Practise a short interview with a grandparent, then retell one detail to someone else. The dialogue uses familiar singular forms with Grandpa; this is one family’s way of addressing him, not a rule for every family.

The idea

Build each next question from the reply. Open with Dede, çocukluğun nasıl geçti?, ask about a place with O zaman nerede yaşıyordun?, then invite the next event with Peki, sonra ne oldu?. When passing on a story, name your source: Annem anlattı. Here çalışmış presents the job as something you heard about. The suffix lesson covers its forms.

Read the text

— Dede, çocukluğun nasıl geçti? — Köyde büyüdüm. Okula kardeşimle yürüyerek giderdim. — O zaman nerede yaşıyordun? — Okulun yakınında küçük bir evde yaşıyorduk. — En çok hangi oyunu severdin? — Saklambaç oynamayı severdim. Bir gün kardeşim bahçede saklandı. Onu uzun süre aradık. — Peki, sonra ne oldu? — Ağacın arkasından çıktı. Hepimiz güldük.

— Annem anlattı: Dedem gençken bir fırında çalışmış. — Bunu dedene sordun mu? — Evet. “Ben o fırında iki yıl çalıştım,” dedi.

Examples

  • Dede, çocukluğun nasıl geçti?Grandpa, what was your childhood like?
  • O zaman nerede yaşıyordun?Where were you living then?
  • Okula kardeşimle yürüyerek giderdim.I used to walk to school with my sibling.
  • En çok hangi oyunu severdin?Which game did you like best?
  • Peki, sonra ne oldu?So, what happened next?
  • Annem anlattı: Dedem gençken bir fırında çalışmış.My mother told me: apparently, my grandfather worked in a bakery when he was young.
  • Ben o fırında iki yıl çalıştım.I worked in that bakery for two years.
  • Bunu kimden duydun?Who did you hear this from?

Read-aloud uses a synthetic Turkish voice available on your device. Voice quality and availability vary; it does not assess your pronunciation.

Watch out

An old memory does not automatically need -miş. Grandpa can recall his own job with çalıştım; the grandchild can pass it on with çalışmış. Also keep track of the speaker: in Grandpa’s reply, kardeşimle means with his own sibling, not with the grandchild’s.

Try it yourself

  1. Ask what Grandpa’s childhood was like. Choose nasıl or kimden for the gap.

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    nasıl

    nasıl asks what the childhood was like and leaves room for a story. Kimden would ask for a person as the source of information, which does not fit this gap.

  2. Grandpa says his sibling hid in the garden one day. Ask what happened next, using sonra, ne and the past of olmak. You may start with peki.

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    Sonra ne oldu / Peki sonra ne oldu

    Sonra ne oldu? or Peki, sonra ne oldu? asks for the event after the hiding. It keeps the story moving without inventing an ending for Grandpa.

  3. Pass on what your mother told you about Grandpa’s bakery job. Complete with the reported past of çalışmak.

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    çalışmış

    çalışmış: the clue says the mother supplied this information. The grandchild reports Grandpa’s work, so the verb refers to him rather than using the first-person çalıştım.

  4. Ask who the story came from. Fill the gap with the appropriate form of kim.

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    kimden

    kimden: the question seeks the person who told the story. An answer such as annemden identifies that source; kim alone would ask “who”, not “from whom”.

Use it today

In pairs, invent a childhood memory. Ask an opening question and two follow-up questions based on the replies. Swap roles, then retell one detail and name its source. Next, continue to the lesson on a family migration story.