B1 · The past · about 7 minutes
The past perfect in “-mişti”
I had come, I had done
What was already over when something else happened in the past.
Do you know this already?
“New to me”: the explanation first, then practice. “Test myself”: 3 short questions – get at least two right and you go straight to the harder exercises.
Words you will need2
They appear in this topic’s examples and exercises and are new at this point on the learning path.
- misafirguest
- kaçmakto run away, to escape
Missing a word? Look it up in the dictionary
Understand
RememberTwo points in the past — the earlier one gets -mişti.
- When
- Before the past
- The past
- Past linked to the present
- The present
- The future
- Completed in the future
Before the past — What was already over by the time the story got there.
- Signal words
- çoktan
- daha önce
- zaten
- henüz
The form
How the forms are built
Each row gives the meaning first, then the form in Turkish. The colours show what changes from one form to the next.
stem (regular) tense marker person ending negation question marker
| I had come | (ben) gelmiştim |
| you had come | (sen) gelmiştin |
| he, she had come | (o) gelmişti |
| we had come | (biz) gelmiştik |
| you had come (plural, polite) | (siz) gelmiştiniz |
| they had come | (onlar) gelmişlerdi |
| I hadn’t come | (ben) gelmemiştim |
| had you come? | (sen) gelmiş miydin? |
| I had done | (ben) yapmıştım |
| we had read | (biz) okumuştuk |
| he had seen | (o) görmüştü |
| I had said | (ben) söylemiştim |
This tense with other verbs
Tap a verb or type your own — the table opens at this tense, in the same colours.
The rules one by one
The form this topic is about
-mişti names what had already happened before another past event.
İstasyona geldik ama tren kalkmıştı.We got to the station, but the train had already left.
After -miş it is always -ti, never -di.
Film başlamıştı, sessizce oturduk.The film had already started; we sat down quietly.
In the third person plural -ler comes before -di.
Misafirler çoktan gitmişlerdi.The guests had left long before.
In a question -di attaches to the particle.
Daha önce bu filmi görmüş müydün?Had you seen the film before?
Ben söylemiştim! recalls something you had said earlier.
Ben sana söylemiştim!I told you so!
Example sentences
Eve geldiğimde herkes uyumuştu.When I got home, everyone had gone to sleep.
O gün kahvaltı yapmamıştım, çok acıkmıştım.I hadn’t had breakfast that day, I was very hungry.
Bu şehre daha önce hiç gelmemiştik.We had never been to this city before.
5 more example sentences
Bileti zaten almıştın, değil mi?You had already bought the ticket, hadn’t you?
Toplantıya geç kaldım, çünkü otobüsü kaçırmıştım.I was late for the meeting because I had missed the bus.
Mağazaya vardık ama kapanmıştı.We got to the shop, but it had closed.
Sınavdan önce çok çalışmıştı.She had studied a lot before the exam.
Ben sana yazmıştım, mesajı görmedin mi?I had written to you — didn’t you see the message?
The trap English speakers fall into
Watch out
In casual English the past perfect is often dropped: “When we arrived, the train left.” Carried over into Turkish, that sounds as if the train set off at exactly that moment. What had already happened before needs -mişti.
Quick check
A warm-up: 2 questions, answered straight away. They do not count towards your progress.
Practise
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Now write it yourself9 sentences on this topic, typed and checked instantly.
Your progress
What your lesson on this topic shows:
The lesson decides this, not a button: passed at 80% on the first try, mastered when you pass it again on another day.
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The full explanation
Read it all · about 1 min
English has the past perfect for this: “When we got to the station, the train had already left.” Turkish has a form with the same job: İstasyona geldik ama tren kalkmıştı. The leaving came before the arriving.
It is built from -miş and -ti: stem, -miş with four-way harmony, then -ti (always with t after the ş) and the short person ending: gelmiştim, gelmiştin, gelmişti, gelmiştik, gelmiştiniz, gelmişlerdi. Unlike -miş on its own, this form says nothing about hearsay — it is a pure tense.
Negative: gelmemiştim. Question: Daha önce Türkiye'ye gelmiş miydin? “Had you been to Turkey before?” In everyday speech you often hear it in Ben söylemiştim! “I told you so!”
A closer look
“-miş” alone sounds like hearsay
Do not say Tren kalkmış when you mean the past perfect: without -ti it is the reported form (“the train has left, apparently”). Only the -ti turns it into a pure tense.
Conversely, -mişti is also possible in a story told from hearsay: there it can simply be the earlier of the two layers.
Worth knowing1
Worth knowing
Compared with English
The English past perfect needs “had” and a participle. Turkish stacks two endings you already know: -miş and -ti.
Ben gelmiştim, o da gitmişti.I had come, and he had gone.
The verbs on this page, in every form: gelmek · gitmek · başlamak · oturmak · görmek · kalkmak · uyumak · kaçırmak · acıkmak