Hi Fellows

-ebil means > ´can´;  while -meli denotes  > ´obligation´.

I am at a loss to make sense when both are combines e.g>

´Bügün çocuklarin resmeni çektirebilmelisiniz´

Please can you explain this construction and translate the above sentence to bring out the sense?

Thank you.

Tazx1

Could it mean

"Today your children´s pictures cand and muct be taken?"

(Thinking like a guy who learned the language 40 years ago)

Today you should be able to take the pictures of the children ("to have the pictures of the children taken" would perhaps be a better translation).

-ebil + meli = should be able, ought to be able, must be able 

I think, perhaps others can elaborate.

Should it be ... resmini ....

resim - resmi..

resmen means officially, formally, and I don´t think it would make sense in this sentence.

Melek74 ´lol´ you are right.  It should be ´resimini´ but I am a prize dyslexic and have borne this ´cross´ all my life.  No matter how careful I am, I can never correct my own errors ... ever.  I am very susceptible to dyslexia in Turkish.  Word agglutination makes it very difficult for me.

It is bad enough in English, but I know what words I typically get wrong.  For example I tend to write ´Taht´ instead of ´That´ and so on.  Auto pell check alerts me all the time but unless I can get a Turkish Spell Checker [don´t know wherefrom] ... you will be left wondering at my wonderful and inventive Turkish.

Tazx1

ebilmeli = must be able to

 Thanks etimologist > you live up to your name.

I just wasn´t exactly sure but I could guess that it meant something like this.

Thanks.

Tazx1

Hello all,

I am pretty new to this forum. I am not a grammar specialist, but I am a native speaker and I will try to come up with examples to show how various expressions and phrases are used in daily conversations.

"Bugün çocuklarýn resmini çektirebilmelisiniz."

First of all, -bil and -meli are not oftenly used together in daily conversation, actually almost never. It would sound weird to most of Turkish speaking people, I believe.

But when they are used in that way,

they may imply something different than the combination of the regular meanings of these suffixes.

"Çektirebilmelisiniz" in the above sentence means, 

you should take a photo of the children today, even if it will not be that easy.

or

you should manage to take a photo of the children today. (I am not really sure whether this will be grammatically correct in English, but I believe it would be the best translation.)

Compare it to "Bugün çocuklarýn resmini çektirmelisiniz." which means

You should/must take a photo of the children today. (No implied difficulty, just obligation or necessity)

It is very dificult to explain it here, but native speakers and grammar specialists may want to give me a hand.

Let me give some other examples.

"O sana baðýrsa da susabilmelisin." means

you should manage to be silent---even though s/he shouts at you. (emphasizing the difficulty of doing so)

"O sana baðýrsa da susmalýsýn." means

you ought to be silent even though s/he shouts at you. (no such emphasis.) 

"Dönebilmelisin."

You should manage to come back---even if it will be very difficult to do so.

"Dönmelisin.", on the other hand, means

You should come back. (There is no such implied difficulty here)

In another case, for instance, if you are dreaming about the guy you would marry,

you may make a list of your expectations/criteria in this way.

In this case, there is no implied difficulty here, it will be just a combination of

ability(-bil) and necessity(-meli).

For example,

Ýyi yemek yapabilmeli. ( He ought to be a good cook.)

Ýyi araba sürebilmeli. (He ought be a good driver.)

Beni çok sevmeli= He should love me very much. (Not "sevebilmeli", because it is not a matter of ability to love someone//// Well, it is very difficult and takes a lot of effort to love certain people, I admit, but let´s not go into that much detail.)

or when you are talking about what a typical 2-year old child should be able to do, you would say:

Ýki yaþýndaki çocuklar konuþabilmeli ve yürüyebilmeliler. which means,

Two-year old children should be able to speak and walk. ( Implication: It would not be regular/normal/ordinary if they are not able to do so. Here "-meli" implies regularity rather than obligation.)

Sorry if all these have been too confusing,

but these suffixes might imply a variety of meanings especially if they are used together. 

Thank you.

The many learners that visit this site will appreciate your explanation. Putting examples, and variations in meanings, is a great help for our understanding.

Emeðin için çok teþekkürler. 

çektirebilmelisiniz = çektirmek+bilmek+meli

 if we substract a suffix -meli-, then we get - çektirebiliyorsunuz that means - you able to take it on (a photo).