Ben dün sinemaya gittim.
English: I went to the cinema yesterday.
- Language
- Turkish
- Level
- A2
- Unit
- Zamanlar ve kipler
- Practice types
- 0
What this grammar point covers
The Turkish 'geçmiş zaman' (-di’li geçmiş zaman) is the simple past tense. It is used to talk about actions or events that happened in the past and are finished.
When to use it
Use this tense in Turkish when you want to talk about something that happened and finished in the past. It is used for actions that you know happened, not for reported or uncertain actions.
Key forms
- Verb stem + -di/-dı/-du/-dü + personal ending
- Examples: geldi (he/she/it came), gördüm (I saw), yazdın (you wrote)
Examples
Sen sabah kahvaltı yaptın.
English: You had breakfast in the morning.
O geçen hafta kitap okudu.
English: He/She read a book last week.
Biz okula geç kaldık.
English: We were late for school.
Onlar bana yardım etti.
English: They helped me.
Tips
- The ending (-di, -dı, -du, -dü) changes according to vowel harmony. Match the vowels in the verb stem.
- Remember to add the correct personal ending after the tense ending.
- The letter 'd' can change to 't' after voiceless consonants (for example: 'git-' becomes 'gittim').
Exceptions and edge cases
- Some verbs with stems ending in a voiceless consonant use -ti/-tı/-tu/-tü instead of -di/-dı/-du/-dü.