# "Oh, then you must know English."



## James Bates

Ahmet: Nerede yaşıyorsunuz?
Mehmet: Yirmi senedir Amerika'da yaşıyorum.
Ahmet: O halde ingilizce bilmelisiniz. (Oh, then you must know English.)

Does the last sentence make sense? If not, what does it mean and what should Ahmet say instead?


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## dawar

O halde ingilizce biliyorsunuz/konuşuyorsunuz


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## Rallino

What dawar said is totally correct.



> O halde ingilizce biliyorsunuz/konuşuyorsunuz



This means: Then you know/speak english.


I thought, maybe you might appreciate an alternative to that, to mean: *Then you must be speaking english!*

In turkish you can say: *O halde İngilizce biliyor/konuşuyor olmalısınız!*

Which sounds perfect on a book, but too poetic for a daily life conversation. Thus you can go with:

*O halde İngilizce biliyorsunuzdur* / *konuşuyorsunuzdur*.


Cheers!


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## dawar

Rallino is right. My translation is incomplete. Sorry for this James!

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thank you Rallino  i'm so absent-minded


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## James Bates

Thanks. What would "O halde ingilizce bilmelisiniz" or "ingilizce bilmelisiniz" on its own mean?


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## vatrahos

I think that **meli** means (in most contexts) "have to __" or "should__." *

İngilizce bilmelisiniz* then would usually mean _You have to know English_ or _You should know English_.


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p.s.,

if you add the past tense (*İngilizce bilmeliydiniz*), it would mean _You had to know English_ or _You should have known English_.


Another way of stating this second idea "You should have known English [but you didn't]," I think, is to use the past subjunctive (*İngilizce bileydiniz*), which would literally mean _Would that you had known English_, or to use a more contemporary English equivalent, _I wish that you had known English_.

But I'm just a beginner, so don't take my word for it; better to let the experts tell you.


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## Rallino

*"İngilizce bileydiniz*" is I guess what we can call a Shakespearian turkish xD

However, I think it's impossible to use it here, subjunctive cannot be used in the main clause. It is the mood of second clause:

O hâlde İngilizce bileydiniz. (This sounds incorrect to me)

And it doesn't give us a necessity that was skipped. Just something that didn't happen but would have been cool had it happened.

Like: İsterdim ki ingilizce bileydiniz. I wish you spoke english. ( second clause )

To add the necessity, we should get rid of the bloody subjonctive XD and go with -meli as you two said
You should have known english = Bilmeliydiniz.

That said, maybe I'm totally wrong


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## ayşegül

bileydiniz ---if ı heard this word while talking on the phone ,ı would think that ''He/she is a villager''


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## Volcano

James Bates said:


> Ahmet: Nerede yaşıyorsunuz?
> Mehmet: Yirmi senedir Amerika'da yaşıyorum.
> Ahmet: O halde ingilizce bilmelisiniz. (Oh, then you must know English.)
> 
> Does the last sentence make sense? If not, what does it mean and what should Ahmet say instead?



*O halde ingilizce biliyor olmalısınız.*


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