Learn Hardcore Turkish: Kabloyu prize takınca elektrik akımı gelmeye başladı. - When I plugged the cable into the outlet, the electrical current started flowing.

kablo (“cable”) takes the accusative suffix -u because it’s a definite, specific object (“the cable”). Since kablo ends in a vowel, a buffer consonant y is inserted, giving kablo+y+u → kabloyu.

What case is prize in, and why does it look unchanged?

priz (“outlet”) takes the dative case suffix -e to mean “to the outlet.” The word becomes priz+e → prize. It looks almost the same because Turkish case endings often blend in when the stem ends in a consonant.

What does takınca mean, and how is it formed?

takınca is “when/once (you) plug (in).” It comes from:

Root tak- (“to plug in”)
Adverbial-conjunction suffix -ınca (a variant of -ince/-unca/-ünce) which means “when/once.”
Put together: tak-ınca → takınca = “when you plug (it) in.”

How does gelmeye başladı express “started to come/flow”?

This is the common pattern:

Verb stem gel- (“to come”)
Gerund-infinitive forming suffix -me (makes a noun-like form “coming”)
Illative/“into” suffix -ye (yields -meye)
Auxiliary başladı (“he/she/it began”)

So gel-me-ye başladı = “(it) began into coming,” i.e. “started to come/flow.”

Why is akımı in the accusative -ı instead of just akım?

The speaker refers to a definite phenomenon—the electric current—so it gets the accusative/definiteness suffix -ı. In this construction, what “comes” or “flows” can be treated like the object of gelmeye başladı, hence akım+ı → akımı.

Does gelmek always take an object like akımı here?

Not always. Gelmek is normally intransitive (“to come”), but in contexts like “water/electricity started coming,” Turkish often treats the thing that arrives or flows as a (definite) object. If left indefinite or general, you might see no accusative: e.g. su gelmeye başladı (“water started coming”). Here, because it’s a specific current, it’s akımı gelmeye başladı.