bakmak: to look at, to look after

The idea

Bakmak means to look at, and the thing looked at takes the dative (-e/-a): kapıya bakıyorum, never kapıyı bakıyorum. The stem bak stays the same in every tense and only the ending changes: bakıyorum, baktım, bakacağım. After the voiceless k the past ending starts with t.

Examples

• Ben resme bakıyorum.I am looking at the picture.Bakmak takes the dative, so resme, not resmi. The vowel i of resim drops before the ending. The pronoun ben may be left out.
• Çocuklar denize bakıyor.The children are looking at the sea.
• Dün akşam saatime baktım.Last night I looked at my watch.Bak ends in a voiceless k, so the past ending starts with t: baktım, never bakdım. Saatim already has the possessive, so the dative is -e: saatime.
• Annem küçük kardeşime bakıyor.My mother is looking after my little brother.With a person, bakmak plus the dative often means to take care of, not just to look: kardeşime bakıyor.
• Yarın bu eve bakacağız.Tomorrow we are going to look at this house.In the future, -acak loses its k before a vowel: bakacağız. Before a consonant it keeps it: bakacaksınız.
• Bak, kuşlar uçuyor.Look, the birds are flying.The bare stem is the command to one person: bak. To several people or politely, add -ın: bakın.
• Ben haritaya bakmıyorum.I am not looking at the map.The negative -mı- comes between the stem and -yor: bak-mı-yor-um. Its vowel is ı because the last vowel of bak is a.
• Telefona bakma!Don’t look at the phone!The negative command adds -ma to the stem: bakma. The object stays in the dative: telefona.

Watch out

Do not put the object in the accusative, as you would with an ordinary transitive verb: resmi bakıyorum is wrong, say resme bakıyorum. To say you merely notice something happening, use görmek (to see), not bakmak.

Try it yourself

1. Add the ending that bakmak needs: we are looking at the door (kapı).

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   kapıya

   kapıya: bakmak takes the dative; the stem ends in a vowel, so the buffer y comes in, and the back vowel ı gives -a.

2. Conjugate bak for you (singular) in the present continuous: you are looking.

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   bakıyorsun

   bakıyorsun: bak ends in a consonant, so -ıyor joins directly, with ı after the back a; the personal ending for you is -sun.

3. Conjugate bak for they in the simple past: they looked.

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   baktılar

   baktılar: after the voiceless k the ending starts with t, not d; the plural is -lar after the back vowel ı.

4. Conjugate bak for I in the future: I will look.

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   bakacağım

   bakacağım: before the ending -ım the k of -acak turns into ğ.

Use it today

Write three sentences about what you looked at today, using the dative each time, and check the vowel of each ending.