I found the following Word document to be incredibly helpful! It shows the construction of all the different adverbial clauses and gives examples.

http://files.meetup.com/821026/Adverbial%20Clauses.doc

I think studying this will help me use this kind of structure in speech without having to mentally map out the grammar beforehand. (I think of speaking Turkish as trying to do math in my head while talking sometimes!)

Hi Alison, 

The original lesson was posted here under Learn Turkish, Turkish Lessons, No 7 Lesson by Elisa

http://www.turkishclass.com/turkish_lesson_33

This may also help you with the translations of your link or the one above:

Ellerini yıkamadan yemek yemeye başladı  

He started eating without washing his hands.  

Tatile çıkmadan önce çok şey hazırlamam gerek

Before I leave on holiday I have to prepare a lot of things.  

Problemi anlamam için öğretmen onu defalarca açıkladı.  

The teacher explained the problem over and over again so that I could understand it.

Araba kullanmak için yakıt lazım.

Fuel is essential in order to drive a car. 

Türkçe öğrenmek için Türkiye’ye gidiyorum.

I go to Turkey in order to learn Turkish.

Parası olmamasına rağmen, pahalı bir araba satın aldı.

He bought an expensive car despite the fact that he didn´t have money.

Ödemeksizin dükkandan çıktılar.

They left the shop without paying.

Evini temizlemektense bütün gün bahçesinde tembellik etti.

Instead of cleaning her house she spent the whole day being lazy in her garden.

İşimi bitirdikten sonra birkaç arkadaşla buluştum 

After I finish work I arranged to meet with some friends.

Onu gördüğü an hemen aşık oldu.

The moment he saw her he fell in love immediately. 

Buradan ayrıldığın gün hepimiz çok üzgündük.

The day you left here we were all very sad

Gök gürültüsünü duyduğumda sıçradım.

I got startled when I heard the thunder

Ehliyetini almadığın sürece, arabaya dokunamazsın

As long as you don´t get your driver´s licence, you can´t touch the car.

Söz verdiğim için, ona bir hediye göndereceğim.

Because I promised, I will send her a present.

Çocuğumuzun çok ateşi olduğu için, doktoru çağırdık.

We called the doctor because our child had a lot of fever 

Hava o kadar güzel olduğu halde, dışarıya çıkmak istemedi.

Although the weather was so beautiful, he didn´t want to go out.

Annesi odaya girdiği gibi bebek ağlamayı bıraktı

The baby stopped crying as soon as his mother entered the room.

Çocuklar istedikleri kadar oyuncak alabilir

The children can buy as many toys as they want.

Çin’e taşındığından beri ondan hiçbir haber alamadım.

Since he moved to China I couldn´t  get news from him anymore.  

Thank you for posting this!! these sentences  are so useful for me to remember this particular subject .

Dilara.

So when using "-mesi için" it isn´t necessary to use the (y)Abil verb form? I thought that this sentence would be:

Problemi anlayabilmem için öðretmen onu defalarca açýkladý.

But just "anlamam" has the same meaning?

What you´re using here is a verbal noun: anlamak minus the "k" - anlama - onto which you suffix a possessive pronoun. So literally the expression anlamam için means "for my understanding" - and I guess it translates nicer into "so that I could understand". Therefore you don´t actually use the -ebil/-abil in this expression as you´re not translating "could" literally.

I don´t know if anlayabilmem would be correct in this example, maybe a more experienced learner can answer that part.

No problem with "anlayabilmem", can be used, gramitacally correct and very well understandable. There "anlayabilmem" emphasizes something like "i was able to understand by teacher´s effort" imo. But Turkish teachers can explain better than me, wait for them for clarification .

I am a learner who also had trouble with ´Can´ and ´Cant´.  Because English is almost my first language, I try to remember ´able to´ [for ´can´] >> as it immediately reminds me of ´-abil´.

But, it also reminds me that [in Turkish] ´Can´t´ has no ´-abil´.  The negative is derived from ´Bil-me-mek´ [not to know] & the negative, therefore is, ´Bilme-m´ [I don´t know] and  so ´I can´t (unable) to know´ is > ´Bil-e-mem´!

Anla-y-abil-ir-im >  I can understand  [Aorist Positive], becomes:-

Anla-y-a-mam >  I cannot understand

Anla-y-abil-mam> will tend to mean, ´I am able not to understand´ [perhaps equally valid]

yazmayabilrim > will tend to mean ´I am able not to write´ [yaz-a-mam> being more correct]

-mem, emem, -mez and -emez, seem peculiar to the Aorist and I confess that in a hurried conversation, I too seem to get confused, though hopefully less and less now. 

But, please remeber that I am just a learner and I repeat what Prof. G.L. Lweis of Oxford University has observed on the subject.  I only posted this to be helpful.

Tazx1

Anlayabilmem doesn´t mean "I am able not to understand". it may be translated as "my understanding" ; "anlayabilmem için açýkladý" "he explained for my understanding/for me to understand". you cannot use it as predicate.

yazmayabilirim and yazamam have different meanings:

yazamam -> I am unable to write

yazmayabilirim -> I may not write ( there is a possibility that I don´t write)

maybe the one you tried to explain about anlamak was also similar? then it must be "anlamayabilirim" (there is a possibility that I don´t understand)

These are the cominbations I learned:

gidemem - I can´t go

gidebilirim - I can go / I might go (it can only mean "might" in the aorist tense)

gitmeyebilirim - I might not go

gidemeyebilirim - I might not be able to go

When gidebilirim means "might" in the aorist tense, it refers to something in the future, as in, "I might go to the concert tonight." (Bu akþamdaki konsere gidebilirim.) "I will be able to go to the concert" would be "Konsere gidebileceðim."

It took a good hour or so for my teacher to communicate this, in Turkish, to a roomful of foreign students. I still might have it wrong, so please correct away!

these are all correct.  But -abil may also stand for "manage to do something difficult".

Actually I send a longer post in another forum discussing the combined use of -ebil and -meli. 

thus for instance,

Çok sinirlense de susabildi. = S/he [managed to= was able to] keep his/her silence although s/he got very angry.

And for the negative:

Bütün baskýlara raðmen gitmeyebildi.= S/he managed to stay (not going) despite all the pressure. (not she might not go)