Learn Hardcore Turkish: Bugünkü ziyaret çok faydalı.

bugünkü means “today’s” or “of today.” It’s formed by attaching the time-adjectival suffix –ki to bugün (“today”). This suffix turns words like bugün into adjectives that express “belonging to” or “taking place on” a particular time or place (e.g. dünkü “yesterday’s,” gelecekteki “future [something]”).

Why is the suffix –kü used instead of –ki, –ku, or –kı?

Turkish vowel harmony requires the suffix to match the last vowel of the stem. The four allomorphs are –ki/–kı/–ku/–kü. Because bugün ends in the vowel ü (a front rounded vowel), the suffix appears as –kü, giving bugünkü.

Why do we say bugünkü ziyaret instead of bugünün ziyareti to mean “today’s visit”?

Turkish offers two main ways to express “X’s Y”:

The –ki adjectival suffix: bugünkü ziyaret
The genitive + possessive construction: bugünün (genitive of bugün) + ziyareti (3rd-person possessive on ziyaret)

Both mean “today’s visit.” The –ki form is more concise and often preferred for time/place expressions, while the genitive-possessive can feel more explicit or formal.

What does faydalı mean and how is it built?

faydalı means “useful” or “beneficial.” It comes from the noun fayda (“benefit”) plus the adjectival suffix –lI (with four harmony variants –lı/–li/–lu/–lü, here –lı). So faydalı literally means “having benefit.”

Why is there no verb equivalent to “is” or “was” in Bugünkü ziyaret çok faydalı?

In Turkish, the present-tense copula –dir (meaning “is”) is normally dropped in everyday statements. A simple adjective-predicate sentence like A çok B stands on its own to mean “A is very B.” Hence Bugünkü ziyaret çok faydalı translates as “Today’s visit is very useful,” without an explicit “is.”

How would you express “was very useful” (past tense) instead of “is very useful”?

To mark past tense, add the past copula –(y)dI to the adjective:
Bugünkü ziyaret çok faydalıydı.
Here –ydı signals past (“was”).

Why does çok come before faydalı, and could you switch their order?

çok is an adverb modifying the adjective faydalı, so it naturally precedes it (“very useful”). Adverbs in Turkish generally appear before the words they modify, so faydalı çok would sound odd.

What part of speech is ziyaret, and why doesn’t it take any suffix or article in this sentence?

ziyaret is a noun meaning “visit.” In Turkish:

There are no articles like the or a; definiteness comes from context or suffixes (genitive/possessive or –ki).
Subjects of nominal sentences appear in the bare (nominative) form with no case ending.

In Bugünkü ziyaret çok faydalı, bugünkü already specifies which visit, so ziyaret stays unsuffixed.