Hi all! I have a problem with understanding following sentence (it´s last sentence from article about adding support for turkish language in Google Translate from this site:

http://zaman.com.tr/haber.do?haberno=810954&title=googledan-muthis-yenilik

)

Hizmet çok yeni olduðu için tercüme çok baþarýlý olmasa da, en azýndan konu hakkýnda genel bir fikir elde etmeyi saðlýyor.

Here´s my try:

In case translation is not very accurate (successful) due to a fact that this service is very new, at least you can get a general idea about a subject.

I have few questions here:

1. (of course -> Is it correct? Or maybe someone has a better alternative?

2. Does "... olmasa da" mean "in case of something not being ..."? What is a function of "da" word here, does it mean "in" (-de state of noun) here or something else? Can it be omited?

"Olmasa da", (or the positive case "Olsa da") i guess can be translated as "even though."  For "olmasa da", the sentence would be like "even though ... verb + not"

For your second question, i´m not sure whether omitting "de" would be correct there since "olmasa" (or "olsa") may add a different meaning to the sentence than "olmasa da". For instance;

Onun yardýmý olmasa okuldan mezun olamazdým.

Without his help, I wouldn´t be able to graduate.

still, you may want to ask a native speaker, too.

the verb there is "baþarýlý olmak"= "to be successful"

baþarýlý ol-ma-sa  da

ma--- makes the verb negative.

sa--- is the suffix for "if"

da--- in this sentences it stands for "even", you may equally use "bile" or "dahi" instead of "da". these are not always interchangable but in this case they are.

therefore the sentence should start with "even if" or "even though".

thank you.

angel_of_death, mertatasoy - thanks for your great explanations!

angel_of_death, i have one question to the example you have given:

I know that "-ama-" part means "cannot", but I´ve never seen "-amaz-", what does it mean? Is it some form of "-maz" and "-ama-" put together? Sorry for bothering you with this question, but I´m still beginner and I try to pay attention to every detail

mezun olamadým (without -z-) has 1 tense: past: I could not graduate (I have not graduated yet)

mezun olamazdým (with -z-) has 2 tense (complex tens structure) aorist tense and past tense. That is fictious situation in past. z is the aorist tense suffix: I wasn´t able to graduate (but there is a sign that means graduation completed)

i´ve been searching through my notebooks, i think i´ve found an explanation;

the "z" at the end of the suffix "-ama" i think implies that the statement is a general and a negative one, as in  sentences with "would/could not" and such. I´ll give some examples to make it more clear to you;

Alkollü araba kullanmasaydý kaza yapmazdý.

If he hadn´t been DUI´ing, he wouldn´t have crushed the car.

one sentence with "-able"

Bunu sensiz yapamazdýk.

We wouldn´t be able to do it without you.

hope i could help..=)

angel_of_death, caliptrix - huge thanks, your explanations are really helpful. Seems I have to read more about complex tenses. Sað olun!