Learn Hardcore Turkish: Alışveriş merkezinde bile bazen kendimi yalnız hissediyorum. - Even in the shopping mall, sometimes I feel lonely.

Alışveriş – shopping
- from alış (buying, taking) + veriş (giving), but as a whole it means shopping.
merkez-i-nde – in the center / in the mall
- merkez – center
- -i – 3rd person possessive suffix (its center, the center of …)
- -nde – locative suffix (a variant of -de/-da, meaning in / at / on)
- together alışveriş merkezi = shopping center / mall, and alışveriş merkezinde = in the mall
bile – even
bazen – sometimes
kendi-m-i – myself
- kendi – self
- -m – 1st person singular (my)
- -i – accusative case (object marker)
yalnız – lonely / alone
hisset-iyor-um – I am feeling
- hisset- – to feel
- -iyor – present continuous
- -um – 1st person singular I

So literally:
In the shopping center even sometimes myself lonely am-feeling.
Natural English: Even in the mall, I sometimes feel lonely.

Why is it alışveriş merkezinde and not just alışveriş merkezde?

Because alışveriş merkezi is treated as a compound noun, and merkezi carries a possessive suffix.

alışveriş – shopping
merkez – center
alışveriş merkezi – literally the center of shopping, i.e. shopping center / mall.
In Turkish noun–noun compounds, the second noun usually takes a 3rd person possessive suffix:

alışveriş merkez-i – shopping center (center-of shopping)

Then we add the locative -de/-da (in / at / on):

merkez + i + de → merkezinde (with a buffer consonant n: -nde)

So:

❌ alışveriş merkezde – incorrect (missing possessive)
✅ alışveriş merkezinde – correct: in the shopping center / in the mall

What exactly does bile mean, and why is it placed after alışveriş merkezinde?

bile means even and highlights something surprising or unexpected.

In this sentence:

Alışveriş merkezinde bile – even in the shopping mall

It suggests: The mall is a social, crowded place; you’d expect not to feel lonely there, but I do.

Position and effect:

Alışveriş merkezinde bile bazen kendimi yalnız hissediyorum.
Focus: Even in the mall I sometimes feel lonely.
Bazen alışveriş merkezinde bile kendimi yalnız hissediyorum.
Very similar; bazen (sometimes) is moved, but bile still focuses on alışveriş merkezinde.
If you move bile to a different word, you change what is “even”:
- Ben bile alışveriş merkezinde bazen kendimi yalnız hissediyorum.
  → Even I sometimes feel lonely in the mall. (surprising that I, of all people, feel lonely)

So bile normally comes right after the word it emphasizes.

What is the role of bazen here, and can it move to other positions in the sentence?

bazen means sometimes and is an adverb of frequency.

In Turkish, adverbs like bazen are fairly flexible. All of these are grammatical and natural, with small differences in rhythm/emphasis:

Alışveriş merkezinde bile bazen kendimi yalnız hissediyorum.
Neutral: Even in the mall I sometimes feel lonely.
Bazen alışveriş merkezinde bile kendimi yalnız hissediyorum.
Now bazen starts the sentence, similar to English “Sometimes, even in the mall, I feel lonely.”
Alışveriş merkezinde bile kendimi bazen yalnız hissediyorum.
A bit less common, but possible. Feels slightly more marked; bazen is closer to the verb phrase.

Main rule: you can move bazen around, but keep bile immediately after the word it modifies.

Why is there no ben in the sentence? How do we know it means I?

Turkish is a pro‑drop language: subject pronouns are often omitted because the verb ending already tells you who the subject is.

The verb here is:

hisset-iyor-um – I am feeling

The suffix -um clearly marks 1st person singular (I), so ben is not needed:

(Ben) alışveriş merkezinde bile bazen kendimi yalnız hissediyorum.

Both of these mean “Even in the mall, I sometimes feel lonely.”

With ben: you’re emphasizing or contrasting I (e.g. “I, even I, feel lonely”).
Without ben: neutral, more typical everyday style.

What does kendimi do here, and why is it kendimi and not kendim?

kendimi is a reflexive object: myself.

Form:

kendi – self
-m – my (1st person)
-i – accusative case (direct object)

→ kendimi = myself (as a direct object)

The verb hissetmek (to feel) is usually transitive in Turkish:

kendimi yalnız hissediyorum
= I feel myself lonely → I feel lonely.

Because kendi(m) is the object of hissetmek, we need the accusative -i:

kendim – myself (more like “myself” as a subject or topic)
kendimi – myself (as a direct object)

So:

✅ kendimi yalnız hissediyorum – natural, standard
❓ kendim yalnız hissediyorum – sounds wrong/unnatural

You can say just:

Yalnız hissediyorum. – I feel lonely.

Here, there is no object, so kendimi is simply omitted; the meaning is similar, but the version with kendimi sounds a bit fuller and more explicit.

Why is it kendimi yalnız hissediyorum and not yalnız kendimi hissediyorum?

Word order in Turkish usually follows:

[Object] + [Adjective/Complement] + [Verb]

In our sentence:

kendimi – myself (object)
yalnız – lonely (complement/adjective)
hissediyorum – (I) am feeling (verb)

So kendimi yalnız hissediyorum fits the normal pattern.

yalnız kendimi hissediyorum is grammatically possible but means something different:

yalnız kendimi hissediyorum
≈ “I feel only myself (no one else).”

Here yalnız takes the meaning only, not lonely.
So the order changes the interpretation:

kendimi yalnız hissediyorum → I feel lonely.
yalnız kendimi hissediyorum → I feel only myself (exclusive meaning).

Does yalnız mean alone or lonely here? What about tek başıma?

yalnız is a bit flexible; it can mean:

alone (physically by oneself)
lonely (feeling isolated)
only (as in yalnız bir kişi – only one person, or as a conjunction: yalnız = “but, however”)

In this sentence:

kendimi yalnız hissediyorum → I feel lonely.

Because of hissetmek (“to feel”), the natural reading is an emotional state.

If you wanted to say I am alone (by myself) in the mall, you could say:

Alışveriş merkezinde bile bazen tek başıma oluyorum. – I am sometimes by myself even in the mall.
Alışveriş merkezinde bile bazen tek başıma kalıyorum. – I sometimes end up alone even in the mall.

tek başıma = by myself / on my own, more about the situation, not necessarily the emotion of loneliness.

What tense/aspect is hissediyorum, and how is it different from hissederim?

hissediyorum uses the present continuous:

hisset-iyor-um – I am feeling / I feel (right now / around now)

Nuance: something that is happening currently, or is true around this time, often with adverbs like bazen (sometimes).

hissederim uses the aorist (simple present, -er/-ar form):

hisset-er-im – I (generally) feel / I tend to feel

Compare:

Bazen kendimi yalnız hissediyorum.
→ Sometimes I feel lonely (these days / currently).
Bazen kendimi yalnız hissederim.
→ I sometimes (in general, as a habit or pattern) feel lonely.

Both can be translated as “sometimes I feel lonely”, but:

hissediyorum feels more immediate or ongoing.
hissederim sounds more like a habitual tendency or a general description of your personality.

Why is it merkezinde with -nde, not just merkezide?

The locative ending is basically -de / -da, but:

It changes to -te / -ta after certain consonants (p, ç, t, k, f, h, s, ş) for harmony.
When it comes after another suffix, a buffer consonant -n- often appears.

Here:

base: merkez
add -i (3rd person possessive): merkez-i (its center)
add locative -de:
- merkezi + de → merkezide (raw)
- but Turkish prefers a buffer n: merkezi + nde → merkezinde

So -nde is just: -n- (buffer) + -de (locative).
This pattern shows up often:

ev-i (his/her house) → evinde (in his/her house)
okul-u (his/her school) → okulunda (in his/her school)

Can the word order of the whole sentence change? For example, could I say Bazen bile alışveriş merkezinde kendimi yalnız hissediyorum?

You can change the order of many parts, but some moves become unnatural or change meaning.

Natural variants:

Alışveriş merkezinde bile bazen kendimi yalnız hissediyorum.
Bazen alışveriş merkezinde bile kendimi yalnız hissediyorum.
Bazen kendimi alışveriş merkezinde bile yalnız hissediyorum. (a bit heavier, but okay)

But bile should directly follow the word it emphasizes. So:

❌ Bazen bile alışveriş merkezinde… – sounds wrong, because bile is not clearly attached. Do we mean even sometimes? That’s not a usual idea.

Better:

✅ Bazen alışveriş merkezinde bile kendimi yalnız hissediyorum.
→ Sometimes, even in the mall, I feel lonely.

Rule of thumb:

Move adverbs (bazen) relatively freely.
Keep bile right after its focus word (alışveriş merkezinde bile).

Is alışveriş related to the verbs almak and vermek? Why both?

Yes. alışveriş is historically built from:

almak – to take / to buy
vermek – to give
-ış / -iş – a nominalizing suffix (turns verbs into nouns, often meaning “act of …”)

Originally:

alış – the act of taking/buying
veriş – the act of giving

The combination alışveriş came to mean exchange, then more specifically shopping (the back-and-forth of buying and selling).
Today learners just treat alışveriş as a single noun: shopping.

Could I say Kendimi yalnız hissediyorum alışveriş merkezinde bile bazen? Is that okay?

Grammatically, yes, but stylistically it sounds odd or poetic in normal speech.

Standard, neutral order keeps the place and adverbs before the object/verb:

Alışveriş merkezinde bile bazen kendimi yalnız hissediyorum.

Your version:

Kendimi yalnız hissediyorum alışveriş merkezinde bile bazen.

This is possible in spoken language for emphasis (starting with the emotional core: I feel lonely), but it feels:

more dramatic or colloquial,
less typical for simple learner sentences.

For clear, natural Turkish, prefer:

Bazen alışveriş merkezinde bile kendimi yalnız hissediyorum.