# ~im ~ım



## divisortheory

Hello,

as mentioned in a previous post, I'm just starting to learn Turkish, and for the next week I have no teacher and the book I'm learning from is 100% Turkish!   So I have a question.

There is a simple conversation between two people.  Just hello, my name is ____, etc.  They use this sentence:

Benim adım _____, sınız adınız ne?

_Note: Please fix the spelling if it is incorrect.  I studied this last night, and I'm trying to go from memory._

I'm able to figure out that the sentence is formed like this:

Benim adım _____, sizin adınız ne?

Ben = me
ad = name
siz = you
ne = what?

So my question is what do all the suffixes mean, and how are they used?  I have some guesses, but I'll just wait for an explanation 

Thank you


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## modus.irrealis

Hi. And ooh, this is something I can explain, but I'd also wait for answers from people who know more than I do .



divisortheory said:


> Benim adım _____, sınız adınız ne?
> 
> _Note: Please fix the spelling if it is incorrect.  I studied this last night, and I'm trying to go from memory._


 Your _sınız_ is incorrect but you have it right later on (_sizin_).

_Benim_ is the genitive of _ben_ and means "my" or "of me" (it's slightly irregular, though, because the usual genitive ending is _-in_). Similarly _sizin_ is the (regular) genitive of _siz_ and means "your" or "of you" (plural or polite you).

The suffixes _-im_ and -_iniz_ are possessive suffixes, and there's one for each person and number which you add to nouns to indicate possession (obviously ). For example, from _ev_ "house" you get:

_evim _"my house"
_evin _"your house" (singular your)
_evi _"his/her/its house"
_evimiz _"our house"
_eviniz _"your house" (plural/polite your)
_evleri _"their house"

And like every other suffix, these can appear in different forms depending on vowel harmony and also whether the noun ends in a vowel or consonant, which you'll learn. (Also the last example can also mean "his houses" because of the way "ler" works.)

But the thing with Turkish that was new to me when I learned it (new compared to the languages I knew something about) is that you always mark possession on the noun even if you have a genitive there. So _benim adım_ is like saying "of-me my-name." Similarly if you have _çocuğun evi_, it's literally "of-the-child his-house", meaning "the child's house."


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## divisortheory

modus.irrealis said:


> And like every other suffix, these can appear in different forms depending on vowel harmony and also whether the noun ends in a vowel or consonant, which you'll learn.


 
Is this why you used the suffix ~im ~in ~iniz even though you said my sentence was mostly correct with ~ın ~ınız?


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## ukuca

The incorrect part that Modus.irrealis is referring:


divisortheory said:


> Benim adım _____, sınız adınız ne?



"sınız" doesn't make sense here,
And the correct version should be, as you mentioned:



divisortheory said:


> Benim adım _____, sizin adınız ne?


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## ukuca

divisortheory said:


> Is this why you used the suffix ~im ~in ~iniz even though you said my sentence was mostly correct with ~ın ~ınız?



The possessive adjectives are:
- Benim > My
- Senin > Your
- Onun > His/Her
- Bizim > Our
- Sizin > Your (plural and polite form of 2. singular)
- Onların > Their

These never change. The changeable parts are the second parts of the noun phrases. For example:

- Benim arabam > Ben -im  araba *-m* > My car
- Benim evim > Ben -im   ev *-im* > My house
- Benim çatalım > Ben -im  çatal *-ım* > My fork
- Benim televizyonum > Ben -im televizyon *-um* > My TV
- Benim ödülüm > Ben -im ödül *-üm* > My prize/award


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## modus.irrealis

divisortheory said:


> Is this why you used the suffix ~im ~in ~iniz even though you said my sentence was mostly correct with ~ın ~ınız?


Exactly -- and ukuca gave examples of all the possible forms for the "my" suffix. I'll add that, if you haven't learned about the vowel and consonant harmony and the rules for determining what form a suffix will take with specific words, I'd recommend putting it at the top of your list. For me, at least, I only started making real progress in learning Turkish once I knew those rules perfectly (which wasn't hard).


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## avok

divisortheory said:


> So my question is what do all the suffixes mean, and how are they used? I have some guesses, but I'll just wait for an explanation
> 
> Thank you


 
Hi, 

Turkish is a language of suffixes, or even suffixeeeeeeeeeeeeeees  You had better get used to them. There are just so many of them and they can totally change the meaning of  whole sentence.

By the way: "benim : my" just learn it that way by heart. You don't have to make an association between "ben: I" and "ben-im: I-suffix". Benim simply means "my"


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