Bu yemekte çok kalori var.

There are many calories in this meal.

Breakdown of Bu yemekte çok kalori var.

• olmak: to be
• bu: this
• yemek: the meal
• çok: many
• -te: in
• kalori: the calorie

Questions & Answers about Bu yemekte çok kalori var.

Why do we use yemekte instead of yemek?

yemekte is the locative form of yemek (“food/meal”). The suffix -te (after the vowel e, due to vowel harmony) means “in/at,” so Bu yemekte… literally means “In this meal…”

What does var mean in this sentence, and why isn’t there another verb?

var is the Turkish existential verb meaning “there is/there are.” It shows that something exists or is present. When you use var, you don’t need another main verb for existence.

Why doesn’t kalori take a plural ending even though we mean “many calories”?

In Turkish with var, the noun stays in the nominative (uninflected) form. Plus, borrowed count nouns like kalori often function as mass nouns when quantified by çok. If you want to give a precise number you’d still say, for example, 100 kalori, not 100 kaloriler.

What role does çok play here, and could we use a different word?

çok is a quantifier/adverb meaning “many” or “a lot of.” It goes immediately before the noun it modifies: çok kalori = “a lot of calories.” You could also say çok fazla kalori (much too many calories).

Can we say Bu yemek çok kalorili instead of Bu yemekte çok kalori var?

Yes. kalorili (with the adjectival suffix -li) means “high-calorie.”
• Bu yemek çok kalorili. = “This meal is very high in calories,” focusing on the meal’s quality rather than stating existence.

How would you express the opposite, “There aren’t any calories in this meal”?

You replace var with yok (the negative existential verb):
• Bu yemekte kalori yok.

Are there other ways to say “This meal has a lot of calories” in Turkish?

Yes. For example:

• Yemeğin kalorisi çok yüksek. (The meal’s calorie count is very high.)
• Bu yemek yüksek kalorili. (This meal is high-calorie.)
• Bu yemekte çok fazla kalori var. (There are way too many calories in this meal.)

How exactly is yemekte formed from the root yemek?

1. Take the noun yemek.
2. Drop or ignore the final -k when adding the case ending.
3. Add the locative suffix -te (because e → te by vowel harmony).
   Result: yemek → yeme- + -te → yemekte.

Is the word order in Bu yemekte çok kalori var fixed?

Turkish is fairly flexible. The neutral order is Bu yemekte çok kalori var, but for emphasis you could also say:

• Çok kalori bu yemekte var.
• Var bu yemekte çok kalori.
  Each variation shifts the focus slightly.

Why isn’t the noun yemek itself marked with a possessive when we talk about “this meal”?

Here bu (“this”) directly modifies yemek like a determiner in English. In Turkish you only add a possessive suffix when someone “owns” or “belongs to” the noun (e.g., yemeğin kalorisi = “the meal’s calories”). With bu you simply say bu yemek without extra suffixes.