The Egyptians are very eager to use titles. There is something for everyone. During one walk in a busy street I get everything from madam and mama to the learned woman (sheikha) and the woman who has performed pilgrimage (hajja). Many of the honorary titles and professional names are of Turkish origin or borrowed into Arabic through Turkish. One of them is usta. (I am not perfectly sure about the route the word has been going but it is the same word as Turkish ´master´, anyway.) In Egypt, usta sounds like lusta or yasta because there is a definite article el- or the addressing preposition ya- in front of it.

Usta is typically used for drivers. When you want to talk to the bus or taxi driver you say something like "uncle usta".

The other day there was a carpenter in the house. He was putting some shelves to the concrete wall and his drill made horrible noise. To everyone´s astonishment suddenly the neighbour´s kitchen window opened and a man shouted with a hollow voice: "What are you punching, usta?" I, of course, pricked my ears because there was something odd about this question.

Later on I understood usta is not only a driver of a vehicle. It´s the user of any machine! From now on I can call myself usta when I use the hair dryer or whisker.

Hello, elenagabriela, you were quicker.

Hello, Frank,

I want to express my condolences, Frank. I know the sorrow one feels after losing his mother. My father also passed away at the age of 70. My mother after some years got the Alzheimer´s disease. We had a lot of difficulties, too. I am also looking forward to seeing you in happi(er) days.

I read what you have written without any difficulty. You have learned Turkish, congratulations.

Reyhan Hayati

Many Greetings from Denizli.

si++ is in the class and her şey tamam.

I am no teacher nor native but I have been working on similar issues lately. I think I understand how you came to this result. You have a point when you try to create the syntactic structure this way:

 biliyor + noun clause, takes accusative object

You have understood that once you need to make a noun clause out of a sentence you have to use the infinite form of the verb so that you can add the possessive suffix and the case ending into it. You chose personal -dik-participle which in my opinion is the correct choice. In addition you noticed that the inlayed subject takes the genitive ending o-nun.

But. You went wrong in a crucial point. There is no such verb. I understand your tabakadandır is formed from these parts:

 tabaka|dan|dır = tabaka ‘class’ + dan (movement from, ablative) + dir (the verb ‘to be’ which   is visible only in statements in sg 3^rd person)

As it is a noun basically you cannot make it into a -dik-participle. You need to add the verb olmak and modify it into the correct form which is

ol|duğ|u|n|u = verb stem + -dik-participle + possessive suffix sg3^rd + pronominal   –n- + accusative ending.

The result is something like

Alt tabakadan olduğunu biliyor ve onu saklamaya çalışmaz.

(As the subject in the main clause and the inlayed part is the same you don’t have to mention it, it is present in the possessive suffix. I think, but I am not sure, çalışmak governs a dative word.)

There is plenty of information in this site about the phonetical changes that happen in these long words. What comes to the vocaburary you have chosen, don’t ask me.

One of the teachers is going to come and help you (it makes the two of us now).

Why don’t you come and study with us?

1. Are you wondering if it is really possible to enhance cheekbones without surgery? Or maybe you want to lose that double chin? If so, you need to read this... Elmacıkkemiğini ameliyat etmeden gerçekten öne çıkarabilip çıkaramacağını merak ediyor musunuz? O gıdıyı kurtulmak istiyor musunuz? Öyleyse, şunu okumaya ihtiyacınız var…

2. Doing facial exercises can help you maintain a youthful appearance and even make undergoing a face lift unnecessary. Genç simayı koruyup yüz germe ameliyatının geçirilmesini gereksiz yapmak isterseniz yüz jimnastiği size faydası dokunabilir.

3. Facial exercises are just the same as regular fitness exercises: there´s a right way to do them and a wrong way. Yüz jimnastiği tam düzenli alıştırma gibidir: o doğru veya yanlış bir şekilde yapabilinir.

4. If you do facial exercises in the wrong way you might actually hurt your appearance. Yüz jimnastiği yanlış yaparsanız simana aslan zarar verebileceğiniz.

5. One of the key areas of the face which you want to workout is the area around the eyes. We all know how those crow´s feet can make you look older. Alıştırmak istediğiniz en önemli yüz bölümlerinin biri gözlerin etrafindaki bölüm. O kazayağın sizi nasıl daha yaşlı göründürebildiğini hepimiz biliyoruz.

6. Keep your lips closed. Suck both cheeks inward. Hold and release. Do this exercise by sucking in one cheek at a time. Dudaklarınızı kapalı tutun. Yanaklarınızın ikisini içine emin. Öyle biraz kalıp serbest bırakın. Bu ekzersizi her seferinde yanaklardan birini içine emerek yapın.

7. Keep your mouth closed. Fill your mouth with air. Hold it under your upper lip for a few seconds. Move it to your right cheek. Hold. Move to your left cheek. Hold. Move the air to your lower lip. Hold. Blow the air out. Ağzınızı kapalı tutun. Havayla doldurun. Havayı birkaç saniye yukarıdaki dudağınızın altında tutun. Sağ yanağınıza geçirin. Tutun. Sol yanağınıza geçirin. Tutun. Aşağıdaki dudağınızın altına geçirin. Tutun. Havayı dışarıya üfleyin.

8. While keeping your lips and teeth pressed together, smile as widely as possible. Hold the smile and release. Dudak ve dişlerinizi kapalı sıkarken mümküm mertebe geniş bir şekilde gülümseyin. Gülümsemeyi kaldırıp serbest bırakın.

9. Pucker your lips as far out as possible. Try to touch your nose with the upper lip and aim for the chin with the lower one. Dudaklarınızı dışarıya yapabildiğiniz kadar uzağa buruşturun. Yukarıdaki dudakla burnunuza dokunmaya çalışıp aşağıdakiyle çeneye ulaşmak için çabalayın.

10. Tilt your head back as if staring at the ceiling. Bring your tongue out as if trying to touch your chin. Feel the stretch and relax. Tavana uzun uzun bakıyormuşçasına başınızı arkaya bükün. Çenenize değmeye çalışıyormuşçasına dilinizi dışarıya getirin. Gerinmeyi hissedip gevşetin.

11. Keep your eyes open. Look up and down as far as you can without shifting your head. Do the same to the left and right. At the end, stare ahead. Gözlerini açık tutun. Başınızı çevirmeden yukarıya aşağıya bakabildiğiniz kadar uzağa bakın. Aynısını sağa sola yapın. Sonunda gözünüzü ileriye dikip bakın.

Dost.

For sure every learner has certain words that they liked from the first sight. It was something about the way they sound, the way they are pronounced, something that they resembled... Natives have their favourites, too, by maybe they are chosen for different reasons. In my country, language authorities ask the public their opinion about the most beatiful Finnish word every year, and the results are very dull. A German loan word äiti ´mother´ which sounds anything but beautiful wins every year.

My favourite Turkish word is a loanword also. There is an original Turkish word for this purpose also but it is not half as classy and sophisticated as its Persian synonyme. There is a round vowel in the middle of this noun which effects the consonants around it and makes them full also. And the meaning, yes, it is in harmony with its beauty.

If I told my word, would someone else bring up more beautiful Turkish words?

Thank you for the links, alameda. Don´t worry, I always study what I am told to.

There are two kinds of negation: sentence negation and constituent negation. At first sight it seemed to me that Turkish negative pronouns make the constituent negation while negating suffix –me- added to the predicate verb negates the whole sentence.

No. Nothing of the kind. Turkish negative pronouns always work together with the sentence negation and support it. There are other ways in the syntax to negate a single constituent.

The Persian origin hiç is the basis of Turkish negative pronouns. As an independent lexeme it is an indefinite pronoun with the meaning ‘nothing’ or ‘never’: Ne yaptın? Hiç. ‘What did you do? Nothing.’  Ankara’da hiç bulunmadım. ‘I never went to Ankara’.

In the Turkish translation of the famous tale “The Emperor’s New Clothes” the child in the middle of the crowd makes the crucial remark: Kral elbiselerini hiç giymemiş! ‘The King did’t put on any clothes at all!’ This represents the other important role of hiç as an emphatic particle which works as well on its own and fixed with indefinite pronouns bir- and kimse-: Hiçbirimiz kaderimizi seçmiyoruz. ‘None of us chooses his destiny’, Bildiğim tek şey hiçbir şey bilmediğimdir ‘The only thing I know is that I know nothing’, Hiç kimse kaderinden kaçamaz ‘No one escapes from his destiny.’

In world languages negative indefinite articles may or may not occur together with the predicate negation. In standard English, you can’t put nothing, never or no one with not in the same sentence. In Turkish, just like in Russian and as the matter of fact (according to linguists) in most languages there is no objection to this. Both hiç and its many combinations are in perfect harmony with predicate negation –me-. In most cases, hiç requires a negative form of the predicate which also shows that hiç is not necessarily needed to make the sentence negative and its many compounds basically have an emphatic meaning. The only exception is questions, where hiç can translate ‘ever’ while the predicate is affirmative: Hiç uçağa bindin mi? ‘Did you ever travel by plane?’ Maybe the negative pronoun in this case gives the listener a chance to say no without losing his face.

It seems that this rule doesn’t work to the opposite direction: a negative predicate can also have a positive pronoun as its subject, like in Böyle birşey hayatında görmedin ‘This shows that you didn’t see anything in your life’ and Devamlı çığlık attım ama kimse gelmedi ‘I screamed and screamed but no one came.’ It’s interesting to try to figure out how the meaning of these sentences would change if there was a hiç present in the form of hiçbir şey or hiç kimse. My bet is that with hiç the negation would be actually weaker (according to the same logics that makes Thank you!!!!!!!! less than Thank you) but this is actually a question for a native speaker to think of.