A1 · The past · about 7 minutes
The definite past in “-di”
I came, I have done
Stem, “-di”, short person ending — for everything you have experienced yourself.
Do you know this already?
“New to me”: the explanation first, then practice. “Test myself”: 3 short questions – get at least two right and you go straight to the harder exercises.
Words you will need8
They appear in this topic’s examples and exercises and are new at this point on the learning path.
- erkenearly
- uyumakto sleep
- işwork, job; matter
- geçenlast, past
- balıkfish
- kahvaltıbreakfast
- sinemacinema
- çalışmakto work; to study
Understand
RememberStem, -di, short person — and in a question mi comes bare after it: geldin mi.
- When
- Before the past
- The past
- Past linked to the present
- The present
- The future
- Completed in the future
The past — Something that happened, finished, and stays where it happened.
- Signal words
- dün
- geçen hafta
- geçen yıl
- bu sabah
- demin
The form
How the forms are built
Each row gives the meaning first, then the form in Turkish. The colours show what changes from one form to the next.
stem (regular) tense marker person ending negation question marker
| I came | (ben) geldim |
| you came | (sen) geldin |
| he, she came | (o) geldi |
| we came | (biz) geldik |
| you came (plural, polite) | (siz) geldiniz |
| they came | (onlar) geldiler |
| I didn’t come | (ben) gelmedim |
| did you come? | (sen) geldin mi? |
| I did | (ben) yaptım |
| we did | (biz) yaptık |
| I didn’t do | (ben) yapmadım |
| did you do? | (sen) yaptın mı? |
The rules one by one
The form this topic is aboutThe word that calls for it
The stem takes -di and then the short person ending.
Dün akşam erken uyudum.Last night I went to sleep early.
After f, s, t, k, ç, ş, h, p, -di becomes -ti.
Sabah iki bardak çay içtim.In the morning I drank two glasses of tea.
The negative -me- or -ma- comes before -di.
Dün işe gitmedim.Yesterday I didn’t go to work.
In a question the person stays on the verb; mi comes after it, separately.
İyi uyudun mu?Did you sleep well?
Words like dün and geçen hafta almost always call for -di.
Geçen hafta İzmir'e gittik.Last week we went to İzmir.
Example sentences
Dün ne yaptın?What did you do yesterday?
Akşam balık yedik.We had fish in the evening.
Ayşe bize geldi.Ayşe came to see us.
6 more example sentences
Bu sabah kahvaltı yapmadım.I didn’t have breakfast this morning.
Kitabı okudunuz mu?Have you read the book?
Çocuklar parkta oynadı.The children played in the park.
Otobüs geç geldi.The bus came late.
Markette ekmek aldım.I bought bread at the supermarket.
Dün beni aradın mı?Did you call me yesterday?
The trap English speakers fall into
Watch out
If you have learnt Geliyor musun?, you will want to put the person on the particle here too: Geldi misin? But with -di it is the other way round — the person stays on the verb, and mi follows with no ending: Geldin mi?
Quick check
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Practise
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The full explanation
Read it all · about 1 min
With -di you tell what happened: Dün sinemaya gittim. “I went to the cinema yesterday.” English has two tenses for this, “I went” and “I have been”; Turkish has one. It also says that you know it for certain — usually because you were there.
Take the stem and add -di. The i follows four-way vowel harmony: geldi, aldı, okudu, gördü. After f, s, t, k, ç, ş, h, p the d becomes t: gitti, yaptı, içti.
Then comes the short person ending you know from yorgundum “I was tired”: -m, -n, nothing, -k, -niz, -ler. So geldim, geldin, geldi, geldik, geldiniz, geldiler.
The negative takes -me- or -ma- before -di: gelmedim “I didn’t come”, yapmadım. In a question the person stays on the verb and mi comes after it: Geldin mi? “Did you come?” That is different from -iyor, where the person moves onto the particle.
A closer look
Why “-di” sounds certain
With -di you vouch for what you say. That is why news reports sound like this: Toplantı saat üçte bitti. “The meeting ended at three.” If you have only heard something and do not want to commit yourself, you use -miş — that is the next topic.
In everyday use you notice little of this: for everything you have done or seen yourself, -di is the right form.
Dün Ali'yi gördüm. Çok mutluydu.I saw Ali yesterday. He was very happy.
You already know the ending
-di with the short person endings is the same ending as in evdeydim “I was at home”. On the verb the y just drops, because there is no vowel before it.
Exceptions and special cases1
Exception
When the third person plural has a plural subject
then -ler can be dropped: Misafirler geldi. alongside Misafirler geldiler.
Misafirler saat sekizde geldi.The guests came at eight.
Why? The plural is already on the subject. With things -ler is almost always dropped; with people you hear both.
Worth knowing2
Worth knowing
Compared with English
English has many irregular past forms: come, came; go, went; eat, ate. In Turkish every verb is regular — even gitmek and etmek, which get a d with -iyor, keep their t here: gittim, ettim.
Dün çok yürüdüm ve erken uyudum.Yesterday I walked a lot and went to sleep early.
Worth knowing
No choice between “did” and “have done”
“I have eaten” and “I ate” are both yedim. You need no helper like “have” or “did”, and no decision about which English tense fits.
Yedim, teşekkürler.I’ve already eaten, thanks.
The verbs on this page, in every form: gelmek · gitmek · uyumak · içmek · yemek · görmek · okumak