Other people’s words: -dığını söyledi, diye and hearsay on -mış
The news is made of retelling, and Turkish retells in three different ways. For example: “Uçuşun iptal edildiğini söylediler” — They said that the flight was cancelled. A rule from the Turkish course: worked out on examples, not memorized as a wording.
How it works
The news is made of retelling, and Turkish retells in three different ways.
The first — the folded clause, that same -dığını you assembled back in wave 3. Another person's thought becomes a noun in the accusative and stands before the verb of speech: Geldiğini söyledi — he said that he had come. The person inside the thought shows in the possessive tail: geldiğimi söyledi — he said that I came. About the future — geleceğini söyledi. The order is the reverse of English: first the thought, then 'said'.
The second — diye, the verbatim delivery. The line is placed BEFORE diye as is, with no change of person: «Yarın gelirim» diye söz verdi — he promised: 'I will come tomorrow'. Questions and shouts are quoted the same way: Nerede diye sordu, Yardım edin diye bağırdı. And the same word names the reason for someone else's act: Geç kalmasın diye erken çıktım — I left early so that he would not be late.
The third — -mış, and English has no counterpart for it. It is the form for 'I did not learn this first-hand': Ali gelmiş — Ali has come, they say (I did not see it). With a noun predicate its role falls to imiş, fused: hastaymış — he is, apparently, ill. The news rests on this: until the fact is confirmed the journalist says yakalanmış, and once confirmed — yakalandı. To a Turk the gap between those two words is as clear as the gap between 'caught' and 'reportedly caught'.
One small consequence: -mış serves not only rumor but your own discovery. Yağmur yağmış is what a person says stepping onto a wet street in the morning: he did not see the rain, but the tracks are all there.
Table
| the method | what it does | example | translation |
|---|---|---|---|
| -dığını + a verb of speech | a retelling in one’s own words | geldiğini söyledi | he said that he had come |
| -eceğini + a verb of speech | the same about the future | geleceğini söyledi | he said that he would come |
| «…» diye | a verbatim quote | «Gelirim» diye söyledi | he said: «I will come» |
| diye sordu / bağırdı | a quoted question, a shout | Nerede diye sordu | he asked: «where?» |
| -sin diye | someone else’s goal | anlasın diye | so that he understands |
| -mış | hearsay, not seen with one’s own eyes | gelmiş | he has come, they say |
| -(y)mış with a noun | the same with a noun predicate | hastaymış | he is ill, apparently |
By example
- Uçuşun iptal edildiğini söyledilerThey said that the flight was cancelled
- «Kaynak güvenilir» diye yazmışlarThey wrote: «the source is reliable»
- Haberi duymuş, bize hemen aramışApparently he heard the news and called us right away
How the rule settles in your head
A rule is not memorized from an explanation. It is memorized from an attempt to use it and a mistake — that is why the app delivers it mixed in with words, not as a separate lesson: it resurfaces exactly where you forgot it.
Frequently asked
Other people’s words: how does it work in Turkish?
The news is made of retelling, and Turkish retells in three different ways.
What does it look like in an example sentence Turkish?
“Uçuşun iptal edildiğini söylediler” — They said that the flight was cancelled. A rule is easier to test on sentences like this than to memorize as a wording: what surfaces in conversation is the sentence.