Bir arkadaşın değerini anlamak için, yalnız kalmayı beklemeyin.

A non-literal translation would be -

Don’t wait until you are alone before you understand the value of a friend.

Here is my breakdown that may help some learners understand the sentence construction

Bir = one, a / an [here it means ´a´]

arkadaş = friend

arkadaşın = your friend OR friend´s (genitive noun) [here it means friend´s]

değer = value, worth

bir arkadaşın değeri = a friend´s value = the value of a friend

[note the genitive construction of the suffixes above in red]

/ı anlamak (verb) = to understand

bir arkadaşın değerini anlamak = to understand the value of a friend

[note the buffer letter n and the accusative suffix i in blue above, which is neccessary tie the noun to the verb]

için = for, in order to, because,

yalnız = alone

kalmak (verb) = to stay, to remain

yalnız kalmak = to be alone, to become lonely

yalnız kalma = here it means ´being alone´ (verbal noun)

i/ beklemek = to wait

yalnız kalmayı beklemek = to wait being alone

[note the buffer letter y and the accusative suffix ı in purple above, which is neccessary tie the verbal noun to the verb]

beklememek = to not wait

bekleme = do not wait [imperative, command]

beklemeyin = you do not wait [imperative for 2nd person singular, ´you´]

yalnız kalmayı beklemeyin = don´t you wait becoming lonely

I hope my breakdown is correct 

Interesting post, Henry. I notice you analyse the sentence quite linearly, from left to right. I am surprised it works so well. But why shouldn´t it, that´s what the speaker does also, puts one word after another... I always try to start with the main constituents and their modifiers. Maybe I am too much attracted to my habits.

I guess I haven´t thought deeply about the methods I use to translate Turkish sentences. Generally I will read the whole sentence and study the final verb to work out the subject and action. Then I look whether the sentence object has a suffix, and often use dictionaries to check what type of case the verb uses (accusative, dative, etc). Some verbs I now recognise, but often there are several possible meanings. I also work on the modifiers last, unless I recognise simple structures.

I noticed that some Turkish teachers suggest working backwards from the verb, especially in complex sentences, so that you can work out what´s modifying what.

I must also thank you abla for the huge reference section you have created on this site as you learn. Thanks to your translation attempts, questions and observations, and most importantly, the thorough explanations given by Turks such as tunci, scalpel, si++, gokuyum and others, this site has improved as a reference for all learners.

For everyone that helps others here my sincere thanks 

They are just amazing people, aren´t they? And so are you, Henry. Please, go on with this thread, I´m sure it is useful for many learners even as an encouragement. I may add something, too, if one day I don´t have anything to do. Turkish sentences may look complicated but with intent analyse it´s possible to tame them.

I have found one method which is not so scholarly but which sometimes helps. Read the sentence loud. Read it many times. You may catch the rhythm in it.

This is tunci’s sentence from an old thread. For some reason I liked it and saved it for future use:

Simit, hem zenginin hem de fakirin severek yediği tek yiyecektir.

(simit ‘bagel’, hem…hem de ‘both…and’, zengin ‘rich’, fakir ‘poor’, sevmek ‘to like’, tek ‘the only’, yemek ‘to eat’ ) 

First it is important to understand that this is a nominal sentence. For reasons which are told below the last word looks like a verb but it is a noun combined with the copula ‘to be’. So, what is basically said is

> A bagel is something.

yi|y|ecek = verb stem + BUFFER + future participle marking ‘something to eat, food’. Some future participles have frozen into nouns, yiyecek is one of them, but luckily we can still recognize it from its parts.

> A bagel is [something to eat].

As we now have the subject and the predicate, what we find in between is probably modifiers or the nominal predicate, i.e. it tells us something about yiyecek.

There are two modifiers, an adjective and a subclause:

1. Let’s take the easy one, tek, first:

> A bagel is the only [something to eat].

2. The sentence is hem zengin ve hem fakir yer/yiyor ‘both rich and poor eat’. When a whole sentence is changed into an attribute, changes happen. They usually happen in the subject (> genitive zengin|in, fakir|in) and in the predicate (> participle ye|diğ|i = verb stem + participle marking + possessive suffix sg 3rd).

There is a small gerund sev|erek in the middle: -erek usually denotes the way something is done, ‘in a loving way, with pleasure’.

> A bagel is [both rich and poor with pleasure eat] only [something to eat].

A native English speaker should take the last step but I will give it a try:

‘A bagel is the only thing both rich and poor people eat with pleasure.’

For people like me who are doing self paced learning, this forum has been wonderful. I definitly know that you can learn more completly when you have someone to explain why a grammar rule works the way it does. True, both Abla and you Henry are inspiration and modest about it but you really do deserve the praise. I would feel it an honor to attend a Turkish class with both of you.

Here´s some interesting lyrics from a song (See especilly the red part):

Ümitsiz günlerimde
Kendimle avundum
İçimdeki her şeyi yitirdim
Seni buldum
Şimdi ben senin oluyormuş gibiyim

Sıcak geceler gibi
Al beni kollarına bu gece
Dokunsalar ağlayacak
Çocuk gibiyim
Denizdeki dalgaların ucuna
Beni sal bu gece
Her yeni gün doğacak
Çocuk gibiyim
Gibi gibiyim

my attempt

Dokunsalar ağlayacak
Çocuk gibiyim

I am like a child that will cry if they upset me

Doğru mu?

I´m like a child that will cry if they touch me.

Close.

I would do it this way:

I am like a child who would cry if they were to touch (him/her).

Its present tense

Hmmm my English was poor 

"who would cry" is better, and thanks for giving the correct meaning  

Yes but hypothetical. Similar to

If I were you

I wonder if there are some sites of similar kind (with free membership, helping people around, etc.) for other languages. I am interested in Italian and Spanish and maybe Russian.

Livemocha.com is useful.

Just be very selective with adding friends. Choose people who are native speakers and also have lots of points from teaching others. It has helped me find Turks who have really helped with understanding Turkish. 

The future participle often pays my attention in texts. It’s a beautiful verb form. In many sentences it has a huge power of expressing complicated meanings in short.

In the fairy tale of Emperor’s New Chothes (Kralın Elbisesi) the famous foreign weavers’ products are described with this sentence.

Renklere ve desenlere diyecek yoktu.

(renk ‘colour’, desen ‘design, pattern’, demek ‘to say’ )

A quick glance shows that it is a sentence which talks about existence. Or actually non-existence. yok|tu = yok + past tense marking.

> There was not [something].

When we begin to gather material inside the brackets we notice that this time the subject cannot be in the beginning of the sentence. renk|ler|e and desen|ler|e have dative endings and thus they must be parallel modifiers for the next word, diyecek, which is the only alternative for the subject.

> There was not [something for colours and patterns].

It seems that the whole clue is in this small word di|y|ecek = verb stem de- + BUFFER + future marking. The syntactic position of the subject makes it impossible to interpret it as a verbal future form of demek even though it looks the same.

The future participle form expresses time but also often ability, possibility. Participles are usually adjectives, but as diyecek is standing alone here without a governor it must be governing itself and that’s why we can look at it as a noun. We get something like

> There was not [(future possible to say) (for colors and patterns)].

Some creativity is needed in order to transfer the meaning into English. My Try:

‘Nothing could be said for the colours or the patterns.’

No, we have to go a step further:

‘It was impossible to describe the colours and patterns with words.’

I am amazed again Abla. Your explanation on that sentence is quite clear.

Its that creativity you speak of that I often find difficult. One would think if I could understand the Turkish words, then realizing what is being said and the context of it in English would be clear. However they way Turkish is structured, it is not always expressed the same way as it would be in English. So its not always so cut and dry. As an English speaking learner, I found I had to toss out many preconceptions that a given suffix only has one job. 

I know -ki has many uses and doesn´t -dir also have many uses?

There was nothing to say about the colours and design.

 Would this translation be still legitimate?

Yes, right translation, but i wont be able to say anything about "legitimate"

I think the one you quoted, ercheksargo, is still quite literal. That´s why I suggested the last alternative

         ‘It was impossible to describe the colours and patterns with words’

which I think is better but of course risky, especially because I don´t master either of the languages well enough. But there is always a chance for debate, no matter how we say it.

By the way, I will open another thread about translation problems. I will do it  -  now.

 Yanıtınız için teşekkür ederim.

yanıt = response (noun)

Bu az bilgiye sahip olunan ilk Türkçeye "Ana Türkçe" denir.

It’s a passive sentence: de|n|ir = stem +  passive marking + aorist ‘is said, is called’. What is said, the subject, is ‘Ana Türkçe’, the term for Turkish protolanguage.

> [Turkish protolanguage][is said]

The rest of the sentence is an indirect object, marked with dative: Türkçe|y|e = stem + buffer + dative ending.

> [for Turkish][Turkish protolanguage][is said]

The indirect object has two modifiers, bu and an equivalent to an English relative clause. Its participle is analysed ol|un|an = stem + passive marking + present participle. sahip olmak is a phrase ‘to own’, so sahip olunan must be treated as a whole.

> [this][for Turkish][which is not owned][Turkish protolanguage][is said]

It makes sense that bilgi|y|e is dative, because sahip olmak governs a dative modifier.

> [this][for Turkish][much knowledge][which is not owned][Turkish protolanguage][is said]

It seems that even though every constituent is present the translation is still all over the place. Using some creativity we can achieve the following meaning:

> “Turkish protolanguage” is said to this Turkish about which not much knowledge is owned.

And further

> “Turkish protolanguage” is said to this Turkish about which little is known.

This is the interesting part. In English this is said the other way round:

> This Turkish about which little is known is called Turkish protolanguage.’

My Try.

wow Henry, you´re so good at learning Turkish. congratulations!

 Yes , Henry is one of the best on this site. !! He has amazing knowledge in Turkish Language that is worth praising.

Ne içindeyim zamanın,

Ne de büsbütün dışında;

Yekpare, geniş bir anın

Parçalanmaz akışında.

I am neither inside,
nor completely outside of the time;
in an indivisible flow

of a singular, wide moment.

and we should not forget his determination i have been here for just 3 or 4 days but i can see that he´s in every thread to learn and share his knowledge =)

Dünyanın en tuhaf mahlukusun yani, hani şu derya içre olup deryayı bilmiyen balıktan da tuhaf. (Nazım Hikmet)

tuhaf ’strange’, mahluk ‘creature’, hani ‘you know’, derya ‘sea’, içre ‘(arc) inside’, balık ‘fish’

The conversational locution hani ‘you know’ in the middle divides the sentence into two parts, the latter being an explanation of the previous.

I Dünyanın en tuhaf mahlukusun yani

The only constituent that smells like a verb is the sg 2nd person enclitic suffix of the verb ’to be’ in mahluk|u|sun = ‘creature’ + poss sg 3^rd + ‘you are’. It seems that the compulsory elements of a complete nominal sentence are in this one word

> ‘You are [creature]’

and all the rest modifies this basic utterance. There is a genitive attribute and a superlative adjective in front of the predicative.

> ‘You are the world’s strangest creature’

II şu derya içre olup deryayı bilmiyen balıktan da tuhaf

The whole queue of words modifies the adjective tuhaf  ‘strange’. The ablative ending in the previous word gives the signal of comparison.

> [stranger] [than fish] 

There are two co-ordinate verbs in the modifier, tied together with the particle –ip which denotes that they both carry the grammatical material, i.e. the present participle marking of the latter. *)

Present participles often translate into English relative clauses where the relative pronoun is the subject of the clause. So it seems to be here also. Added the nominal modifiers the sentence should look something like

> [stranger] [than (which is in that sea) (which doesn’t know the sea) fish]

> stranger than a fish that is in the sea but doesn’t know the sea

Randy Blasing and Mutlu Konuk have translated it into English this way, changing the relative clauses into an idiom (I guess):

“I mean you´re strangest creature on earth-
even stranger than the fish
that couldn´t see the ocean for the water.” 

*) In my opinion the first participle is supposed to have the same negative marking also: bil|mi|y|en = ‘know’ + neg + present participle marking. olup should stand for ol|ma|y|an respectively but I can’t solve the meaning if the negation is there. I looked at the poem on more than one site in order to check if a small da was missing from my sentence after olup but it wasn’t. I don’t understand this syntax. Maybe it has to do with the rhythm or the phraseology of the poem, who knows.

P.S. In another thread it turned out that my information of the use of de/da in -Ip structures was deficient. Even without the small particle the negation of the predicate doesn´t necessarily concern the first verb.

Ne içindeyim zamanın,
Ne de büsbütün dışında;
Yekpare, geniş bir anın
Parçalanmaz akışında.

I am neither inside,
nor completely outside of the time;
 in an indivisible flow
of a singular, wide moment. 

Isn´t this describing Dr. Who? 

No, it´s about aorist tense.

It´s some verses of a famous poem by a famous Turkish poet.

Takiyeddin Efendi’ye ne mi oldu?

It’s an exceptional question. There are two question markings: the pronoun ne and the particle mi which we usually don’t see together.

olmak here means change of state, it’s an equivalent to English ‘happen’.

> ne oldu? ‘what happened?’

The dative complement tells ‘happened to whom’?

> Takiyeddin Efendi’ye ne oldu? ‘what happened to Taqi al-Din efendi?´

The particle mi makes it a yes/no question. When it is placed in the middle of the sentence the question concerns the preceding word, in this case ne.

> Takiyeddin Efendi’ye ne mi oldu? ‘is-it-what happened to Taqi al-Din efendi?’

> ‘Are you asking what happened to Taqi al-Din effendi?’

If there is a better way to say it in English, please tell me.