Learn Hardcore Turkish: Gösteri biter bitmez salonda büyük bir kahkaha koptu. - As soon as the show ended, a big burst of laughter broke out in the hall.

Gösteri biter bitmez salonda büyük bir kahkaha koptu.

As soon as the show ended, a big burst of laughter broke out in the hall.

Breakdown of Gösteri biter bitmez salonda büyük bir kahkaha koptu.

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Questions & Answers about Gösteri biter bitmez salonda büyük bir kahkaha koptu.

What does “biter bitmez” mean, and why is the verb repeated?

“Biter bitmez” literally combines:

biter – “it ends / it finishes” (aorist/present simple form of bitmek)
bitmez – “it does not end” (negative aorist)

But in this fixed pattern -er -mez, the second part -mez no longer means “not”. Instead, “-er -mez” is a set construction that means:

“as soon as / the moment (something) happens”

So “Gösteri biter bitmez” = “As soon as the show ended” / “The moment the show was over”.

The repetition is not emphasis; it is just how this time-clause pattern is formed in Turkish: verb (aorist) + same verb (negative aorist).

Why is it “biter bitmez” and not “bitti bitmez”?

The “-er -mez” pattern requires the aorist (general/present habitual) stem, not the simple past:

doğar doğmaz – as soon as (it) is born
çıkar çıkmaz – as soon as (he/she/it) goes out
gelir gelmez – as soon as (he/she/it) comes
biter bitmez – as soon as (it) ends

Using bitti bitmez would sound wrong to native speakers because it breaks this fixed grammatical pattern.

Even though the Turkish verb form is aorist, in English you translate the whole phrase with a past meaning in context:

Gösteri biter bitmez… → “As soon as the show ended…”

Could I say “Gösteri bittiğinde salonda büyük bir kahkaha koptu” instead? What’s the difference?

Yes, you can say:

Gösteri bittiğinde salonda büyük bir kahkaha koptu.

This means roughly the same thing: “When the show ended, a big laugh burst out in the hall.”

Nuance:

biter bitmez = as soon as, emphasizes immediacy, “the very moment it ended”
bittiğinde = when / by the time it ended, more neutral, doesn’t highlight “instantly” as strongly

So “biter bitmez” sounds a bit more vivid and instantaneous.

What exactly does “salonda” mean, and what is the role of -da?

salon = “hall”, “large room”, “auditorium”, depending on context
-da / -de / -ta / -te = locative case suffix, meaning “in / at / on”

So:

salon → “hall”
salon
- -da → salonda = “in the hall / in the auditorium”

The form -da vs -de depends on vowel harmony and consonant harmony. With salon, you get salonda.

Functionally, salonda tells you where the laugh broke out.

What does “büyük bir kahkaha koptu” literally mean?

Breakdown:

büyük = big, large
bir = “a / one” (indefinite, like English “a”)
kahkaha = “a laugh”, especially a loud, clear burst of laughter
koptu = past tense of kopmak, literally “broke off / snapped”, but idiomatic here: “broke out / erupted”

So literally:

“A big laugh broke out.”

It is an idiomatic way to say:

“There was a big burst of laughter.”
“The hall erupted in laughter.”

Why use “kopmak” for laughter? Doesn’t “kopmak” mean “to break”?

Yes, the basic meaning of kopmak is “to break off, to snap, to be separated”.

However, Turkish often extends kopmak to sudden, explosive events, especially sounds or emotional reactions. Some common idiomatic uses:

kahkaha kopmak – for a big laugh to break out
gürültü kopmak – for loud noise/uproar to break out
kıyamet kopmak – literally “for the apocalypse to break loose”; idiomatically: “all hell breaks loose”

So “kahkaha koptu” is a standard idiom meaning “a laugh erupted / people burst out laughing”.

What tense is “koptu”, and who/what is the subject of the sentence?

koptu is simple past tense (-di past) of kopmak:
- stem: kop-
- past: kop
  - -tu → koptu (3rd person singular: “it broke (out)”)

In this sentence, the subject is:

büyük bir kahkaha – “a big laugh”

So structurally:

[Gösteri biter bitmez] – time clause: “as soon as the show ended”
[salonda] – location: “in the hall”
[büyük bir kahkaha] – subject: “a big laugh”
[koptu] – verb: “broke out / erupted”

Why is there a “bir” before “kahkaha”? Could we leave it out?

bir is the Turkish indefinite article / numeral (“a / one”).

büyük kahkaha – “big laugh” (sounds a bit bare; usually you’d add bir)
büyük bir kahkaha – “a big laugh” / “a big burst of laughter”

In many contexts, Turkish uses bir like English uses “a/an” with countable nouns.

You can say “salonda kahkaha koptu” (“laughter broke out in the hall”), but that:

sounds less specific and less vivid
feels more like “there was laughter” rather than “a big burst of laughter”

So “büyük bir kahkaha” is more natural and expressive here.

Is “kahkaha” countable in Turkish, like “a laugh” in English?

Yes, kahkaha can be treated as countable in Turkish:

bir kahkaha – a laugh
iki kahkaha – two laughs (less common, but grammatical)
büyük bir kahkaha – a big laugh

But it’s also used more generally to mean “laughter” in an uncountable sense:

kahkaha attı – he/she laughed (literally “threw a laugh”)
kahkahalarla güldüler – they laughed with loud laughs / they roared with laughter

In this sentence, “büyük bir kahkaha” leans toward the countable, single-burst idea: a single, big eruption of laughter.

Could I move “salonda” to another place in the sentence?

Yes, Turkish word order is relatively flexible. All of these are grammatical, but differ in emphasis:

Gösteri biter bitmez salonda büyük bir kahkaha koptu.
Neutral, common: “As soon as the show ended, a big laugh broke out in the hall.”
Gösteri biter bitmez büyük bir kahkaha salonda koptu.
Slightly more focus on where the laugh broke out (in the hall, not somewhere else).
Salonda gösteri biter bitmez büyük bir kahkaha koptu.
Starts with location, more like: “In the hall, as soon as the show ended, a big laugh broke out.”

The verb usually stays at the end (koptu), but other elements can move around for emphasis or style.

How does this “-er -mez” pattern work with other verbs?

The pattern is:

[verb in aorist 3rd person singular] + [same verb in negative aorist 3rd person singular]

Some examples:

Gelir gelmez beni ara.
As soon as he/she comes, call me.
Eve varır varmaz yemek yedik.
As soon as we arrived home, we ate.
Yağmur başlar başlamaz içeri girdik.
As soon as it started raining, we went inside.
Film biter bitmez ışıkları yaktılar.
As soon as the film ended, they turned on the lights.

Meaning is always “as soon as / the moment that” the action happens.

How should I pronounce “Gösteri biter bitmez salonda büyük bir kahkaha koptu”?

Key points for an English speaker:

Gösteri – GÖS-te-ri
- ö like German ö / French eu (rounded “e”)
- stress on GÖS
biter – bi-TER
- short i (like “bit” but without laxness)
- stress on TER
bitmez – bit-MEZ
- e like “bed”
- stress on MEZ
salonda – sa-LON-da
- o like “pot” (British-ish) or “off”
- stress on LON
büyük – bü-YÜK
- ü like German ü / French u (rounded “ee”)
- stress on YÜK
kahkaha – kah-ka-HA
- each a like “father”
- last HA is stressed; the “hk” cluster is pronounced fully, like “kak-ha-HA”
koptu – KOP-tu
- stress on KOP

Put together with natural stress, it sounds like:

GÖS-te-ri bi-TER bit-MEZ sa-LON-da bü-YÜK bir kah-ka-HA KOP-tu.