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Questions & Answers about Kale çok eski görünüyor.
Why is there no article before Kale?
Turkish does not have definite (the) or indefinite (a/an) articles. Nouns stand alone, and context or a word like bir (“one/a”) can make them indefinite if needed. Here, Kale simply means “castle” or “the castle” depending on context.
Why is there no “is” in this sentence?
In Turkish, simple states often use a zero‐copula in the present tense: Kale eski. means “The castle is old.” In Kale çok eski görünüyor, the verb görünmek (“to appear/to seem”) already carries the sense of “is looking,” so you don’t insert an extra “is.”
What does görünüyor mean and how is it formed?
Görünüyor comes from the intransitive verb görünmek (“to appear; to seem”). You drop -mek to get the stem görün-, then add the present‐continuous suffix -üyor. The result literally means “it is appearing,” but we translate it as “it looks/seems.”
What’s the difference between görünmek and görmek?
Görmek is transitive and means “to see” (you see something). Görünmek is intransitive and means “to appear,” “to seem,” or “to be visible” (something appears/seems a certain way).
Why is çok placed before eski?
Çok is an adverb meaning “very,” and in Turkish adverbs generally precede the words they modify. So çok eski means “very old.”
Why does eski not change form to agree with kale?
Turkish adjectives do not inflect for number, gender, or case. They remain the same regardless of the noun. Only nouns take plural (-ler/-lar) or case endings.
Why is the verb at the end of the sentence?
Turkish follows a Subject–Object–Verb (SOV) word order by default. When there’s no direct object, it’s more like Subject–Adverb–Adjective–Verb, but the main verb still goes last.
How would you turn this into a yes/no question?
You add the question particle -mu/-mü/-mi/-mı after the word it refers to (often the verb) and raise your intonation. Here:
Kale çok eski görünüyor mu?
= “Does the castle look very old?”
How do you make the sentence negative?
Insert the negative suffix -me/-ma after the verb stem and before the tense marker:
görünmüyor (“doesn’t look/seem”).
So: Kale çok eski görünmüyor. = “The castle doesn’t look very old.”