Vernik gece boyunca kurudu.

Turkish does not have articles like the or a/an.

So vernik can mean:

• varnish
• the varnish

Which one is meant depends on context. In this sentence, English will usually translate it as the varnish dried overnight or the varnish dried throughout the night, but Turkish simply says vernik.

Gece boyunca means throughout the night, all night long, or overnight depending on context.

Breakdown:

• gece = night
• boyunca = throughout, during the whole length of

So gece boyunca literally means something like for the duration of the night.

Because boyunca is a postposition that commonly follows a bare noun directly.

So you get:

• gece boyunca = throughout the night
• yıl boyunca = throughout the year
• gün boyunca = throughout the day

Turkish often uses postpositions where English uses prepositions. Instead of putting a word before the noun, Turkish puts it after.

The verb is kurumak, which means to dry or to become dry.

Kurudu is the simple past form:

• kuru- = verb stem
• -du = past tense suffix

So:

• kurumak = to dry / become dry
• kurudu = dried / became dry

The full sentence means that the varnish ended up dry after the night passed.

Because the verb is kurumak, not kurmak.

Compare:

• kurumak → kurudu = dried, became dry
• kurmak → kurdu = set up, founded, established

This is a very important difference. Even though the words look similar, they are completely different verbs.

It is intransitive here.

That means the subject itself becomes dry:

• Vernik kurudu. = The varnish dried.

If you want to say that someone dried something, Turkish usually uses a different verb:

• kurutmak = to dry something

For example:

• Verniği kuruttu. = He/She dried the varnish.

So:

• kurumak = to become dry
• kurutmak = to make something dry

In Turkish, the third person singular often has no personal ending after the tense marker.

So:

• ben kurudum = I dried / I became dry
• sen kurudun = you dried
• o kurudu = he/she/it dried

In your sentence, vernik is third person singular, so kurudu is complete by itself.

This is a very normal Turkish word order:

• subject
  • time expression
    • verb

So:

• Vernik = subject
• gece boyunca = time expression
• kurudu = verb

Turkish often puts the verb at the end of the sentence.

You could rearrange the sentence for emphasis, but this version is very natural and neutral.

Yes, that is also possible.

Turkish word order is flexible, and moving parts of the sentence can change the emphasis:

• Vernik gece boyunca kurudu. = neutral, straightforward
• Gece boyunca vernik kurudu. = puts more focus on throughout the night

The verb usually still stays at the end.

Because vernik is the subject of the sentence.

Subjects in Turkish are normally in the bare form with no case ending.

Case endings are used for roles like:

• direct object
• indirect object
• location
• source, etc.

Since vernik is the thing that dried, not something being acted on by another verb, it stays unchanged.

It is the Turkish definite/simple past tense, often called the direct past.

It is used when the speaker presents the action as a completed fact:

• kurudu = it dried / it became dry

In this sentence, it simply states a completed event in the past.

This is because of Turkish sound harmony and consonant harmony.

The past tense suffix changes shape depending on the sounds before it:

• -dı
• -di
• -du
• -dü and after voiceless consonants:
• -tı
• -ti
• -tu
• -tü

Here the stem ends in a vowel sound: kuru- The last vowel before the suffix is u, so the suffix becomes -du.

That gives:

• kuru + du = kurudu

Not always exactly, but it is often a good translation.

Gece boyunca literally emphasizes that something happened throughout the night or over the course of the night.

English overnight can sometimes feel a little broader or more idiomatic, but in many contexts they match well:

• Vernik gece boyunca kurudu.
• The varnish dried overnight.

If you want the most literal sense, think throughout the night.

A rough pronunciation guide is:

VER-nik ge-JE bo-YUN-ja ku-RU-du

A few notes:

• c in Turkish is pronounced like English j in jam
• ş would be sh, but there is no ş here
• u is a pure oo sound, like in food, but shorter
• stress is often fairly even, though in natural speech gece boyunca and kurudu flow smoothly together

So the whole sentence sounds roughly like:

VER-nik ge-JE bo-YUN-ja ku-RU-du