Pasaport kontrolünde kuyruk uzundu ama görevli hızlı çalıştı.

(The passport control line was long, but the officer worked quickly.)

Breakdown of Pasaport kontrolünde kuyruk uzundu ama görevli hızlı çalıştı.

• olmak: to be
• çalışmak: to work
• ama: but
• uzun: long

Questions & Answers about Pasaport kontrolünde kuyruk uzundu ama görevli hızlı çalıştı.

What does Pasaport kontrolünde literally mean, and how is it formed?

Pasaport acts as an attributive noun modifying kontrol. To express in/at the control, Turkish first adds the third-person singular possessive suffix -ü to kontrol, giving kontrolü, then attaches the locative suffix -nde (vowel-harmonized from -de). So kontrol + ü + nde = kontrolünde, and Pasaport kontrolünde means at passport control.

Why is there a possessive suffix in kontrolünde instead of just using the locative kontrolda?

In Turkish, when a noun is “possessed” even implicitly (here kontrol belongs to pasaport in the set phrase pasaport kontrolü), you must insert the possessive suffix -ü before any case ending. Only after kontrolü do you add the locative -nde. That yields kontrol-ü-nde rather than a bare kontrol-da.

How is kuyruk uzundu translated, and why does uzundu have that form?

kuyruk means queue, and uzun is the adjective long. To say the queue was long, Turkish combines uzun with the past-tense copula suffix -du, yielding uzundu (long + was). So kuyruk uzundu = the queue was long.

Why is there no article like before ?