# Like



## rupertbrooke

Heard from a young lady on a bus:-"So I got him, like, a red wine thing. It's, like, a bottle or whatever, and it, like, sits on a table [=a decanter]." 'Like' is a very common filler which hasn't replaced "um" or "er" which indicates a pause for breath. It is a way of maintaining a constant stream of verbiage, as if an unfilled nanosecond would result in losing the attention of the listener. Could this above passage with its non-stop 'likes' be easily translated into Turkish?


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## Niyeneden

I suppose you can use "yani" or "ya" to get same meaning. For pause for breath "ıı" and "ıım" are the most used ones.


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## rupertbrooke

Jim & Perihan Masters say in their discussion of colloquial Turkish that instead of ıı or ıım it vis customary to use  efendim pronounced as efenim only in this particular case. Has this usage become obsolete or was it ever common or perhaps only regional.


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## Niyeneden

Efendim is used as a polite form of "ne". For example when you pick up the phone or if you don't understand the words of person front of you, you could use "ne" or "hı" but in formal discussions "efendim" or "buyrun" should be used. "ıı" and "ıım" are don't have any connections with efendim. 

And I don't think we have a teenish word for sentences like "oh mah god i was like so surprized then she was like take away your hands from mah boyfriend ".


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## rupertbrooke

So 'So I got him, like, a red wine thing. It's, like, a bottle or whatever, and it, like, sits on a table [=a decanter]' isn't really translatable into Turkish? Could your teenish sentence be translated by someone with a Turkish teenage daughter? How would she say it in colloquial language to her school friends or is it too Western in its bias? Muslim girls in the school I teach at talk like this at school but I suspect wouldn't use such language at home or its Arabic equivalents, if there are such!


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## Niyeneden

I wouldn't say that being posh or talking teenish have anything to do with religion. Also teens in here not that religious as the Muslim ones in Britain as far as I observed.

And the most plausible translate for your sentence is should be like "Ya, ona böyle kırmızı şarap gibim bişi aldım. Böyle şişe ya da her neyse masada duruyordu falan yani".


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## Rallino

Middle aged/old people might use the phrase _efendime söyleyeyim_ (pron. 'efenime söyleyim/söyliyim'). But this is becoming old fashioned nowadays.


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## rupertbrooke

Thanks for the translation, Niyeneden. It is very helpful! I hate to make pubic my ignorance of Turkish but how would 'Aman tanrım ben şey çok şaşırmıştım hemen o "cek ellerini sevgilim üzerinden gibi" bağırıp çağırmıştı/oldu?? ' Thanks, Rallino. There's an equal divide in the language register of the old & young in the UK.


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## Reverence

That jumbled-up heap of words is perfectly translatable into Turkish. We use a lot of fillers as well, whether actual words or simply nonsensical babble. "Eee, ııı, ya, işte, şey, neyse" are first to cross my mind.

"Ya, neyse işte, ben de gittim, eee, adama şey getirdim, kırmızı şarap şeysi getirdim bir tane. Ya, ne bileyim, ııı, şişe gibi bir şey işte, eee, öyle koyuyorsun işte masanın üstüne."

"Neyse efendim" and "efendime söyleyeyim" are pretty accurate counterparts of _so/then_ in everyday speech.


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## rupertbrooke

What a brilliant reply, Reverence, to my request for teen-speak. Could Niyeneden's sentence" oh mah god [ very, very common 'oath' in fillers among English teenage girls ] I was like so surprised then she was like take your hands away from mah boyfriend" be turned into any corresponding form of colloquial Turkish? Or does it  smack too much of a non-Turkic ambience?


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## Reverence

Depends, I suppose, though I wouldn't put much stock in the possibility of Niyeneden having on their mind an actual Turkish girl talking in such a manner. "Oh my God" (and various derivatives thereof) is "Aman Tanrım" in Turkish, and I don't even remember one single instance of anyone using that around me. Maybe on TV, thanks to cheesy translations.

Maybe...just maybe, "Allahım ya Rabbim", now that's mainstream enough to warrant a second thought.


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## rupertbrooke

Strangely enough, I did use that phrase in the above attempt at a translation. I also asked for comments on my attempt since I get embarrassed at any translations into a living language with which I am becoming familiar. Here is what I wrote above:- 'Aman tanrım ben şey çok şaşırmıştım hemen o "cek ellerini sevgilim üzerinden gibi" bağırıp çağırmıştı/oldu.  I know it is inadequate but alterations or re- translations are for me the best way to learn quickly.
Can 'sapım' be used for to mean 'boyfriend'?


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## Reverence

I would humbly suggest putting aside any notion of embarrassment while studying a foreign language (or anything at all, for that matter) and putting your efforts in display, as it hinders the practice greatly. You're doing good, and will get better, no doubt. Much better, much faster if embarrassment is replaced with enthusiasm.

My translation would look like, "Aman tanrım, var ya, acayip şaşırmıştım, sonra o da, böyle, 'çek ellerini erkek arkadaşımın üzerinden' falan oldu yani." (Well, it's actually pretty hard to try and speak like that, native speaker or not. Believe me when I say I don't expect any non-native Turkish speaker to come this close to how those teenage girls butcher the language in favor of trying to sound cool. It's taxing enough even for me.)


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## rupertbrooke

Your comments are so helpful that I often refer to them to get acquainted with the forms of the language in various 'language registers' as linguistic jargon has it. Adult jargon in English can be equally irritating e.g. "That Emma Thompson, yeh? Skills [brilliant] innit! I’m like she’s well porn [=cool] innit. Know what I’m saying?" I hardly think that this can be described as anything except a sign of the death of certain types of language. Thank you for encouraging me to continue with my efforts in this challenging but wonderful language. It is said that most British people get by with a vocabulary of about a thousand words. All murders, car crashes, inadequate & in humane treatment of old or young are  described by the police as 'incidents'; the portmanteau term for anything appalling is 'disgusting' & for grief is 'devastated'. My aim in teaching has been to widen & deepen the limited vocabulary of the majority of students I have taught. I hope that Turkish people are better equipped to describe the world around them but belki komşunun tavuğu komşuya kaz görünür.......


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## Reverence

I...just started to like Emma Thompson a little less. (Just kidding, of course. Not sure if I even know her.)

Eh, I guess every language undergoes a lot of changes, not all of them favorable. There's this so-called "text speak", where "selam" has been reduced to "slm" and "iyi" to "ii". Then there's another disaster called "elite speak", where for the life of mine I can't figure out what all those numbers refer to. And among all those horrible attempts, language finds its way eventually.

Thing are not any refreshing out here, either. 1000 words for you, 300 words for us, as the minister of national education put it, like a few others before him. Them youngsters don't need too many words if they don't have too many thoughts, now, do they? "Komşunun tavuğu, komşuya kaz görünür," indeed. "Dışı sizi, içi beni yakar," even. I'm afraid we Turks in general are just as ill-equipped in that regard, not due to a lack of equipment, so to speak, but a lack of willingness to take advantage of it.

Thanks again for the kind words. I applaud your active interest in this beautiful language; it's under-appreciated enough as it is. See, even its native speakers don't bother anymore.


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