These are hard to explain.

Let me try! Sorry if I don´t manage it!!!

Gel-sem, yap-sam, git-sem  are more the "wondering" type of "if".

If I were to do this, I wonder, would you do that.

Gelsem beni sever misin? If I come will you love me?

Often it seems natural to add "acaba" to the end of a sentence like this.

But

Gel-ir-sem, yap-ar-sam, gid-er-sem are more concrete.

If I do this (and I probably will) will you do that.

Gelirsem beni karþýlar mýsýn? If I come will you meet me?

It´s becoming clearer with these explanations - thanks everyone.  I think I heard the gelsem, yapsam one referred to as ´the wish tense´ by someone - something not definitely going to happen (dilliduk said something like that)

Its just confusing the way they put it on WinMekMak - they give

ben gelsem - If I come - for the conditional tense

but

ben gelirsem - If I come - is given as aorist tense + conditional modifier

Oh and I just noticed that they do the same thing with ´-di´ and ´miþ´ but I´m not even going there at the moment - one problem at a time!

I´m glad you posed that question, I´ve been learning that conditional to lately and was wondering about the very same thing. I looked it up in the "Turkish Grammar"by Lewis and it says that you´d use the gelsem/gitsem format to express a) remote condition (gelse - if he were to come), and b) wish (gelse! - if only he would come).

I don’t know good English like you.

But I think these two concepts  are same  more or less according to English.These are special sentences in Turkish.

Turkish and English are different languages.

I am faced with an impossible choice.

But if a person become a novelist,translator, interpreter or teacher they can find the difference easily.

I think there is no meaningful difference among  gitsem-gidersem, or gelsem-gelirsem, or yapsam-yaparsam, etc...in Turkish.

Maybe they are same according to English grammar.

Examples=

GÝDERSEM :

If I would like to go to my aunt,  she will give me a gift = If  I can go to my my aunt,  she will give me a gift = If I went to my aunt,  I would get a gift = If I were to go to my aunt,  she would  give a gift= If only I go to my aunt,  she will give a gift =  Eðer halama gidersem, o bana bir hediye verecek.

GÝTSEM:

If I go to my aunt,  she will give me a gift = Halama gitsem, o bana bir hediye verecek.

Thank you Yilgun - I think I understand it now

I recall we had a similar topic a year ago.

Thanks si++ - that´s a pretty comprehensive explanation!  I was away from TC at that time - I will copy and save it with my notes and have a good look later.

Then, Henry, gidersem = passive voice while gitsem = active voice?

Passive verb gidersem, active verb gitsem. Deðilme?

If I "were to come´

If I ´come´

When I learned English grammar as a child - lo those mqany, many years ago, we learned a little sing song poem containing the ´verbs of being´ also known as passive verbs.

"Were" coupled with any other verb is passive. (Were coming)

gidersem is conditional in the aorist tense (-r present tense) git(d)-er-se-m 

gitsem is just verb stem + conditional ending (in one of the books I´m using it was referred to as conditional base)

Passive voice is formed by adding - il (or -l or -in) so for gitmek passive voice is gidilmek.

It is not necessarily so that in English "were" + any other verb is passive - actually in the example you gave, "were" is an auxillary verb to an active verb - in English the verb "to be" + past participle forms the passive voice - so theoretically your example in passive voice would be "were come" but that´s incorrect either because "come" is an intransitive verb and does not have a passive voice.

I hope I didn´t confuse you with this post - I just meant to clarify things a bit.

Evet Melek bende tanimiyordum hiç bir þey deðil. Tskrlr. Çok unutum þimdi. 40 sene eskiden Turkiyede oturdum ama kimse yok burasi var benim Turkçele konuþyor.

Ed

Iskenderunli 

My comment would be:

I think nowadays people are using "gitsem" in a different way, but if I was asked to translate;

If I were to come, would you meet me?

I would have translated it as;

Gelecek olsam, benimle .....

Likewise... if you were to ask me.. bana soracak olursan....

Bu tif I were to translate these into English:

Gelsem, benimle buluþsur musun?

If I come, will you meet me?

Bana sorsan... If you ask me..

So I think there is a difference, but it is just that less people are using the proper form, and this started sounding okay.