Hello!
Could you give me all possible translations of the verb "to mean" in the sense of being on somebody´s mind, like "what do you mean"? Because all the dictionaries suggest only demek istemek, which literally means "want to say" and sometimes that phrase seems unsuitable for me. For example, someone´s asking me "How much is this?", and I want to assure to have understood the question right, and ask "You mean the price?" = "is price the thing on your mind/are you asking for the price?".. If I use demek istemek, "fiyatı demek istiyor musun?" - "do you wanna say the price?", it won´t be the same I think... It may sound like I was asking if he wants to give me the price or not hehe Btw, sorry for the stupid example, but only this came to my mind now
In the case of your example many of us would say ;
Fiyatını mı soruyorsun ? ---> Are you asking it´s price ? [are you asking about its price?]
instead of "demek istiyorsun.
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Secondly, the alternative word to "demek istemek " is "kastetmek" which we use sometimes.
Birşeyi kastetmek --> to mean something
Bununla neyi kastediyorsun ? --> what do you mean by this ?
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However , in daily conversations "ne demek istiyorsun ? " is used alot too. Moral of the story is "it is up to the situations that you will decide which one to use" Mind you, we dont use that phraise as much as you use.
Example ; A husband and a wife having a talk. Husband says that he will have to travel to Istanbul tomorrow which is a suprise news for his wife as he already done two trips to Istanbul last week. She suppossed to say " what do you mean ? [by saying you will have to do another trip to Istanbul]
H. Yarın tekrar Istanbul´a gitmek zorundayım.
w. Ne diyorsun sen ya ? Daha geçen hafta Istanbul´a gitmedin mi ?
[ what are you saying ? Did you already not go to Istanbul last week ?]
* as you see , here "ne diyorsun sen " functions as " what do you mean "
* in this case we cant use "kastetmek".
* "ne demek can be used by dropping "istiyorsun" ---> "Ne demek,istanbul´a gitmek zorundayım ? "
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too complicated ?
dont worry, some things in language sinks in by practising,hearing and listening to natives.
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