Çorap rafında kaç tane çorap olduğunu sayıyorum.

(I’m counting how many socks are on the sock shelf.)

Breakdown of Çorap rafında kaç tane çorap olduğunu sayıyorum.

• olmak: to be
• 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?

olduğunu comes from olmak (“to be”) + noun-forming -duğu + 3rd-person possessive/nominalizer -nu. It turns the verb into the clause “that it is/exists.”
So kaç tane çorap olduğunu = “how many socks there are.” That whole clause is the object of sayıyorum (“I am counting”). Without olduğunu, you couldn’t express “counting how many exist.”

Why is the verb sayıyorum in the present continuous form?

Turkish uses -iyor for ongoing actions (like English “–ing”). The breakdown is:
say- (root “count”) + ‑ı-yor (present continuous) + ‑um (1st person singular) → sayıyorum = “I am counting.”
It shows you’re doing the counting right now.

Where is “I” in the sentence? Why isn’t ben used?

Turkish is a pro-drop language: the subject pronoun is optional because the verb ending -um in sayıyorum already marks “I.” You’d only add ben if you wanted extra emphasis (“Ben çorap rafında…”).

Why does çorap appear twice (“Çorap rafında” and “kaç tane çorap”)? Isn’t that redundant?

They play different roles:

1. The first çorap is part of the compound çorap rafı (“sock shelf”).
2. The second çorap is the thing you’re counting.
   In English you’d also say “sock shelf” and “counting socks,” so you see the word twice.

What’s the difference between rafında and rafındaki, and could we use rafındaki here?

• rafında = plain locative: “on the shelf.”
• rafındaki = locative + relative marker -ki, meaning “that is on the shelf.”
You use rafındaki when you want a relative clause, e.g. rafındaki çoraplar (“the socks that are on the shelf”). In our sentence, we’re simply stating the location where we’re counting, so rafında is correct.