[sparrow]

Hello all,

Because I have noticed that this is a difficult item for a lot of people, I will try to explain is, but this is not that simple, and I will stick to first and second person singular

Basically we start from :
ben = I
sen = you

Those forms are only used when ben or sen carries out the action, like :
Ben istiyorum ...... I want
sen istiyorsun ..... you want

But if you want to say : I want YOU
then it is : (ben) SENI istiyorum.....
so Seni is used for the direct object

The forms for the direct objects are then :
Ben = beni
sen = seni


Then there is the indirect object , like :
(meaning to me, you)

Bana bakıyorsun (you are looking at me, looking after me)
Sana bakıyorum (I look at you, or I look after you)


(note : here you would have expected sene or bene, but there is no such thing as bene or sene !, in fact bana/sana are an exception to the rule)

When to use beni/seni or sana/bana

It depends on the meaning of the verb, and mostly it follows the same rules as in English, but unfortunately it can sometimes be a bit tricky, and not that "logical" to use direct or indirect object

I give two examples :

Seni bekliyorum (I'm waiting for you)
when you do translate this literally you get : I'm waiting YOU (like a lot of Turkish people say when speaking English)

Seni düşünüyorum (I'm thinking of you)
Literally translated this means : I'm thinking you

For the demonstrative pronoun bu, it is the same rule :
bunu bekliyorum , istiyorum, düşünüyorum
(I waiting for this, I want this, I'm thinking about this)

Buna bakıyorum (I'm looking at this)

Now to make it complete, another example of direct and indirect object :

Sana bunu veriyorum (I give you this)
Bana bunu veriyorsun (you give me this )

because as I pointed out bana/sana means to you, to me.....

Zor mu ? (is it difficult ?)
I think so, but you have to know a little grammar to learn Turkish and you have to analyze your sentences in order to use the right form)