Çorap rafında kaç tane çorap olduğunu sayıyorum.

to be

Breakdown of Çorap rafında kaç tane çorap olduğunu sayıyorum.

• kaç tane: how many
• çorap: the sock
• saymak: to count

Questions & Answers about Çorap rafında kaç tane çorap olduğunu sayıyorum.

What do the suffixes -ı and -(n)da mean in rafında, and why isn’t it simply rafta?

In rafında you actually have two suffixes on raf (“shelf”):
• -ı is the 3rd-person possessive, turning raf into rafı (“its shelf,” here “the sock shelf”).
• -(n)da is the locative case (“on/in”). Because rafı ends in a vowel, Turkish inserts the buffer n before the vowel-starting locative.
So: raf → raf-ı (possessive) → raf-ında (locative) = “on the (sock) shelf.” You can’t drop -ı, because it’s part of the compound çorap rafı (“sock shelf”).

What does çorap rafı mean, and why is çorap not plural?

Çorap rafı is a compound noun: çorap (“sock”) + rafı (“its shelf”), meaning “the sock shelf” or “sock rack.” In Turkish compounds, the first element stays singular even if it refers to multiple items. Definiteness comes from the possessive -ı on the second element (raf).

Why do we say kaç tane çorap instead of just kaç çorap?

While kaç çorap is technically understandable, Turkish commonly uses the measure word tane when counting discrete items.
• kaç çorap? – “how many socks?” (okay, but less precise)
• kaç tane çorap? – “how many individual socks?” (more natural for countable objects)

What is olduğunu, and why do we need it here?