“-dan a kadar /-den e kadar” In Turkish (from…to/till) in 4 Steps

Why Is dan a kadar / den e kadar (from…to/till) Used in Turkish?

This expression is very useful, it is used a lot in daily use and it is a grammar structure that you can learn in a very simple way. It is used to specify the start and end point of a job. That means; this structure is used to indicate this “When, where, what time did it start, when, where, what time did it end?“. Of course, in order to put this expression in a sentence, we will need to briefly remind a few grammatical rules.

We are going to give some words and use them in sentences with -dAn A kadar phrase. We are going show you all grammatical rules about that subject by these sentences just in 4 steps. Then we’ll give you a lot of sentence to make it clear.

 

• In the above sentence, the suffix -dan became the suffix -tan. That is d>t. This means that this suffix may appear as -tan or -dan. Let’s immediately recall the consonant harmony. If the root word ends with one of the letters f, s, t, k, ç, ş, h, p, it converts the suffixes starting with d to t. If you still have a question about consonant harmony, you can quickly take a look at this article and understand the subject. In the above sentence; “sabah” ends with “h”, and the suffix come right after is starts with -d. That’s why it became -t (-tan).

• We continue with above sentence. You see -tan became -ten this time. -a kadar also became -e kadar. Because of vowel harmony… According to vowel harmony: if the last vowel of the word is a, ı, o or u the suffix will  be -tan / -dan and “a kadar“; if the last vowel of the word is e, i, ö or ü the suffix will be -ten / -den and “e kadar“. If we look at at word iş (work): last and only vowel is “i”, that’s why it takes -ten suffix. Look at the word ev (home): last vowel “e”, so it will takes -e suffix.

• Yes, we separate the suffixes that come end of the proper nouns with an apostrophe. Since city names are also proper nouns, we separated them with an apostrophe. But I want to draw your attention to another point. There is a suffix -ya after Antalya. There is an extra letter “y”. You know that two vowels cannot come together. That’s why it’s enough to put an helpfull letter “y” in between. In other words, since the word ends with a vowel and the suffix begins with a vowel, we have made the expression more understandable by putting the letter “y” in between.

• Here is an another and last point that we are going to show you about this structure. You should check the consonant harmony again. According to consonant harmony: if word ends with ”

  

  p, ç, t, or k” and suffix starts with an any vowel; p, ç, t, k become b, c, d, g. In our sentence durak (station): ends with “k” and the suffix comes right after it starts with a vowel. In this case “k” will be more soft > “g”.

 

KEEP IT IN MIND!

Sometimes you don’thave to use the first noun or you can see that it disappear in some sentences. If you don’t need to indicate or if it’s not necessary to to say when start or where start, you can just use the word that is using with -A kadar (to). For example:

• Ben her gece saat ikiye kadar uyanığım. (I’m awake until two o’clock every night.)

EXAMPLE SENTENCES

• Pazardan eve kadar yürüdük. (We walked from the market to the house.)
• Sahilden adaya kadar yüzdük. (We swam from the beach to the island.)
• Hazirandan aralığa kadar Türkçe kursu devam edecek. (The Turkish course will continue from June to December.)
• Her gün saat üçten beşe kadar ders çalışıyorum. (I study from three to five o’clock every day.)
• Toplantımız sabah saat ondan on ikiye kadar sürecek. (Our meeting will last from ten to twelve o’clock in the morning.)
• Edirne’den İstanbul’a kadar gezdim. (I traveled from Edirne to Istanbul.)
• Pazartesiden cumaya kadar köyde kalacağız. (We will stay in the village from Monday to Friday.)
• 1994′ten 2011′e kadar İstanbul’da yaşadım. (I lived in Istanbul from 1994 to 2011.)
• Dün saat yediye kadar oyun oynadım. (I played until seven o’clock yesterday.)
• Yarına kadar eve dönmeyeceğim. (I won’t be back home until tomorrow.)

 

If you have any question about Turkish language just let me know in the comment below. Btw we also share all Turkish grammar lessons, some daily usefull tips, Turkish idioms and more about Turkish language and Turkish culture on YouTube channel! You can watch all lessons for free now! Just click here and subscribe to don’t lose our videos.  See you in another lesson!