Learn Hardcore Turkish: Oda dağınık.

In Turkish, the present-tense copula (the verb olmak, “to be”) is usually omitted in simple descriptive statements. Instead of saying “Oda (is) dağınık,” you simply say “Oda dağınık.” The meaning “The room is messy” is understood without an explicit “is.”

What grammatical case is oda in here?

Here oda is in the unmarked nominative case, functioning as the subject. Turkish often leaves the subject without any special ending when there’s no ambiguity.

Why isn’t there an article like “a” or “the” before oda?

Turkish has no indefinite or definite articles like English. Whether you mean “a room” or “the room” is deduced from context. If you need to be specific you can use:

Demonstratives: bu oda (“this room”), o oda (“that room”)
Possessives: benim odam (“my room”)

Why doesn’t dağınık take an ending like -dir (i.e. dağınıktır)?

The suffix -dir is the formal third-person copula in Turkish, often used in writing or to add emphasis. In everyday speech it’s dropped. So:

Formal/written: Oda dağınıktır.
Colloquial: Oda dağınık.

I thought adjectives in Turkish usually come before nouns. Why is it noun + adjective here?

Turkish distinguishes between attributive and predicative adjectives:

Attributive (directly modifying a noun) precede the noun: dağınık oda = “messy room.”
Predicative (linking back to the subject with “to be”) follow the noun: Oda dağınık = “The room is messy.”

How would I say “rooms are messy” in Turkish? Do I need to pluralize the adjective too?

For a predicative adjective, only the noun takes the plural suffix -lar/-ler; the adjective stays unchanged. Example:

Odalar dağınık. = “Rooms are messy.”
If you use it attributively, you’d say dağınık odalar = “messy rooms.”

How do I say “my room is messy” or “your room is messy”?

Attach the appropriate possessive suffix to oda and add the person-marker:

Benim odam dağınık. = “My room is messy.”
Odan dağınık. = “Your room is messy” (informal singular).
Sizin odanız dağınık. = “Your room is messy” (formal or plural you).

Is dağınık derived from a verb or noun? How was it formed?

Dağınık is a descriptive adjective meaning “messy” or “disorderly.” It comes from the verb dağılmak (“to scatter, disperse”) plus the adjective-forming suffix -ık/-ik, giving the sense of “that which is scattered.”