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Bina fırtınada zarar gördü.

Bina fırtınada zarar gördü.
The building was damaged in the storm.
FromLesson 54inHardcore Turkish
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Breakdown of Bina fırtınada zarar gördü.

bina
the building
-da
in
fırtına
the storm
zarar görmek
to be damaged

Questions & Answers about Bina fırtınada zarar gördü.

What does fırtınada mean, and what is the role of the -da suffix?
The suffix -da is the locative case marker, meaning “in/at/on.” So fırtınada literally means “in the storm,” indicating that the damage happened during or within the storm.
Why is zarar gördü used to express “was damaged”?
Zarar görmek is an idiomatic verb phrase meaning “to suffer damage.” Although it literally translates as “see damage,” in Turkish it functions like a passive: “to be damaged” or “to suffer harm.” You wouldn’t use zarar yapmak (“make damage”) or zarar etmek (“incur a loss”) to say “the building was damaged.”
Why does bina have no suffix or article before it?
  1. Turkish does not have an indefinite article (“a/an”), and the definite article “the” is also unmarked.
  2. Bina is the sentence subject in the nominative case, which in Turkish is unmarked (no suffix). Context tells you whether it’s “a building” or “the building.”
Is zarar görmek already a passive form?

Not exactly. Zarar görmek is a fixed stative construction. If you wanted a more explicit passive with “by the storm,” you could say:
Bina, fırtına tarafından zarar gördü.
Here tarafından marks the agent (“by the storm”). But in everyday speech, Bina fırtınada zarar gördü is perfectly natural.

Why is the verb gördü at the end of the sentence?
Turkish follows a Subject-Object-Verb (SOV) word order. The verb typically comes last. So you have: subject (Bina), adverbial phrase (fırtınada), verb phrase (zarar gördü).
Could you say Binada fırtınada zarar gördü?

You could, but it changes the meaning.
• Bina fırtınada zarar gördü = “The building was damaged in the storm.”
• Binada fırtınada zarar gördü = “In the building, it was damaged in the storm.” (Implies something inside the building got damaged during the storm.)

How would you explicitly say “The building was damaged by the storm”?

You add the passive agent marker tarafından:
Bina fırtına tarafından zarar gördü.

This makes “by the storm” clear, though it’s often omitted in everyday Turkish since context suffices.

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