Nemli oda kötü kokuyor.

The damp room smells bad.

Breakdown of Nemli oda kötü kokuyor.

• oda: the room
• kötü: bad
• kokmak: to smell
• nemli: damp

Questions & Answers about Nemli oda kötü kokuyor.

Why is there no word for the or a before oda?

Turkish does not use definite or indefinite articles like the or a. A bare noun such as oda can mean “a room” or “the room,” depending on context. Here Nemli oda simply means “(a/the) damp room.”

What does the suffix -li in nemli signify?

-li is an adjective-forming suffix that attaches to a noun to mean “with [noun]” or “having [noun].” With vowel harmony, nem (moisture) + -li = nemli, i.e. “damp” or “moist.”

Why is the adjective nemli placed before the noun oda?

Just like in English, adjectives in Turkish precede the nouns they modify. So nemli oda literally reads “damp room.”

Why is oda not marked with any case ending in this sentence?

In Turkish, the subject of a finite verb stays in the unmarked nominative case. Since oda is the subject (“the room” that is doing the smelling), it takes no additional suffix.

How does kokmak become kokuyor here?

kokmak means “to smell.” For the present continuous tense you use:

1. The verb stem kok-
2. The progressive suffix -uyor (with vowel harmony)
3. The zero ending for third-person singular
   Together: kok- + ‑uyor + ∅ = kokuyor (“(it) is smelling”).

Is kötü functioning as an adjective or an adverb in kötü kokuyor?

Although kötü is fundamentally an adjective (“bad”), here it modifies the verb kokuyor, so it plays the role of an adverb: “smells bad(ly).”

How would you say “It smells bad in the damp room”?

Use the locative case -da on oda to mark “in the room”:
Nemli odada kötü kokuyor.
Here nemli odada = “in the damp room,” and the impersonal “it” is understood from kokuyor.