will start tripping over a bare “bu kitap okudum” on its own.

3Otelde: at the hotel

Now that you can say “this room” and “my key”, let’s go. Otel is a hotel, pansiyon a small guesthouse, often family-run. The room is an oda, as in Lesson 2. A single is tek kişilik, a double iki kişilik — Lesson 3’s kişi, “person”, and tek, “one and only”.

Staying at a hotel is kalmak, “to stay, to remain” — the verb in Hoşça kalın and geç kalmak. Turks count nights, not days. “Included” is dâhil. The view is manzara, and with Lesson 12’s -lı it becomes deniz manzaralı, “with a sea view”.

Here’s what you’ll hear and say at the desk. Try to make each one out before you open the translation.

Lesson 4’s çalışmak “works” for machines as well as people. Giriş and çıkış are “entrance” and “exit” — and, at a hotel, check-in and check-out. You’ve known çıkmak since Lesson 5; girmek is “to go in”, and it takes the dative like any verb of motion: odaya girmek.

And when you leave, you’ll hear Yine bekleriz! — “we’ll be expecting you again”. You’ve known beklemek since Lesson 4, but bekleriz is a Lesson 21 form, so take it whole, like Teşekkür ederim.

5Dialogue: the Gull or the Star?

A weekend by the sea. Can said he’d booked two rooms for two nights. He did make the call — the only question is where to.

Martı is a gull, from Lesson 5; yıldız is a star. Burası means “this place, here” — said of the place where you’re standing. Aramak is both “to phone” and “to look for”, bulmak is “to find”, koymak “to put”. The pansiyoncu runs the guesthouse: pansiyon plus -cu, like pazarcı. Count the accusatives in the dialogue: there are ten.

6Reading

Ever since Lesson 1, Deniz has been the eternal guest: tea at the neighbours’, dinner at Sevim teyze’s, Sunday breakfast with her family, and last lesson her Thursday dizi. Today Sevim teyze’s flat is being painted, and for the first time the guest is at Deniz’s.

Usta is a craftsman, a workman; boyamak is to paint, temizlemek to clean, yastık a pillow, taşımak to carry. Efendim is a polite “sir” or “madam” — how people talk from behind a desk. Bahşiş is a tip. Her yer is “everywhere”: Lesson 4’s her and Lesson 13’s yer.

7The lesson’s new words

Everything new from today, in the order it turned up. The accusative forms (beni, seni, kimi, kitabı) aren’t here: you build those yourself now. The phrases for the desk stay in section 3, and pasaport, rezervasyon and liste you’ll recognise anyway.

8Say it yourself

No options here — you build the answer. Read the cue, say it in Turkish out loud, and only then check. The question is the same every time: do I know exactly which thing I mean? Got it wrong? Good — that’s the miss that makes it stick.

9Check yourself

Six items: the hotel and the accusative — when it comes and what shape it takes. A miss still shows you the right answer, so there’s no shame in guessing.

10Homework

Today your words got a “whom?” and a “what?”. Put them to work. Everything out loud.