My Spot

Saturday, April 12, 2008

Doğru Sorun'un Altını Çizin (= "Understand the problem")

Olmak ya da olmamak,
Bilmek ya da bilmemek,
Sevmek ya da sevmemek,
Anlamak ya da anlamamak,
Gülmek ya da gülmemek,
Ölmek ya da ölmemek,
Alışmak ya da alışmamak.

This is a short poem, which came up as a text I had to work with in my Turkish workbook. I like it, so I decided to post it here on my blog. It's in the style of "to be or not to be". For those of you, who don't know any Turkish - here's a short dictionary:
ya da = or,
olmak = to be, olmamak = not to be (this is the same with the other verbs: the first form is the affirmative one and the second one is the negative one, so I'll just write the first forms here),
bilmek = to know,
sevmek = to love,
anlamak = to understand,
gülmek = to laugh,
ölmek = to die,
alışmak = to get used to something.