Turkish/Contents/Past Tense 2
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There are two past tenses in Turkish. The first one is used when you saw the action and is called the "seen" past tense, second one is used when you transfer some information, and called the "heard" past tense.
Heard Past Tense
The suffixes -mış,-miş,-muş,-müş and the personal ending are added to the verb stem:
gelmek (to come):
gel-miş-im
gel-miş-sin
gel-miş
gel-miş-iz
gel-miş-siniz
gel-miş-ler
anlamak (to understand), anlamışım, anlamışsın ,anlamış, anlamışız, anlamışsınız,anlamışlar
bulmak (to find): bulmuşum , bulmuşsun ,bulmuş, bulmuşuz, etc.
vermek (to give): vermişim, vermişsin, etc.
gitmek (to go): gitmişim, gitmişsin, etc.
göndermek (to send): göndermişim, göndermişsin, etc.
söz vermek (to promise): söz vermişim, söz vermişsin, etc.
To make a clear distinction between the "seen" and "heard" past tenses, think about this situation: Suppose that TV reports indicate that a person named Ahmet has died. On TV, they should say "Ahmet Bey öldü." (Bey is like Mr. but in Turkish used after names not before surnames.) But if you only heard about it and are telling somebody else, then you should say "Ahmet Bey ölmüş." because you did not witness the event -- you only saw pictures on TV, or heard reports, but you were not actually there when Ahmet died.
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Basics :: 01. Introduction |