Hastanede asistanlık yapmak zor bir görev.

Doing an assistantship in the hospital is a difficult task.

Breakdown of Hastanede asistanlık yapmak zor bir görev.

• olmak: to be
• bir: a
• yapmak: to do
• zor: difficult
• görev: the task
• -de: in
• hastane: the hospital
• asistanlık: the assistantship

Questions & Answers about Hastanede asistanlık yapmak zor bir görev.

What does Hastanede mean and how is it formed?

Hastanede means “in/at the hospital.” It’s formed by taking the noun hastane (“hospital”) and adding the locative suffix -de, which marks “at” or “in.” Because of vowel harmony, hastane (last vowel “e”) takes -de (the “e” variant).

What is asistanlık and how does it differ from asistan?

Asistan means “assistant” (the person). By adding the suffix -lık, which creates an abstract noun or denotes a profession, you get asistanlık, meaning “assistantship,” “residency,” or “the act/state of being an assistant.”

Why do we use yapmak after asistanlık? Isn’t asistanlık already a noun?

Yes, asistanlık is a noun, but in Turkish you often combine a noun with yapmak (“to do/make”) to form a verbal phrase meaning “to perform that noun.”
• asistanlık yapmak = “to do an assistantship” = “to work as an assistant.”

Why is there no word for “is” (the copula) in Hastanede asistanlık yapmak zor bir görev?

In Turkish, the present-tense copula (i)dür is usually dropped in everyday and written language. So you simply state X zor bir görev, and it’s understood as “X is a difficult task.”

What role does bir play in zor bir görev? Could you omit it?

Bir is the indefinite article “a/an.”
• zor bir görev = “a difficult task.”
If you drop bir and say zor görev, it’s more like a general label “difficult task” (no article), or you might use it in lists or titles, but it loses the clear “a” meaning.

What case is görev in, and how do we know?

Görev is in the nominative case as part of a nominal predicate. There’s no object here, and the copula is implied, so görev stays in its base form without any case suffix.

How is the word order structured in this sentence?

Turkish generally follows Subject–Object–Verb (SOV). Here:
• Subject: “Hastanede asistanlık yapmak” (a verbal noun phrase)
• Predicate: “zor bir görev” (with the copula omitted)
You could think of it as [Subject] [Predicate], where the verb “to be” is implied rather than explicitly stated.

Can you break down the whole sentence morphologically?

Sure:
• hastane (“hospital”) + -de (locative) → hastanede (“at the hospital”)
• asistan (“assistant”) + -lık (noun-forming) → asistanlık (“assistantship”)
• asistanlık + yapmak (“to do”) → “to do assistantship”
• zor (“difficult”) + bir (“a/an”) + görev (“task”) → “a difficult task”
Overall: “To do an assistantship in the hospital is a difficult task.”