Turkish A2: -dı vs -mış — the past you saw and the past you heard about

English has one simple past. Turkish has two, and they do not differ in when. They differ in how you know.

This is called evidentiality, and Turkish marks it on the verb whether you want to or not. There is no neutral option.

The witnessed past. You saw it, you did it, you know.

Harmonises four ways, and the d becomes t after a voiceless consonant (p, ç, t, k, s, ş, h, f):

Personal endings: -m, -n, —, -k, -niz, -ler

The reported or inferred past. Someone told you, you worked it out from evidence, or you are relaying a story.

Three situations, one ending:

1. Hearsay. Someone told you.

2. Inference. The evidence is in front of you.

3. Narrative. Fairy tales, jokes, anything not vouched for.

4. Realising something about yourself.

That last one is not a mistake. Using -mış about yourself says you were not conscious of it at the time.

Say you did not witness something and use -dı, and you are claiming you saw it. Say you did witness it and use -mış, and you sound like you are distancing yourself from your own story.

Do not reach for -mış because something feels distant in time. Ten years ago, if you were there, it is -dı:

Time is carried by the tense; evidence is carried by the choice between them.