Yeni tarife bugün başladı.

It is the basic form of the noun.

The word is tarife, not tarif. So in this sentence, yeni tarife is the subject: the new tariff / rate plan / schedule.

That is important because an English speaker might assume -e means dative to. But if it were dative, it would be tarifeye. If it were definite accusative, it would be tarifeyi.

So:

• tarife = the noun itself
• tarifeye = to the tariff
• tarifeyi = the tariff as a definite object

Başladı means started or began.

It comes from the verb başlamak = to start / to begin.

Formation:

• verb stem: başla-
• past tense suffix: -dı
• result: başladı

This is the simple past in Turkish. Because the subject is third-person singular, there is no extra personal ending after the past marker here.

Turkish does not have a definite article like English the.

So yeni tarife can mean the new tariff if the context makes it definite. Turkish often leaves definiteness to context.

If you wanted to make it clearly a new tariff, you would often say:

• yeni bir tarife = a new tariff

So the lack of the is completely normal.

In Turkish, adjectives normally come before the noun they describe, just like in English.

So:

• yeni tarife = new tariff

Also, Turkish adjectives do not change form for gender, number, or case. Yeni stays yeni in all of these:

• yeni tarife
• yeni tarifeler
• yeni tarifeye

That makes adjectives simpler than in many European languages.

Bugün means today and functions as a time adverb.

It tells you when the action happened:

• Yeni tarife bugün başladı. = The new tariff started today.

In Turkish, time words very often appear before the verb, so this position is very natural.

Turkish normally prefers verb-final word order, especially in neutral statements.

So this sentence follows a very common pattern:

• Subject + time expression + verb
• Yeni tarife + bugün + başladı

That is one reason Turkish sentences can feel different from English, where the verb usually comes earlier.

Yes. Turkish word order is fairly flexible, although the verb often stays near the end.

For example, these are also possible:

• Bugün yeni tarife başladı.
• Yeni tarife başladı bugün.

The difference is usually about focus or emphasis, not basic meaning.

A neutral version is the original one, but Bugün yeni tarife başladı can put a little more focus on today.

In this sentence, başlamak is used intransitively, so it means to begin / to start in the sense that something itself begins.

Here, the new tariff is what began.

That is different from English, where start can easily be transitive, as in They started the program. In Turkish, to mean start something in a causative sense, you often use başlatmak.

Compare:

• Yeni tarife bugün başladı. = The new tariff started today.
• Şirket yeni tarifeyi bugün başlattı. = The company started/launched the new tariff today.

A few letters here are important for learners:

• ş in başladı = sh
• ü in bugün = like German ü or French u
• ı in başladı = the Turkish undotted i, a vowel with no exact English equivalent

A rough guide:

• Yeni ≈ yeh-nee
• tarife ≈ tah-ree-feh
• bugün ≈ boo-GUEN with ü
• başladı ≈ bash-luh-DUH, but the ı is not exactly English uh

So the sentence is pronounced roughly like:

• YEH-nee tah-ree-FEH boo-GUEN bash-luh-DUH

We know it from both meaning and grammar.

First, başlamak is an intransitive verb here, so the thing that begins is the subject.

Second, yeni tarife has no object marking. If it were a definite direct object, you would expect tarifeyi.

So the structure is:

• yeni tarife = subject
• bugün = time adverb
• başladı = verb

That gives a very straightforward Turkish sentence structure.