Lessons · 7 of 18

The little verb edi

One tiny helper gives you was-doing, had-done, would, and would-have — the main verb never changes.

Meet the hardest-working little word in the language. edi means roughly "was", and it has one job: take a verb form that describes a situation, and move the whole thing into the past. The recipe never varies — the main word stays frozen, and edi carries the person endings for it, using the same set you learned in lesson 2: edim, eding, edi, edik, edigiz, edile.

Was doing

The a-form you know from inside the present tense (bara), plus edi:

• men bara edim — I was going
• sen bara eding — you were going
• ol bara edi — he/she/it was going
• biz bara edik — we were going
• siz bara edigiz — you all were going
• ala bara edile — they were going

Had done

Swap in the participle barğan — the "done" form — and edi reaches one step further back: barğan edim — "I had gone", something finished before another past event. biz aşağan edik — "we had already eaten."

Would, and would have

Give edi the open future's barır and you get barır edi — "he would go" (and, in stories about the old days, "he used to go"). Give it the firm future's barlık and you get barlık edi — "he would have gone". Notice the mirror: barğan looks backward at something that happened; barlık looks forward from the past at something that never got to happen.

Saying no follows lesson 5 exactly: the ma goes on the main word — barmay edim "I wasn't going" — and edi sails on unchanged.

The one place edi freezes

Wishes flip the arrangement. barsam edi — "if only I'd go" — puts the person ending on the if-form instead, and there edi never changes at all: barsang edi "if only you'd go", barsak edi "if only we'd go". These stand alone as exclamations — no second half of the sentence needed.