Welcome, Kerem Bey. The chair has lost her voice. Today I’ll be passing on what she says.
1gelip gelmeyeceğini: “whether”, passed on
In Course 1’s Lesson 19 a question was passed on word for word, in quotation marks, with diye: Deniz “Kim?” diye sordu, “Who?” Deniz asked. In Lesson 13 you learnt to pass on a question with a question word in it: Kerem’e nerede oturduğunu sordum, “I asked Kerem where he lives.” What’s left is a question you answer with yes or no. English uses “if” or “whether”: “she asked if he’d come”. Turkish says the verb twice — come, not come:
Başkan Hanım “Nevin Hanım gelecek mi?” diye sordu.— “Will Nevin Hanım come?” the chair asked.
Başkan Hanım, Nevin Hanım’ın gelip gelmeyeceğini sordu.— The chair asked whether Nevin Hanım would come.
First comes the verb with -ıp, from Course 1’s Lesson 19: Kapıyı açıp baktım, “I opened the door and looked”. There -ıp meant “did that — and then”, and it had no person and no tense: the last verb gave it those. Same here: gelip has no person and no tense, and the negative after it carries the rest — gelmeyeceğini, Lesson 13’s -acağını, with the subject in the genitive, Nevin Hanım’ın, as there. If the question is about something done, or going on now, it’s -dığını:
“Çizimi gördünüz mü?” → Çizimi görüp görmediğimizi sordu.— “Have you seen the drawing?” → She asked whether we’d seen the drawing.
“Defne gazeteyi okuyor mu?” → Defne’nin gazeteyi okuyup okumadığını sordu.— “Is Defne reading the paper?” → He asked whether Defne was reading the paper.
-ıp follows the vowel, as it did in Course 1 — gelip, görüp, okuyup, with a buffer y after a vowel. The person goes on the second verb only. Here are all six, with -acak:
ben → gelip gelmeyeceğimi sordu— I → she asked if I’d come
sen → gelip gelmeyeceğini sordu— you → she asked if you’d come
o → gelip gelmeyeceğini sordu— he, she → she asked if he’d (she’d) come
biz → gelip gelmeyeceğimizi sordu— we → she asked if we’d come
siz → gelip gelmeyeceğinizi sordu— you (plural or polite) → she asked if you’d come
onlar → gelip gelmeyeceklerini sordu— they → she asked if they’d come
With -dığını it’s the same: gelip gelmediğimi, gelip gelmediğini… gelip gelmediklerini.
And the most everyday one of all: “I don’t know if she’ll come”. The same thing with bilmek, and the case, as in Lesson 13, is the accusative:
Nevin Hanım’ın gelip gelmeyeceğini bilmiyorum.— I don’t know whether Nevin Hanım will come.
2ofiste olup olmadığını: “whether”, with no verb
When there’s no verb — Zehra Hanım ofiste, Çay var — olmak did its job in Lesson 13: Ofiste hiç çay olmadığını gördüm!, “I saw there wasn’t a drop of tea in the office!” A question works the same way, only olmak comes twice: olup olmadığını.
“Zehra Hanım ofiste mi?” → Tolga Bey, Zehra Hanım’ın ofiste olup olmadığını sordu.— “Is Zehra Hanım in the office?” → Tolga Bey asked whether Zehra Hanım was in the office.
“Ofiste çay var mı?” → Ofiste çay olup olmadığını bilmiyorum.— “Is there any tea in the office?” → I don’t know if there’s any tea in the office.
And about the future, olup olmayacağını:
“Yarın toplantı olacak mı?” → Yarın toplantı olup olmayacağını sordum.— “Will there be a meeting tomorrow?” → I asked whether there’d be a meeting tomorrow.
3gelmesi gerektiğini and gelmek istediğini: “need to” and “want to”
In Lesson 1, gerek came in every tense: Yarın erken gelmem gerekiyor, “I need to come in early tomorrow.” To pass that on, you put -dığını on gerek itself: gerektiğini. And gelmem, “my coming”, changes person, the way geleceğim became geleceğini in Lesson 13: now it’s him who needs to come, gelmesi:
Kerem “Yarın erken gelmem gerekiyor” dedi.— Kerem said, “I need to come in early tomorrow.”
Kerem yarın erken gelmesi gerektiğini söyledi.— Kerem said he needed to come in early tomorrow.
“Will need to” is gerekeceğini, and “whether … needs to” is the verb twice again, gerekip gerekmediğini:
Başkan Hanım, kurula yeni bir çizim göndermemiz gerekeceğini söyledi.— The chair said we’d need to send the board a new drawing.
Tolga Bey, bir daha gelmesi gerekip gerekmediğini sordu.— Tolga Bey asked whether he needed to come again.
And “want to” — Course 1 Lesson 7’s -mak istemek — takes -dığını on istemek, and that’s all:
Nevin Hanım o gün burada olmak istediğini söyledi.— Nevin Hanım said she wanted to be here on the day.
That’s also one way to pass on -ayım, Course 1 Lesson 10’s “let me”. Here “Let me come too!” has become a wish, and the “me” has become kendisi, “herself”, from Lesson 6:
Başkan Hanım “Ben de geleyim!” dedi.— The chair said, “Let me come too!”
Başkan Hanım kendisinin de gelmek istediğini söyledi.— The chair said she herself would like to come too.
4geleceğine söz verdi: more verbs, more cases
In Lesson 13 the verb, or emin, picked the case: geldiğini biliyorum, geldiğine sevindim, geleceğinden eminim. There are lots more verbs that pass on what someone said or thought, and each asks for its own case — the one it would want with any other word. Here they come in pairs: first word for word, in quotation marks with diye, then passed on. söz vermek, “to promise”, takes the dative:
Nevin Hanım “O gün geleceğim!” diye söz verdi.— “I’ll come on the day!” Nevin Hanım promised.
Nevin Hanım o gün geleceğine söz verdi.— Nevin Hanım promised she’d come on the day.
kızmak, “to get cross”, takes the dative too, as in bana kızdı, “he got cross with me”:
Tolga Bey “Kimse beni aramadı!” diye kızdı.— “Nobody rang me!” Tolga Bey said crossly.
Tolga Bey kimsenin kendisini aramadığına kızdı.— Tolga Bey was cross that nobody had rung him.
korkmak takes the ablative -dan, as in denizden korkuyor, “she’s scared of the sea”. In Turkish you’re scared “from” something:
“Kurul hayır diyecek!” diye korktum.— “The board’s going to say no!” I thought, scared.
Kurulun “hayır” diyeceğinden korktum.— I was afraid the board would say no.
And tahmin etmek, “to guess”, and düşünmek take the accusative, like bilmek. Remember Kerem in front of the board in Lesson 3? “Bitti,” diye düşündüm: “That’s it,” I thought. Now you can pass that on too:
“Bitti,” diye düşündüm. → Her şeyin bittiğini düşündüm.— “That’s it,” I thought. → I thought it was all over.
“Muhabir arayacak” diye tahmin ettim. → Muhabirin arayacağını tahmin ettim.— “The reporter will ring,” I guessed. → I guessed the reporter would ring.
With diye there’s no case to choose: the words stay as they were. Without it, the verb tells you which. All five side by side:
söz vermek → geleceğine söz verdi— to promise, dative → she promised she’d come
kızmak → geç kaldığıma kızdı— to get cross, dative → she was cross that I was late
korkmak → “hayır” diyeceğinden korktum— to be afraid, ablative → I was afraid he’d say no
tahmin etmek → arayacağını tahmin ettim— to guess, accusative → I guessed he’d ring
düşünmek → bittiğini düşündüm— to think, accusative → I thought it was over
And Lesson 13’s verbs belong with them: sevinmek and inanmak take the dative too, and bilmek, söylemek and sormak the accusative. emin isn’t a verb, but it takes the ablative.
5geleceğini, gelip gelmeyeceğini, gelmesini: that, whether or to
In Lesson 13, passing words on went two ways: “that”, -dığını or -acağını, and “to”, -ma with a possessive — Course 1 Lesson 23’s gelmemi söyledi, “told me to come”. Now there are three. One gelmek, four sentences: what was said, what was asked and what was asked for:
“Geleceğim.” → Geleceğini söyledi.— “I’ll come.” → She said she’d come.
“Gelecek misin?” → Gelip gelmeyeceğimi sordu.— “Will you come?” → She asked if I’d come.
“Ne zaman geleceksin?” → Ne zaman geleceğimi sordu.— “When will you come?” → She asked when I’d come.
“Gel!” → Gelmemi söyledi.— “Come!” → She told me to come.
If you read English: where the passed-on version has “if” or “whether”, Turkish has -ıp and the negative; where it has “where”, “when” or “who”, the question word stays and the verb takes -dığını or -acağını once. And “to” is -ma. You can make that polite with rica etmek, also from Course 1’s Lesson 23:
Başkan Hanım, Kerem Bey’den çizimi bir daha anlatmasını rica etti.— The chair asked Kerem Bey to explain the drawing again.
6Türkiye up close: the dilekçe, and the man at the typewriter
You’ve been saying Rica ederim since Course 1’s Lesson 6, and its Lesson 23 showed you that rica etmek is “to ask”, politely. In Turkish official letters those words have a partner, and which one goes where is written down. Under the 2020 regulation on official correspondence, a letter to an office lower down ends with rica ederim, and one to an office higher up, or an equal, with arz ederim. arz, in TDK’s dictionary, is telling something to a high office. A letter’s last words know who’s writing to whom.
And when it isn’t another office writing in but a person, it’s a dilekçe, a petition: in TDK’s words, a signed paper with an address, handed in to an official body to make a wish known. You can hear dilek in it, the same “wish” as in dilek tutmak, “to make a wish”, from Course 1’s Lesson 18. A petition usually ends with arz ederim, and the request in it is our -ma with the accusative:
Cumbanın yeniden yapılmasını arz ederim.— I respectfully request that the cumba be rebuilt.
And if someone gets it wrong? The same regulation has an answer for that too: a petition that ends not with arz ederim but with rica ederim, or with anything else, will still be dealt with.
The petition’s old name is arzuhâl, and TDK sends you on from it to dilekçe. It’s two Arabic words: arz, that same “telling a high office”, and hâl, “state, situation” — telling them how things stand with you. The TDV encyclopaedia says that among the Ottomans petitioning was widely used, as “a most natural right”. But petitions were written in set phrases, and writing one wasn’t easy. And so, in time, a trade grew up: the arzuhâlci writes them for other people.
TDK explains arzuhâlci plainly — “someone who writes petitions, letters and so on, for money” — and its example is “an old man who was an arzuhâlci at the exit door of the courthouse”. The adliye, the courthouse, is where they still are. In 2018 TRT Haber found them opposite the courthouse in Adana, at little tables with typewriters on them, not computers. In 2021, on a corner of the courthouse in Bursa, one of them, with twenty years in the trade and about fifty at the typewriter, said a petition takes him ten or fifteen minutes, sometimes five, depending on the complaint. A colleague of twenty-eight, who learnt the trade from his father, works on a computer. Daktilo artık çok eskidi, he says: “the typewriter’s had its day”. Back in 1991 the TDV encyclopaedia wrote that conditions had changed, but the work of an arzuhâlci was almost the same. Going by Adana and Bursa, it still is.
7Dialogue: in a whisper
June, and the board from Lesson 3. Zehra Hanım is on a site today — the hamam — so Kerem has come with Tolga Bey. The chair, the older lady who shook her head over the drawings, has lost her voice. She whispers everything into the ear of the member with glasses — the one who said “cık” to the tea man — and he passes it on.
Üye:
Hoş geldiniz, Kerem Bey. Başkan Hanım’ın sesi kısıldı. Bugün onun sözlerini ben aktaracağım.
Kerem:
Geçmiş olsun, Başkan Hanım.
Get well soon, Madam Chair.
Üye:
Başkan Hanım teşekkür ettiğini söylüyor.
The chair says she thanks you.
Tolga:
Teşekkürü bile aktarıyor!
He even passes on the thank-you!
Üye:
Başkan Hanım, gazeteyi iki kere okuduğunu söylüyor: önce haberi, sonra düzeltmeyi.
The chair says she read the paper twice: first the story, then the correction.
Kerem:
Evet, cumba henüz yok. Yalnız çizimi var.
Yes, there’s no cumba yet. Only the drawing of it.
Kerem:
Başını iki yana sallıyor… Bu “bir daha anlatın” demek.
She’s shaking her head… That means “explain it again”.
Üye:
Evet. Başkan Hanım, çizimi bir daha anlatmanızı rica ediyor.
Yes. The chair asks you to explain the drawing again.
Kerem:
Tabii. Cumba, eski fotoğraftaki gibi olacak.
Of course. The cumba will be just like the one in the old photo.
Üye:
Başkan Hanım, payandaları kimin yapacağını soruyor.
The chair is asking who’ll make the supports.
Tolga:
Payandaları benden!
The supports are on me!
Üye:
Efendim, Tolga Bey payandaların kendisinden olduğunu söylüyor.
Madam Chair, Tolga Bey says the supports are on him.
Üye:
Başkan Hanım, sesinin kısıldığını ama kulaklarının çok iyi duyduğunu söylüyor.
The chair says she’s lost her voice, but her ears work perfectly well.
Üye:
Başkan Hanım, Nevin Hanım’ın o gün gelip gelmeyeceğini soruyor.
The chair is asking whether Nevin Hanım will come on the day.
Kerem:
Geleceğine söz verdi. Gazeteye de öyle söyledi.
She’s promised she will. She told the paper so, too.
Üye:
Başkan Hanım, o gün kendisinin de gelmek istediğini söylüyor.
The chair says she herself would like to come on the day too.
Tolga:
O gün çaylar benden!
The tea’s on me that day!
Üye:
Benim için iki çay yeter.
Two glasses will do for me.
Kerem:
Peki, kurulun kararı ne?
So what’s the board’s decision?
Üye:
Başkan Hanım, kararı kendisinin söylemek istediğini söylüyor.
The chair says she wants to give the decision herself.
Başkan Hanım:
Evet.
Yes.
Üye:
Başkan Hanım, sesinin yalnız buna yettiğini söylüyor.
The chair says her voice was only up to that.
Kerem:
Bize de bu yeter!
That’s all we need!
The member passes on everything, even the thanks: teşekkür ettiğini, okuduğunu and kısıldığını are Lesson 13’s -dığını; anlatmanızı rica ediyor is a polite request; gelip gelmeyeceğini is section 1, gelmek istediğini section 3, geleceğine söz verdi section 4. aktarmak is “to pass on” someone’s words. And söylüyor and soruyor are in the present: he’s passing them on as she speaks. Tolga Bey first said Payandaları benden! in Lesson 12, and passed on, benden has become kendisinden, “on him”. buna yettiğini is yetmek, “to be enough”, with the dative. And Kerem learnt that the head-shake means “explain it again” in Lesson 3 — the same day the member turned down a third glass of tea, so two will do today as well.
8Reading
That evening Kerem writes Zehra Hanım a report, as he did in Lesson 3, and passes on everything anyone said. Read it through; open a translation only where you’re stuck.
Rapor
A report — and two phone calls.
Zehra Hanım, yine bir rapor istediniz. İşte raporum.
Zehra Hanım, you asked for a report again. Here it is.
Konu: Beş numaranın cumbası.
Subject: number 5’s cumba.
Toplantıdan önce kurulun “hayır” diyeceğinden korktum.
Before the meeting I was afraid the board would say no.
Tolga Bey’le gittik.
Tolga Bey and I went.
Başkan Hanım’ın sesi kısılmış.
The chair, it turned out, had lost her voice.
Her şeyi gözlüklü üyenin kulağına fısıldadı, o da bize aktardı.
She whispered everything into the ear of the member with glasses, and he passed it on to us.
Başkan Hanım, gazeteyi iki kere okuduğunu söyledi: önce haberi, sonra düzeltmeyi.
The chair said she’d read the paper twice: first the story, then the correction.
Sonra başını iki yana salladı.
Then she shook her head.
Bunun ne demek olduğunu artık biliyorum: çizimi bir daha anlatmamı istedi.
I know what that means now: she wanted me to explain the drawing again.
Sonra payandaları kimin yapacağını sordu.
Then she asked who’d make the supports.
Tolga Bey “Payandaları benden!” diye bağırdı.
“The supports are on me!” Tolga Bey shouted.
Üye bunu da Başkan Hanım’a aktardı, ama Başkan Hanım duymuş.
The member passed that on to the chair as well, but she’d heard it, it turned out.
Sonra Nevin Hanım’ın gelip gelmeyeceğini sordu.
Then she asked whether Nevin Hanım would come.
Nevin Hanım’ın geleceğine söz verdiğini söyledim.
I said Nevin Hanım had promised she would.
Başkan Hanım o gün kendisinin de gelmek istediğini söyledi.
The chair said she herself would like to come on the day too.
Tolga Bey çayların da kendisinden olacağını söyledi.
Tolga Bey said the tea would be on him too.
Üye, kendisine iki çayın yeteceğini söyledi.
The member said two glasses would do for him.
Sonunda kararı sorduk.
In the end we asked for the decision.
Başkan Hanım kısık sesle “Evet” dedi.
“Yes,” the chair said hoarsely.
Üye, sesinin yalnız buna yettiğini söyledi.
The member said her voice was only up to that.
Ofise dönerken Sabiha Hanım’ı aradım.
On the way back to the office I rang Sabiha Hanım.
Kararı benden önce Tolga Bey’den duymuş.
She’d already heard the decision, it turned out — from Tolga Bey, before me.
Cumbanın ne zaman yapılacağını sordu.
She asked when the cumba would be built.
Nevin Hanım’a haberi kendisinin vermek istediğini söyledi.
She said she wanted to tell Nevin Hanım herself.
Muhabirin de arayacağını tahmin ettim.
I guessed the reporter would ring too.
Beş dakika sonra telefon çaldı.
Five minutes later, the phone rang.
Muhabire kurulun “evet” dediğini söyledim.
I told the reporter the board had said yes.
Cumbanın yapıldığını söylemedim.
I didn’t say the cumba had been built.
Henüz yapılmadığını söyledim.
I said it hadn’t been built yet.
İki kere söyledim.
I said it twice.
Saygılarımla, Kerem
Kind regards, Kerem
Not: Gözlüklü üye üçüncü çayı yine istemedi.
P.S. The member with glasses didn’t want a third glass of tea again.
Everything here is passed on: okuduğunu söyledi, anlatmamı istedi, gelip gelmeyeceğini sordu, geleceğine söz verdiğini söyledim — something passed on inside something passed on — olacağını, yeteceğini, vermek istediğini, diyeceğinden korktum, arayacağını tahmin ettim. kısılmış and duymuş are Course 1 Lesson 18’s -mış: things Kerem found out when he got there, and on the phone. diye bağırdı is its Lesson 19. dönerken is -ken, “while I was heading back”. The report starts the way Lesson 3’s did — Zehra Hanım, bir rapor istediniz, now with yine, “again” — and ends the same way too: Saygılarımla, and a Not after it.
1Why did the member do the talking, not the chair?
2What did the chair ask about Nevin Hanım?
3What did Kerem tell the reporter?
9The lesson’s new words
These are the words the lesson brought in for the first time, in the order you met them. The old arzuhâl isn’t here: the dictionary itself sends you on from it to dilekçe.
New words
- kızmakto get cross, to get angry
- tahmin etmekto guess
- dilekçepetition, written application
- arz etmekto submit respectfully (to a higher office)
- arzuhâlcipetition writer
- daktilotypewriter
- adliyecourthouse
- sesi kısılmakto lose one’s voice
- aktarmakto pass on (someone’s words)
- yetmekto be enough
- kısıkhoarse
10Say it yourself
Out loud first, then the answer. For each one, ask yourself: was it said, asked with a “whether”, or asked for? And which case does the verb want? Getting it wrong and then checking is exactly what this is for.
she asked whether Kerem would come
Kerem’in gelip gelmeyeceğini sordu.
I don’t know if he’s seen the drawing
Çizimi görüp görmediğini bilmiyorum.
he asked whether there was any tea in the office
Ofiste çay olup olmadığını sordu.
she said she needed to come in early
Erken gelmesi gerektiğini söyledi.
Nevin Hanım promised she’d come
Nevin Hanım geleceğine söz verdi.
I was afraid the board would say no
Kurulun “hayır” diyeceğinden korktum.
11Check yourself
Six items. A miss shows you the right answer straight away, and why.
1Match each picture to its word.
2Fill in the right words: “She asked whether Kerem would come.”
Kerem’in ? sordu.
3Kerem’e ofiste olup olmadığını sordum means…
4Fill in the right word: “I was afraid I’d be late.”
Geç ? korktum.
5How do you pass on “Gel!” dedi?
6Erken gelmesi gerektiğini söyledi means…
12Homework
Two to say aloud, three to write. Write by hand or in your phone’s notes, then read it aloud: the ear finds what the eye let through.
- Out loud, every person: gelip gelmediğimi sordu, gelip gelmediğini sordu — and on to onlar. Then the same with -acak: gelip gelmeyeceğimi… And once more with olmak: evde olup olmadığımı…
- Out loud: think of five questions people asked you today and pass them on — some with “whether”, some with a question word: Annem yemek yiyip yemediğimi sordu…
- Section 4’s five verbs, a sentence with each, about yourself: what you promised, what you got cross about, what you were afraid of, what you guessed…
- A report like Kerem’s, five or six sentences: a meeting, a conversation or a family dinner — who said what, who asked what, and who asked for what. End with Saygılarımla.
- Your own dilekçe to the municipality, the belediye, three or four sentences: what’s happened and what you’re asking for — with -masını, and arz ederim at the end. If you write rica ederim instead, never mind: they’ll still take it.