Breakdown of Kaykay sporu çocuklar arasında popüler.
olmak
to be
popüler
popular
arasında
among
kaykay sporu
skateboarding
çocuk
child
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Questions & Answers about Kaykay sporu çocuklar arasında popüler.
Why doesn’t Turkish use an article like a or the before kaykay sporu?
Turkish has no separate words for “a” or “the.”
- Definiteness is shown by context, word order or case endings (e.g. accusative).
- Here kaykay sporu simply means the sport of skateboarding, with no extra article needed.
Where is the verb “to be”? Why isn’t there an is in the sentence?
In Turkish, the copula olmak (“to be”) is usually dropped in the simple present tense when you have an adjective predicate.
- popüler by itself functions as “is popular.”
- In very formal or written Turkish you might see popülerdir, but in everyday language the -dir is optional and often omitted.
Why do we say kaykay sporu instead of just kaykay or spor for “skateboarding”?
- kaykay = “skateboard” (the board itself)
- spor = “a sport” (any sport)
To name the activity “skateboarding,” Turkish literally says kaykay sporu (“the sport of skateboarding”).
You could also use kaykaycılık as another noun form meaning the same activity.
Why is there a -u on sporu (why not just spor)?
That -u is the 3rd-person singular possessive suffix on spor, because kaykay sporu is a noun–noun compound meaning “the sport of skateboarding.”
- You attach this suffix to the second noun to show it belongs to the first noun.
What does çocuklar arasında mean, and why is çocuklar plural?
- arasında is a postposition meaning “among” or “between.”
- You form it by putting arasında immediately after the noun.
- çocuk (“child”) takes the plural -lar (not -ler) because of vowel harmony with u, giving çocuklar = “children.”
Why don’t we add another case ending (like -da) to çocuklar? Shouldn’t it be çocuklarda arasında?
arasında already carries the locative sense “among/in between,” so the noun preceding it stays in the bare (nominative) form. You do not add -da when using arasında.
Could we use çocukların arasında instead of çocuklar arasında?
Yes. Adding the genitive plural çocukların (“of the children”) gives çocukların arasında, which emphasizes “among those specific children.”
- Without genitive, çocuklar arasında is a general statement: “among children (in general).”