Ayşe, have you heard? Somebody was singing on the stairs last night!
1Geçmiş olsun: the -mış tense
For six lessons you’ve been carrying two phrases we asked you to take whole: Lesson 12’s Geçmiş olsun and Lesson 13’s patlamış mısır. Today we finally open them up. Both have the same ending inside, -mış — and it’s a whole tense: the tense for everything you didn’t see for yourself.
The past in -dı from Lesson 13 means “I saw it, I know it”: Can geldi — Can came, and I was there. Can gelmiş means Can came, but I didn’t see it happen. Somebody told me, or his shoes are in the hall, or I’ve only just noticed. English reaches for “apparently”, “it turns out”, “they say”, “must have”. Turkish fits all of that into one ending.
It goes together like all your tenses: the stem, -mış, the person. Four teams — mış, miş, muş, müş, like mı. And the person endings are the very first ones, from Lesson 1: -ım, -sın, nothing, -ız, -sınız, -lar. Not the -dı ones.
gelmişim, gelmişsin, gelmiş — I, you, he — (apparently) came
gelmişiz, gelmişsiniz, gelmişler — we, you, they — (apparently) came
yapmış, okumuş, görmüş — did, read, saw — all four teams
When do you need it? Here are four cases. One: somebody told you. The news, the neighbours, a phone call. A Turkish conversation about news starts just like that: Duydun mu? — “Have you heard?”
Duydun mu? Zeynep yine takdir belgesi almış! — Have you heard? Zeynep’s got a takdir belgesi again!
Sevim teyze söyledi: Nermin hanım İzmir’e dönmüş. — Sevim teyze told me Nermin hanım has gone back to İzmir.
Two: you see the result and work out what happened. Like a detective.
Sokak ıslak. Gece yağmur yağmış. — The street’s wet. It must have rained in the night.
Efe’nin eli çikolatalı. Çikolatayı Efe yemiş! — Efe’s hand is covered in chocolate. Efe ate the chocolate!
Three: you’ve only just noticed, and it’s a surprise. Here -mış sounds like “oh!” or “would you believe it”. Even about yourself.
Aa, çayım soğumuş! — Oh, my tea’s gone cold!
Aa, saat on bir olmuş! — Goodness, it’s eleven o’clock!
Anahtarımı evde unutmuşum! — I’ve left my key at home!
And four: fairy tales. Nobody saw them happen, so Turkish tells its tales in -mış from the first line to the last. We’ll come back to tales in a moment.
Now those two phrases. -mış can also turn a verb into an adjective: patlamak is “to pop, to burst”, so patlamış mısır is “corn that has popped”. Geçmek is “to pass”, so geçmiş is “passed” — and a noun, too: geçmiş, “the past”. So Geçmiş olsun is “let it be in the past”. That’s what you’ve been wishing people for six lessons.
patlamış mısır — corn that has popped: popcorn
Geçmiş olsun! — May it be in the past!
2Gelmemiş. Gelmiş mi?
The negative follows Lesson 16’s first rule, straight after the stem: gel-me-miş, yap-ma-mış. No glue letter this time — -mış starts with a consonant.
Can bugün derse gelmemiş. — Apparently Can didn’t come to the lesson today.
Efe hiç uyumamış! — Efe hasn’t slept a wink!
With daha, the negative in -mış means “not yet”: you’ve checked, and it hasn’t happened. Henüz means the same, a little more formally, the way the news says it.
Otobüs daha gelmemiş. — The bus hasn’t come yet.
Mektup henüz gelmemiş. — The letter hasn’t arrived yet.
And the question follows the second rule: -mış sits like -yor and -acak. Mi stands apart and takes the person: gelmiş misin? Only “they” keep -lar on the verb: gelmişler mi? That’s four tenses now and still two seating plans: -yor, -acak and -mış put mi before the person, and -dı alone puts it after.
A question like this often means “go and see”: you don’t know whether it’s happened, and you’re asking someone to check.
Bak bakalım, Deniz gelmiş mi? — Go and see — has Deniz come?
Kahveni içmiş misin? — Have you finished your coffee?
Çocuklar uyumuşlar mı? — Are the children asleep yet?
The negative question is “hasn’t it…?”, “still not…?”:
Daha gelmemiş mi? — What, he still isn’t here?
Kahveni bitirmemiş misin? — Haven’t you finished your coffee?
3Bir varmış, bir yokmuş: -mış without a verb
In Lesson 13 the past glued itself straight on to a word: hastaydım, evdeydim, vardı. -mış can do the same, with the same y after a vowel: hastaymış, evdeymiş. It means what it means on a verb: “apparently”, “it turns out”.
Sevim teyze dün hastaymış. — Apparently Sevim teyze was ill yesterday.
Deniz evde değilmiş. — Deniz isn’t at home, it turns out.
Film çok güzelmiş. — They say the film’s very good.
Kapıda kim varmış? — So who was at the door?
That last one answers Lesson 13’s question: back then it was Kapıda kim vardı?, because everyone was at the door. This time you weren’t.
With a person, too: -(y)mışım, -(y)mışsın… And here’s one of the most useful phrases in the lesson: Haklıymışsın! — “You were right!” You argued, you checked, and it turns out your friend was right.
Haklıymışsın! — You were right after all!
Aa, çok yorgunmuşum. — Oh — I’m more tired than I thought.
Two words keep -mış company. Meğer, “but it turned out…”, goes at the start when the truth comes out. Galiba, “I think, looks like”, is for when you’re guessing.
Can’ı her yerde aradım. Meğer evdeymiş! — I looked for Can everywhere. And all the time he was at home!
Galiba yağmur yağmış. — Looks like it’s been raining.
And here are the tales we promised. A Turkish fairy tale begins Bir varmış, bir yokmuş — “there was, there wasn’t”. Now you can take it apart: var and yok with -mış. And the whole tale carries on in -mış, because nobody saw it — they only heard it.
Bir varmış, bir yokmuş. Bir köyde küçük bir kız yaşamış. — Once upon a time, in a village, there lived a little girl.
Yaşamak means “to live”. You know it from Lesson 6’s Çok yaşa!: “live long”.
4Bana göre: “in my view” and “according to”
Göre means “according to”: in my view, according to Mum, according to the news. It goes after the word, and the word takes the dative from Lesson 5: bana göre, sana göre, anneme göre.
bana göre, sana göre, ona göre — in my view, in yours, in his
bize göre, size göre, onlara göre — in our view, in yours, in theirs
Bana göre is the same as Lesson 6’s bence. Take your pick.
Bana göre bu film çok uzun. — If you ask me, this film is far too long.
Sevim teyzeye göre en güzel börek onunki. — According to Sevim teyze, the best börek is hers.
Kime göre? — Says who?
Göre and -mış go well together: both say “I’m not the one who saw it”. So this is how the news sounds in Turkish:
Haberlere göre dün İzmir’de hava çok sıcakmış. — According to the news, it was very hot in İzmir yesterday.
Hava durumuna göre yarın yağmur yağacak. — The forecast says it’s going to rain tomorrow.
Hava durumu is “the weather forecast”, literally “the state of the weather”: Lesson 8’s izafet, with Lesson 7’s n before the case.
Göre has a second meaning, too — “suited to”, the way clothes fit you.
Bu film çocuklara göre değil. — This film isn’t for children.
Bu iş bana göre değil. — This job isn’t for me.
And one ready-made phrase you’ll hear all the time: Duyduğuma göre… — “From what I’ve heard…”. The form duyduğum is from a lesson still ahead, so for now take it whole.
Duyduğuma göre Can yine geç kalmış. — From what I hear, Can was late again.
5Türkiye up close: what the coffee grounds said
In Lesson 15 we made a Turkish coffee, drank it, and left the grounds at the bottom of the cup. We promised to come back to them once the grammar had a form for “they say that…”. Now it has. Time to turn the cup over.
The grounds in Turkish are telve. TDK’s dictionary puts it modestly: “the coffee sediment that settles at the bottom of the cup”. Reading them is kahve falı. Fal is any fortune-telling: cards, palms, grounds. And it isn’t a show put on for tourists. When UNESCO added Turkish coffee to its list in 2013, its description included this line: the grounds left in the empty cup are “often” used to tell a person’s fortune.
Here’s how it goes. You drink the coffee and leave the grounds. You put the saucer on top and turn the cup upside down — that’s called fincanı kapatmak, “closing the cup”. You make a wish: dilek tutmak. And you wait for the cup to cool; lots of people put a coin or a ring on top, which is said to speed it up. Then somebody lifts the cup and looks at what the grounds have drawn.
And they can draw anything at all. A road means a journey. A bird means news. A fish, a heart, a letter… What means what depends on who’s reading, and there’s no point arguing. Mostly it’s done among friends: a friend, a neighbour, an aunt at the kitchen table, with a lot of laughing. A falcı is someone who does it for a living; that’s exactly how TDK defines the word.
That’s why this fortune belongs in today’s lesson. Whoever reads the cup speaks in the present: Burada bir yol var — “there’s a road here”. And the next day, when you tell your friends, you can’t do without -mış: Fincanımda bir yol varmış! — “there was a road in my cup, apparently!” You couldn’t make it out yourself. You were told.
Do people believe it? A proverb answers better than any survey: Fala inanma, falsız da kalma — “don’t believe in fortunes, but don’t go without one either”. TDK explains it honestly: there’s no truth in fortune-telling, but it’s still nice to hear good things said. And you can take it apart yourself: inanma is “don’t believe”, Lesson 10’s negative imperative; falsız is “without a fortune”, Lesson 12’s -sız; kalma is “don’t stay”.
While we’re on superstitions, a few more. The blue “eye” you’ve almost certainly seen on souvenirs is a nazar boncuğu, a bead against the evil eye. Nazar means “a look”, and to put the evil eye on something is nazar değmek, “for a look to touch it”. The bead gets pinned to babies’ clothes, hung by a car’s mirror, put up over a front door. Why blue? Explanations vary. One that folklorists give: blue eyes were rare among Turks, and so they were thought to have a special power.
Praise someone’s baby and somebody nearby will almost certainly say Maşallah. TDK glosses it as “how lovely — may it be kept from the evil eye”. And so as not to jinx something good, people knock on wood — tahtaya vurmak — and quite often give an earlobe a little tug at the same time.
And one last one, just right for a lesson about hearsay. If your ear starts ringing — Kulağım çınlıyor — it means somebody somewhere is talking about you. Or so they say.
6Dialogue: who was singing on the stairs
Morning. Can bumps into Ayşe on the stairs. He has news, and he didn’t see it — he only heard it. So, -mış.
Can:
Ayşe, duydun mu? Dün gece biri merdivende şarkı söylemiş!
Ayşe:
Şarkı mı? Gece mi?
Singing? At night?
Can:
Saat ikide! Sevim teyze söyledi. Ona göre çok kötü söylemiş.
At two o’clock! Sevim teyze told me. According to her, it was awful.
Ayşe:
Kim söylemiş?
Who was it?
Can:
Bilmiyorum. Sevim teyze kapıyı açmamış. Sadece duymuş.
No idea. Sevim teyze didn’t open the door. She only heard it.
Ayşe:
Ne söylemiş?
What was he singing?
Can:
Bir futbol şarkısı. Sevim teyzeye göre şarkıda sadece iki kelime varmış: “Üç bir! Üç bir!”
A football song. According to Sevim teyze, it only had two words: “Three–one! Three–one!”
Ayşe:
Hmm. Dün akşam maç vardı. Sen neredeydin?
Hmm. There was a match last night. Where were you?
Can:
Emre’deydim! Maçı beraber izledik. Çok güzel bir maçtı. Üç bir kazandık!
At Emre’s! We watched the match together. It was a brilliant match. We won three–one!
Ayşe:
Eve saat kaçta geldin?
What time did you get home?
Can:
Bilmiyorum… Geç. İkide, galiba.
I don’t know… Late. About two, I think.
Ayşe:
Can…
Can…
Can:
…Aa. O şarkıcı benmişim!
…Oh. The singer was me!
Ayşe:
Evet. Ve Sevim teyzeye göre çok kötü söylemişsin.
Yes. And according to Sevim teyze, you were awful.
Can:
Sevim teyzeye göre! Bana göre çok güzel söylemişim!
According to Sevim teyze! If you ask me, I sang beautifully!
Ayşe:
Şimdi Sevim teyzeye git ve özür dile.
Now go up to Sevim teyze’s and apologise.
Can:
Tamam, tamam. Ama… Aa! Sesim gitmiş!
All right, all right. But… Oh! My voice has gone!
Ayşe:
Güzel. Bu sabah bina çok sessiz olacak.
Lovely. The building’s going to be nice and quiet this morning.
Şarkı is “a song”, and şarkı söylemek is “to sing”, literally “to say a song”. On its own söylemek is “to say, to tell”, as in Sevim teyze söyledi. Şarkıcı is “a singer”, with the -cı of pazarcı. Watch Can switch from -dı to -mış: everything he remembers is izledik, kazandık. What he did on the stairs he only finds out from Ayşe — and that’s benmişim, “it turns out it was me”.
7Reading
Thursday evening: the dizi at Sevim teyze’s, as every Thursday since Lesson 13. The plate has been home upstairs since Lesson 17. And tonight Deniz finds out, for the first time, what’s in his cup.
Fincanda ne var?
One cup of coffee, one cup of milk and two fortunes.
Perşembe akşamı. Sevim teyzenin dizisi bitti.
Thursday evening. Sevim teyze’s dizi has finished.
Sevim teyze mutfakta kahve yapıyor.
Sevim teyze is in the kitchen making coffee.
— Deniz, kahven nasıl olsun?
“Deniz, how do you take your coffee?”
— Orta, lütfen.
“Orta, please.”
— Ben de kahve istiyorum!
“I want coffee too!”
Bunu Efe dedi.
That’s Efe.
— Kahve çocuklara göre değil, Efe. Sana süt.
“Coffee isn’t for children, Efe. Milk for you.”
Deniz kahvesini içti. Fincanda sadece telve kaldı.
Deniz drank his coffee. Only the grounds were left in the cup.
— Şimdi fincanı kapat, Deniz. Bir dilek tut.
“Now turn your cup over, Deniz. Make a wish.”
Deniz fincanı tabağa ters kapattı. Gözlerini kapattı ve bir dilek tuttu.
Deniz turned the cup upside down on its saucer. He shut his eyes and made a wish.
Efe de hemen fincanını ters kapattı.
Efe turned his cup over straight away too.
Meğer Efe’nin fincanında daha süt varmış!
Only there was still milk in Efe’s cup!
Süt masaya aktı.
The milk ran all over the table.
— Efe!
“Efe!”
— Ama ben de fal istiyorum!
“But I want a fortune too!”
Beş dakika sonra fincan soğudu. Sevim teyze fincanı açtı ve içine baktı.
Five minutes later the cup had cooled. Sevim teyze lifted it and looked inside.
— Hmm. Burada uzun bir yol var.
“Hmm. There’s a long road here.”
— Yol mu? Nereye?
“A road? To where?”
— Fincan onu söylemiyor. Ama burada bir kuş da var. Kuş, haber. İyi bir haber geliyor.
“The cup isn’t saying. But there’s a bird here too. A bird means news. Good news is on the way.”
— Bu ne? Balık mı?
“What’s this? A fish?”
— Evet, balık. Balık, para!
“Yes, a fish. A fish means money!”
Deniz güldü.
Deniz laughed.
— Benim fincanımda para mı var?
“Money? In my cup?”
Efe de fincana baktı.
Efe looked into the cup too.
— Babaanne, burada bir tabak var! Dolu bir tabak!
“Babaanne, there’s a plate here! A full plate!”
— Tabak mı? Nerede?
“A plate? Where?”
— İşte burada! Tabakta börek var!
“Right here! And there’s börek on the plate!”
Herkes güldü.
Everyone laughed.
Cuma sabahı Deniz merdivende Ayşe ile Can’ı gördü.
On Friday morning Deniz met Ayşe and Can on the stairs.
— Dün akşam Sevim teyze falıma baktı!
“Sevim teyze read my fortune last night!”
— Eee? Fincanında ne varmış?
“Well? What was in your cup?”
— Uzun bir yol varmış. Bir de kuş varmış. Sevim teyzeye göre kuş iyi bir habermiş.
“A long road, apparently. And a bird. According to Sevim teyze, the bird is good news.”
— Başka?
“Anything else?”
— Bir balık. Balık paraymış!
“A fish. Apparently a fish means money!”
Can bir şey düşündü.
Can thought of something.
— Uzun bir yol mu? Duydum, Nermin anneanne herkesi İzmir’e çağırmış!
“A long road? I heard anneanne Nermin has invited everyone to İzmir!”
— Efe’ye göre ne varmış?
“And what was there according to Efe?”
— Efe’ye göre fincanımda dolu bir tabak varmış. Tabakta da börek varmış.
“According to Efe, there was a full plate in my cup. With börek on it.”
Ayşe güldü.
Ayşe laughed.
— O fal değil, Deniz. O senin hayatın!
“That’s not a fortune, Deniz. That’s your life!”
Akşam Deniz eve döndü. Kapının önünde bir tabak var.
In the evening Deniz came home. There’s a plate outside his door.
Tabak dolu. Tabakta börek var!
The plate is full. There’s börek on it!
Tabağın yanında bir kağıt var. Kağıtta Zeynep’in yazısı var.
Next to the plate there’s a note. It’s in Zeynep’s writing.
Efe söylemiş, Zeynep yazmış:
Efe must have said it and Zeynep written it down:
— Deniz abi, fincan doğru söyledi! Efe
“Deniz abi, the cup told the truth! Efe”
Deniz güldü ve bir börek aldı.
Deniz laughed and took a börek.
— Fala inanma, falsız da kalma… Ama böreksiz hiç kalma!
“Don’t believe in fortunes, but don’t go without one… And never go without börek!”
Ters is “the wrong way round, upside down”: ters kapatmak is “to turn over”. Soğumak is “to cool”, from soğuk. Çağırmak is “to call, to invite”. Hayat is “life”. Notice where the story switches to -mış: the milk in Efe’s cup is a surprise to everyone; on Friday Deniz retells what the cup said, and Can what he’s heard. And the note: it was written without Deniz, so he can only work out who did what.
1Why did the milk end up on the table?
2What did Sevim teyze see in Deniz’s cup?
3What did Deniz find outside his door that evening?
8The lesson’s new words
Everything new from today, in the order it turned up. The -mış forms aren’t here — you build those yourself. Nor are Geçmiş olsun and patlamış mısır: they’ve been yours since Lessons 12 and 13; today they just got taken apart.
New words
- duymakto hear
- ıslakwet
- patlamakto pop, to burst
- geçmişthe past
- henüz(not) yet
- mektupletter
- bitirmekto finish
- haklıright (in the right)
- meğerbut it turned out…
- galibaI think, it looks like
- masalfairy tale
- yaşamakto live
- göreaccording to; suited to
- hava durumuthe weather forecast
- telvecoffee grounds
- falfortune-telling, a fortune
- kapatmakto close; to turn over (a cup)
- dilek tutmakto make a wish
- falcıfortune-teller
- inanmakto believe
- nazar boncuğuevil-eye bead
- maşallah“how lovely — touch wood”
- tahtaya vurmakto knock on wood
- şarkısong
- söylemekto say, to tell; to sing (a song)
- futbolfootball
- maçmatch (game)
- şarkıcısinger
- tersupside down, the wrong way round
- soğumakto cool down
- çağırmakto call, to invite
- hayatlife
9Say it yourself
Say it out loud first, then check. Got it wrong? Good — that’s how it sticks. Peeking first just robs you of the useful part.
they say Zeynep got a hundred again
Zeynep yine yüz almış.
oh, the tea’s gone cold!
Aa, çay soğumuş!
you were right after all!
Haklıymışsın!
Efe isn’t asleep yet (you’ve just checked)
Efe daha uyumamış.
has Can come? (go and check)
Can gelmiş mi?
if you ask me, this film’s too long
Bana göre bu film çok uzun.
10Check yourself
Six items. A miss shows you the right answer — so getting it wrong here is useful too.
1Match each picture to its word.
2Fill in the right form: “Oh, I’ve left my key at home!”
Aa, anahtarımı evde ?
3Fill in the right form: “Have you finished your coffee?”
Kahveni ?
4Fill in the right word: “In my view, this film is very good.”
? göre bu film çok güzel.
5What does Haklıymışsın! mean?
6What does Fala inanma, falsız da kalma mean?
11Homework
All of it out loud. -mış settles in fastest when you’re passing on other people’s news.
- Take gelmek, yapmak, okumak and görmek through all six persons in -mış, positive and negative: gelmişim, gelmemişim…
- Three bits of news you heard this week, each starting Duydun mu?
- Look round your room. Find two traces of something that happened while you weren’t looking, and say what happened: Masa ıslak. Biri…
- Three opinions with göre: yours, someone close to you, and the news.
- Tell a fairy tale about Efe and the plate. Start with Bir varmış, bir yokmuş and stay in -mış all the way — five sentences.