Meze tabağı zeytin, peynir ve biber içeriyor.

The appetizer plate contains olives, cheese and pepper.

Breakdown of Meze tabağı zeytin, peynir ve biber içeriyor.

• ve: and
• içermek: to contain
• meze tabağı: the appetizer plate
• zeytin: olive
• peynir: cheese
• biber: pepper

Questions & Answers about Meze tabağı zeytin, peynir ve biber içeriyor.

Why is there no article (like “a” or “the”) before meze tabağı?

Turkish doesn’t use separate words for indefinite or definite articles. Nouns stand alone, and you sense definiteness from context. So meze tabağı can mean “an appetizer plate” or “the appetizer plate” depending on the situation.

Why is it meze tabağı and not mezenin tabağı?

Turkish often forms compound nouns by simply placing two nouns together (possessor + possessed). Meze tabağı is exactly that: “appetizer plate.” You only use the genitive-possessive pattern (e.g. mezenin tabağı) when you want to stress literal ownership (“the plate of the meze”), which sounds odd here.

Why don’t zeytin, peynir ve biber have any case endings?

They’re indefinite direct objects in a general statement, so they go unmarked. In Turkish, you add the accusative ending (-i, -ı, -u, -ü) only when the object is definite or specific. Since we simply list some olives, cheese and peppers, no suffix is needed.

What does içeriyor mean, and what tense is it?

içeriyor is the 3rd person singular present continuous of içermek (to contain). Literally it’s “he/she/it is containing,” but in English we would translate it simply as “(it) contains.”

What is the difference between içeriyor and içer?

Turkish has two “present” tenses:
• Aorist (general present) – içer: used for habitual or timeless truths (“It generally contains”).
• Present continuous – içeriyor: used for ongoing states or current situations. In menus or descriptions, içeriyor is very common, even though English would use simple present.

Why is the sentence Subject–Object–Verb (SOV)?

Basic Turkish word order is SOV. Here you have:
Subject = Meze tabağı
Object = zeytin, peynir ve biber
Verb = içeriyor
You can rearrange for emphasis, but the verb almost always comes last.

How would you ask “What does the plate contain?” in Turkish?

You can say:
• Bu tabak ne içeriyor? (literally “This plate, what does it contain?”)
• Meze tabağı neleri içeriyor? (using neleri, the plural accusative of ne, “which things”)

How do you say “appetizer plates” or “our appetizer plates”?

• Plural -lar/-ler: meze tabakları = “appetizer plates”
• Our + plural: add 1st-person-plur possessive -ımız → meze tabaklarımız = “our appetizer plates.”