# Dua bazen görünmeyen bir eldir.



## bahama

Merhaba,

What does _bazen_ mean? Here's where I came across it: Dua bazen görünmeyen bir eldir.
Secondly, is it pronounced with the stress on the first syllable, like _affetmek_? Or on the last syllable, like _etmek_?
By the way, I think _görünmeyen_ should have been spelled _görünmiyen_, but that's a separate issue.

Thanks!


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## LeBro

Bazen means sometimes. Yes, it is stressed on the first syllable and the "a" sound is pronounced slightly longer than usual. 

Turkish is written as it is pronounced and pronounced as it is written. I know that many people might object to this, but it is a whole separate issue as you said.


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## Torontal

bazen means sometimes.

Prayer (supplication) is sometimes an invisible hand.

it is pronounced with a longer a, bâzen

görünmeyen is written correctly, in writing -ma/me only undergoes the I type vowel harmony before -(i)yor, otherwise always remains ma/me.
You feel correctly that in spoken language  the "y" buffer constonant (as in case of -(y)acak/ecek, -(y)an/en, -(y)ınca/ince) can alter the pronounciation of the vowel before it, but it is not reflected in writing.  So for example the correct spelling is gelmeyecek, but  it is often pronounced as gelmiyecek in spoken language.

In older Turkish texts and older descriptive grammars (in English for example G.L. Lewis' Turkish Grammar) you can see an older spelling practice that reflected the living pronounciation, so maybe that confused you. I don't know when were the spelling rules changed exactly, in the 60s, 70s or later?

I hope our Turkish friends will correct me if i wrote something incorrectly about the matter.


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## LeBro

Torontal said:


> I hope our Turkish friends will correct me if i wrote something incorrectly about the matter.



Nagyon jó, Torontal! Jobban megmagyarázta, mint én  Úgy látszik, hogy jól tud törökül. Remélem, hogy én is majd ilyen jól tudok magyarul egy napon (Tudom, hogy borzasztó a szórendem )

I think we, especially Turkish learners, should stick to the rule of one letter = one sound and treat the issue of different pronunciations separately.


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## Rallino

I think you should forget the one letter-one sound "rule" altogether.

Adding to what has already been said, the e in bazen isn't the same in affetmek or in etmek. It's an open e. When the letter e is followed by r, l, m or n within the same syllable, it's usually an open /æ/ sound. Bazen rhymes with ben.


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## LeBro

Rallino said:


> I think you should forget the one letter-one sound "rule" altogether.



There seem to be some misunderstandings. First of all, by "one letter = one sound", I was referring to "görünmeyen/görünmiyen" and it had nothing to do with the /e/ sound in "bazen".

Secondly, the letter "e" in Turkish alphabet is the orthographic represantation of the phoneme /e/ and all its variants found in the language. So, closed or open, all these variants (even some claim that there are 3) are allophones of /e/ in Turkish, not a different sound. Therefore, one letter still represents one sound (and its allophones). Please make a comparison with the situation in English or the difference between /e/ and /ə/ in Azeri language, in which these sounds change the meaning of the word.

So, I got what you mean but I don't want to go off topic here any more and would like to say that it is just another issue to discuss separately.


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## Rallino

Sure, but then you have examples such as yapmayacağım being pronounced like yapmıycaam. Learners shouldn't go with the one-letter-one-sound rule. It's better than in English, but worse than in Croatian or Finnish for example, which have a more phonetically spelt orthography. But you are right, this is a whole another day's topic.


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## RimeoftheAncientMariner

bahama said:


> Merhaba,
> 
> What does _bazen_ mean? Here's where I came across it: Dua bazen görünmeyen bir eldir.
> Secondly, is it pronounced with the stress on the first syllable, like _affetmek_? Or on the last syllable, like _etmek_?
> By the way, I think _görünmeyen_ should have been spelled _görünmiyen_, but that's a separate issue.
> 
> Thanks!


Prayer is an invisible hand at times.


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