Lesson 23 — Hayırlı olsun! Here’s to the new job

1“Gel!” dedi → gelmemi söyledi: passing on what you were told

In Lesson 19 you learned to pass on people’s words exactly, in quotation marks: Efe “Ben gördüm!” diye bağırdı. And last lesson, to say “I want you to come” in one word: gelmeni istiyorum. Put the two together and you get something people spend half the day doing: passing on instructions. “Mum said to come home early.” “The doctor told me to drink more water.” “The boss asked us not to be late.”

English reaches for the infinitive here: “told me to come”. Turkish reaches for last lesson’s form: -⁠ma, the “my, your” ending and the accusative -⁠ı. “She said my coming”: gelmemi söyledi.

Which ending? The one who has to do it. If it was me who was asked, gelmemi; you, gelmeni; him, gelmesini, with Lesson 7’s n. And the one who was told goes in the dative, as always with söylemek: bana, sana, Deniz’e. And the verb here is always söylemek: demek stays with the quotation marks.

Everything else shifts just as it does in English. The teacher says “open your books”, and you pass it on as “told us to open our books”. And remember last lesson: Sevim teyze told Deniz, O zaman paspası da getir! — “then bring the doormat too”.

2Gelmememi söyledi: “don’t”, and “what do you want me to do?”

If you were told not to do something, the negative -⁠ma goes inside, and two ma’s end up side by side — like last lesson’s gitmemem lazım. The first one says “not”, the second turns the verb into a noun.

Gelmemi is “to come”, gelmememi “not to come”. One syllable decides whether you go or stay at home. Say both out loud, slowly, a couple of times — your tongue gets used to it sooner than you’d think.

And how do you ask what someone wants you to do? The question word goes where the answer will be — Lesson 6’s rule. Ne yapmamı istiyorsun?, “What do you want me to do?” In a new job it may well be the most useful sentence of the first week.

3Rica ederim: asking nicely

You’ve been saying Rica ederim since Lesson 6, when someone thanks you. Rica is “a request” — that’s how TDK’s dictionary explains it — and rica etmek is “to ask”, politely: “I beg you”. So when you answer thanks with it, you’re saying something like “please — it was nothing”.

The person you ask goes in the ablative -⁠dan, as with istemek: you want something *from* them, senden istiyorum. What you ask for is our -⁠ma form.

Shops, cinemas and companies call themselves “we”, and on their signs and in their announcements you’ll see the same form with -⁠nızı: “we ask you to…”. Turkish gets no more polite than this.

And when it isn’t a request but an order, that’s emretmek, and the one who’s ordered goes in the dative. You won’t hear it much in everyday life. Unless there’s a cat in the house.

And all of it on one line: who was told — the dative; who was asked — the ablative.

4Bakış, gülüş, yürüyüş: words in -⁠ış

At the hotel in Lesson 14 you learned giriş and çıkış, “entrance” and “exit”. Back then they were just two words. Now look: girmek is “to go in”, çıkmak “to go out”. Drop the -⁠mak, add -⁠ış, and the verb has turned into a word for a thing: gir + iş, çık + ış.

The harmony is the four-team kind, like -⁠ı: -⁠ış, -⁠iş, -⁠uş, -⁠üş. After a vowel, Lesson 16’s y comes in: yürü + y + üş. And a t at the end softens, as in Lesson 7: gitmek → gidiş.

How is that different from last lesson’s -⁠ma? -⁠ma is the action itself, right there in a sentence: gelmeni istiyorum, yürümeyi seviyorum. You build sentences with it, out of any verb. -⁠ış makes a word — often for the way something’s done, or for one go of it: a look, a smile, a walk. Those words live in the dictionary in their own right, and not every verb has one.

And one word with -⁠ış in it twice. Alış is “taking”, veriş is “giving”. Together, alışveriş, it’s shopping. Take and give — which, when you think about it, is all shopping is. And -⁠ış turns up on signs a lot: closed for repairs, and at the bottom, “thank you for your understanding”.

And a debt from Lesson 15. The recipe’s steps were headed Yapılışı, and we promised to explain it today. Yap is “do, make”, -⁠ış is today’s, -⁠ı is “its”: “its making”, that is, how it’s made. There’s one more piece inside, -⁠ıl-, which means “is done”: yap-ıl-ış-ı. That one comes later; the -⁠ış and the -⁠ı are already yours.

5Kapalıdır: the -⁠dır of signs and newspapers

Two more debts. In Lesson 15 the coffee proverb ended in vardır — “var said firmly, like a law” — and we took it whole. In Lesson 22 yasaktır came whole too, from the bus regulations. It’s one ending, -⁠dır, and today it’s yours. After a noun or an adjective it means “is” — officially, as a rule, for certain. It’s how signs, laws, textbooks and the news talk.

Four-team harmony again, and after a voiceless consonant the d turns into t, as in Lesson 2’s -⁠da/-⁠ta: -⁠dır, -⁠dir, -⁠dur, -⁠dür, -⁠tır, -⁠tir, -⁠tur, -⁠tür.

Ücretsiz is ücret, “a charge”, with Lesson 12’s -⁠siz: “charge-less”. And on a verb, -⁠dır sits on the tense. In the news and in announcements: -⁠mıştır for “has done”, -⁠acaktır for “will”, and instead of -⁠yor, -⁠maktadır. That’s last lesson’s -⁠makta, from Sormakta fayda var — “in the doing” — plus -⁠dır.

In conversation, -⁠dır sounds different. Say Evdedir about someone and it isn’t an official “at home” — it’s “must be at home”, “probably at home”. The same form, only now it’s a guess.

And a question you’ll hear on any form and at any interview: Adınız nedir? It’s Lesson 1’s Adınız ne?, only with -⁠dir — firmer and more official.

6Ne iş yaparsınız? Jobs

In Lesson 16, when someone asked Ne iş yapıyorsunuz?, we told you to look your job up in the dictionary. Today the dictionary comes to you. Some jobs you know already: avukat, mühendis, garson, hemşire and satıcı from Lesson 2, öğretmen from Lesson 16, eczacı from Lesson 12, şoför from Lesson 22. And since Lesson 21 you can ask with the aorist too: Ne iş yaparsınız?, “what do you do (for a living)?”

Lots of jobs are made by Lesson 10’s -⁠cı, the one in pazarcı and çaycı: whoever works with the thing. Meslek means “profession”, and half the professions you can now build yourself.

Aş is an old word for food — TDK’s dictionary glosses it simply as yemek. You rarely hear it on its own now, but aşçı is in every kitchen. Other jobs manage without -⁠cı. Say each one out loud first, then check:

Polis and sekreter you’ll recognise anyway. And the answer to Ne iş yaparsınız? can be a job with Lesson 1’s ending, or a whole sentence:

7İş ilanı, öz geçmiş, iş görüşmesi: looking for work

So you’re looking for a job, and you open the iş ilanları, the job ads. Their language is exactly what we’ve taken apart today: -⁠maktadır, -⁠dır and “we ask you to” with -⁠ma. One line is in every shop window where someone’s needed:

Eleman is “a member of staff”. Aranıyor is “is being looked for”: the -⁠n- in the middle means something is being done to someone. That comes later too — take the sign whole. Next, a bigger ad:

Deneyimli is deneyim, “experience”, with -⁠li: “with experience”. Aday is a candidate. Tercih is “preference” and sebep “reason”: a tercih sebebi is “a reason to prefer”, an advantage. Göndermek is “to send”. And başvurular are applications, from başvurmak, “to apply” — to what goes in the dative: işe başvurmak.

To apply you need an öz geçmiş, a CV. Öz is “one’s own”, geçmiş is Lesson 18’s “the past”: your own past on a sheet of paper. TDK’s dictionary writes it as two words; on job sites you’ll mostly see it as one, özgeçmiş. Its headings usually go like this:

Soyadı is your surname: soy is Lesson 8’s, as in soy ağacı, the family tree. Mezun is a graduate: üniversite mezunu, “a university graduate”. And finally the iş görüşmesi, the job interview: görüşme is the -⁠ma of görüşmek, “to meet and talk”. Here’s what you’ll almost certainly be asked there — politely, in Lesson 21’s aorist. Try them yourself first:

Zayıf is “weak” and yön “side”: a zayıf yön is a weak spot. As for the last question, the best answer is of course Yarın! — but that’s between you and them.

9Dialogue: how did the interview go?

Can had a job interview this morning. Where, and for what job, he isn’t telling anyone yet — not even us. Ayşe’s waiting for him in the café across the road. This morning she gave him three bits of advice.

Nasıl geçti? is “how did it go?”, from Lesson 5’s geçmek, “to pass”. Ricam var is “I have a request”: rica with “my”. Doğru söylemişsin is “so you told the truth”, with Lesson 18’s -⁠mış: Ayşe is only finding out now. Now count how many times, in one conversation, they had to pass on what someone asked: anlatmamı istedi, konuşmanı söyledim, anlatmamamı söyledin, gelmemi istiyorlar, aramanı istiyorum. That’s life. Just don’t try “Sizin işinizi!” at an interview of your own.

10Reading

Deniz is still in İzmir at anneanne Nermin’s with Efe’s family: last lesson he came on the night bus. Summer, the sea, Lesson 17’s Kordon — and Efe, who is four and very keen to work. Back home, Kurabiye sleeps on Deniz’s doormat outside Sevim teyze’s door.

A dükkân is a small shop. Önlük is an apron, and önlüklü “in an apron”. Bey is “Mr”, and it goes after a first name, like Lesson 11’s hanım: the usta talks to four-year-old Efe like a proper candidate. Tebrikler is “congratulations”. İstifa etmek is “to resign”. And you can take Yemememi apart yourself now: ye “eat”, me “not”, me the noun, m “my”, i the accusative. Efe had one me too many — it happens to the best of us.

11The lesson’s new words

Everything new from today, in the order it turned up. Not every -⁠ma and -⁠ış form is here — you build those yourself — only the ones that have become words of their own. Polis, sekreter and üniversite look just like police, secretary and university, so they’re left out; take Eleman aranıyor and the -⁠ıl- in Yapılışı whole.

12Say it yourself

Out loud first, then check. Got it wrong? Good — that’s how it sticks. Peeking first just gives away the useful part.

13Check yourself

Six items. A miss shows you the right answer, so getting it wrong here is useful too.

14Homework

All of it out loud — and the CV and the ad on paper too. Today’s lesson is about work, and everyone has plenty of that.