The past: seen and heard

13.1 -di: what you saw happen

Turkish has two past tenses. The one used most is -DI. Its vowel follows harmony, and its d hardens to t after a hard consonant, so it is -di, -dı, -du or -dü, or -ti, -tı, -tu or -tü. It goes straight onto the verb's stem.

On its own, geldi is "he came", "she came" or "it came". For the other persons a short ending follows it: -m for "I", -n for "you", -k for "we", -nIz for "you" said to more than one person or politely, and -lAr for "they". They are shorter than the endings after -(I)yor, and "we" is -k, not -(y)Iz.

-DI is the past of what the speaker knows at first hand: what they did, what they saw happen, what they are sure of. It is the everyday past for saying what you did yesterday, and for things everyone knows.

13.2 Hungry, tired, finished: the past for now

Turkish uses -DI for much that English says in the present. Where English describes a state, Turkish often tells the change that led to it, and the change is in the past.

acıkmak is "to get hungry" and yorulmak "to get tired", so acıktım is "I got hungry", and means "I'm hungry". Anladım, "I understood", is what you say when something has just been explained. Turkish has adjectives for these states too, aç, "hungry", and yorgun, "tired", and Açım and Yorgunum are said as well, of the state. When the hunger or the tiredness has just come on, acıktım and yoruldum are what most people say.

For the same reason, -DI is also the English "have done". English uses "have" for a past event that matters now; Turkish uses the past it uses for everything else.

Ali geldi is "Ali came", and so "Ali has come", "Ali's arrived", "Ali's here". Which English sentence fits depends on the moment; the Turkish stays the same.

The Turkish welcome is in the past too. A guest is greeted with "you have come pleasantly", and answers "we have found it pleasant", hoş bulduk, even when arriving alone.

13.3 -miş: what you heard or worked out

The second past is -mIş: -miş, -mış, -muş or -müş. It tells what the speaker didn't see happen, but knows from someone else, or works out from what they see now.

Its m never changes, so there is no form with t. Its personal endings are the ones for "I am" and "you are": gelmişim, "I came, it seems", like öğrenciyim, "I'm a student".

EVID, under it in the examples, stands for "evidential": an ending that says how the speaker knows what they say. English says the same with words: "apparently", "I hear", "it seems", "they say".

The first two are things the speaker was told. The third is worked out: no one saw the rain, but the street is wet. Yağmur yağmak, "for rain to fall", is how Turkish says "to rain".

-mIş also tells surprise, at something just found out. And with "I", it is for what you did without noticing: you were asleep, or not paying attention, and see it only now.

13.4 Seen or heard

English says "Mehmet's gone to work" whether you saw him leave or only found his desk empty. Turkish has to choose.

The first is said by someone who saw him go, or knows it for certain: he said goodbye at the door. The second is said by someone who didn't see it: his coat is gone from the hall, or his wife said so on the phone.

Neither is more polite or more correct, and speakers choose without thinking about it. Using -DI for something you didn't see claims you know it at first hand; using -mIş for something you did see sounds as if you weren't there. When Ayşe tells her own day, she uses -DI; when she passes on what Zeynep told her, she uses -mIş.

Stories nobody saw are told in -mIş from their first line. Fairy tales are, and so are the jokes about Nasreddin Hoca, the wise fool of Turkish folk tales, which begin Hoca bir gün..., "one day the Hoca...", and go on in -mIş to the end.

13.5 Was and were: evdeydi

"I am at home" is an ending on a word: evdeyim. "I was at home" is an ending too: evdeydim. The ending is -(y)DI, the same past as on verbs, with a y before it after a vowel. The personal endings after it are the short ones that follow -DI: -m, -n, -k, -nIz, -lAr.

The y comes from an old word, idi, "was", which the ending once was. Some writing still has it as a word of its own: hasta idi. After a hard consonant the d hardens, as it does on verbs: küçüktü, "it was small".

The past of değil is değildi, and the past of var and yok is vardı and yoktu:

-(y)mIş goes on nouns the same way, for what is heard or found out. After a noun it isn't only past: it can mean "is" as well as "was", and English often adds "apparently", or nothing but surprise.

The second is said on tasting the tea: it was good all along, and the speaker has just found out. A Turkish fairy tale begins with two of these, as English begins with "once upon a time":

Literally, "once there was, once there wasn't".

13.6 Was doing: geliyordu

-(y)DI and -(y)mIş go after a verb's tense the way they go after a noun. After -(I)yor, -DI makes "was doing": geliyordu, "he was coming". Its vowel is always u, after the o of yor, and the personal endings are the short ones of -DI. "They" usually has -lAr before it: geliyorlardı.

It says what was going on at a time in the past, and what went on for a while back then, as English "was doing" and "used to do" do.

In Kitap okuyordum, kitap is bare, so it is no book in particular: just "I was reading".

After -(I)yor, -(y)mIş passes on what someone is doing or about to do, as heard from others. It is one of the commonest ways to pass on news:

13.7 Saying no and asking in the past

"Not" is -mA, put before -DI or -mIş as it is put before -(I)yor: gelmedim, "I didn't come", yapmadın, "you didn't do it", gelmemiş, "he didn't come, it seems".

The question word mI goes in a different place after -DI. After -(I)yor, the personal ending moves onto mI, all but -lAr: Geliyor musun? After -DI, the personal ending stays on the verb, and mI comes after it with nothing on it: Geldin mi?

olmak is "to be" or "to become", and in the past, "to happen". The answer to a yes-or-no question repeats the verb, as in the present: Evet, gördüm. Hayır, görmedim.

-mIş takes mI the way -(I)yor does, with the personal ending on mI: Gelmiş mi?, Gelmiş misin? It asks someone who may have heard.

After a noun, mI comes first and the past goes onto it, then the personal ending: Evde miydin?, "were you at home?". mI and -(y)DI are written as one word, and their vowels follow mI's: miydi, mıydı, muydu, müydü.

13.8 One day, told twice

Ayşe tells Zeynep about her day. Later, Zeynep tells Mehmet. Every verb Ayşe puts in -DI, Zeynep puts in -mIş, and every -(y)DI in -(y)mIş:

Zeynep doesn't doubt a word of it. -mIş doesn't say that something may not be true; it says only that the speaker has it from someone else. In English, Zeynep would say "she says" once, at the start, and tell the rest plainly. Turkish says it on every verb.

One more past is made the same way, and turns up in any story: -mIş with -DI after it, -mIştI, is "had done": gelmişti, "he had come".