Ne alışveriş merkezi ne de sinema bugün bana çekici geliyor.

Neither the mall nor the cinema seems attractive to me today.

Breakdown of Ne alışveriş merkezi ne de sinema bugün bana çekici geliyor.

• bugün: today
• sinema: the cinema
• bana: me
• ne ... ne de: neither ... nor
• alışveriş merkezi: the mall
• çekici gelmek: to seem attractive

Questions & Answers about Ne alışveriş merkezi ne de sinema bugün bana çekici geliyor.

What does ne ... ne de mean, and how does it work in this sentence?

Ne ... ne de is the Turkish equivalent of “neither … nor …”.

In this sentence:

• ne alışveriş merkezi = neither the shopping mall
• ne de sinema = nor the cinema

Together: Ne alışveriş merkezi ne de sinema = “Neither the shopping mall nor the cinema”.

Some points:

• It connects two (or more) elements of the same type (here: two subjects).
• The first part is just ne + word.
• The second part is ne de + word.
• The negative meaning comes from ne ... ne de, not from the verb form.

Why is the verb geliyor positive? Shouldn’t it be gelmiyor because it means “neither … is appealing”?

In Turkish, with ne ... ne de, the verb usually stays in the affirmative form, even though the overall meaning is negative.

So:

• Ne alışveriş merkezi ne de sinema bugün bana çekici geliyor.
  Literally: “Neither the shopping mall nor the cinema comes attractive to me today.”
  Meaning: “Neither the shopping mall nor the cinema appeals to me today.”

If you say:

• Ne alışveriş merkezi ne de sinema bugün bana çekici gelmiyor.

this sounds like a double negation and is usually felt as awkward or incorrect in standard Turkish.
The negation already comes from ne ... ne de, so you keep the verb positive: geliyor, not gelmiyor.

What is the difference between ne ... ne de and just using ve with a negative verb, like alışveriş merkezi ve sinema bana çekici gelmiyor?

Both express that you find neither of them appealing, but there is a nuance:

• Ne alışveriş merkezi ne de sinema bana çekici geliyor.
  – Stronger, more explicit “neither … nor …” structure.
  – Puts separate focus on each item as rejected.

• Alışveriş merkezi ve sinema bana çekici gelmiyor.
  – Literally “The shopping mall and the cinema are not appealing to me.”
  – Grammatically fine, but sounds more like “this group (mall and cinema) is not appealing.” – It doesn’t highlight the either/or contrast as clearly.

For a learner, ne ... ne de is the cleanest match for English “neither … nor …”.

Why do we say ne alışveriş merkezi ne de sinema and not ne alışveriş merkezleri ne de sinemalar (plurals), like “neither malls nor cinemas”?

Turkish often uses the singular to talk about things in a general sense, where English tends to use the plural.

• alışveriş merkezi can mean:
  • “a shopping mall” (one specific place), or
  • “shopping malls” in general, depending on context.

In this sentence, the speaker is talking about those options in general for today (the mall as an option, the cinema as an option), so singular sounds natural:

• Ne alışveriş merkezi ne de sinema bugün bana çekici geliyor.
  = “Neither the mall nor the cinema appeals to me today.”

You could say alışveriş merkezleri / sinemalar, but then it sounds more like talking about all malls or all cinemas in general, not just “the mall option vs the cinema option” for today.

Why is it alışveriş merkezi and not just alışveriş merkez?

Alışveriş merkezi is a compound noun:

• alışveriş = shopping
• merkez = center
• merkezi = its center (merkez + 3rd person possessive suffix -i)

So alışveriş merkezi literally means “the center of shopping”, which corresponds to “shopping center / mall”.

In many Turkish compound nouns:

• The first noun describes what kind of thing it is.
• The second noun takes a possessive ending (here: -i).

Examples:

• alışveriş merkezi – shopping center
• üniversite hastanesi – university hospital
• şehir merkezi – city center

So alışveriş merkez without -i would be incomplete and ungrammatical.

Why are alışveriş merkezi and sinema not marked with any case endings (like -i, -e, etc.)?

Because in this sentence they are the subjects, and Turkish subjects are normally in the bare nominative form (no case ending).

Structure of the sentence:

• Ne alışveriş merkezi ne de sinema → compound subject
• bugün → time expression (“today”)
• bana → indirect object (“to me”)
• çekici geliyor → predicate (“seems / comes attractive”)

We only use case endings when the noun has a specific role like:

• Accusative (–i): direct object, e.g. sinemayı seviyorum – I like the cinema.
• Dative (–e / –a): “to/towards,” e.g. sinema’ya gidiyorum – I’m going to the cinema.

Here, since alışveriş merkezi and sinema are subjects, they stay unmarked.

What does bana mean here, and why is it bana instead of benim için?

Bana is “to me”, the dative form of ben (I).

• ben (I) + -e / -a (dative “to”) → bana

With personal pronouns ben and sen, Turkish uses special dative forms:

• ben → bana (to me)
• sen → sana (to you)

In this idiom çekici gelmek, the thing that seems attractive is the subject, and the person is in the dative:

• Bu fikir bana çekici geliyor. – This idea seems attractive to me.

You might think of benim için (“for me / in my opinion”), but that sounds different:

• Bu benim için çekici. – This is attractive for me.
• Bu bana çekici geliyor. – This feels / comes across as attractive to me.

In everyday speech about things “seeming” a certain way, bana / sana / ona with gelmek is much more natural than benim için.

What does çekici geliyor literally mean, and is gelmek always “to come”?

Literally:

• çekici – attractive (derived from çekmek, “to pull, attract”)
• geliyor – is coming (from gelmek, “to come”)

So çekici geliyor is literally “comes attractive”, but idiomatically it means:

• “seems attractive”
• “feels appealing”
• “appeals (to someone)”

This is a common pattern in Turkish:

• garip geliyor – it feels/comes across as strange
• mantıklı geliyor – it seems logical
• doğru geliyor – it seems right

So no, gelmek is not always just physical “come”; it’s also used in these perception/feeling expressions, similar to English “seems / feels (to me)”.

Can I change the word order, like Bugün ne alışveriş merkezi ne de sinema bana çekici geliyor? Does it change the meaning?

Yes, you can change the word order; Turkish allows flexible word order, and the meaning remains the same, but the emphasis shifts slightly.

Original:

• Ne alışveriş merkezi ne de sinema bugün bana çekici geliyor.
  Slight focus on the two options (mall vs cinema).

Variant:

• Bugün ne alışveriş merkezi ne de sinema bana çekici geliyor.
  Puts a bit more emphasis on “today”:
  “Today, it’s that neither the mall nor the cinema appeals to me.”

Another possible order:

• Ne alışveriş merkezi ne de sinema bana bugün çekici geliyor.
  Very similar, natural, with light emphasis on bana (“to me”).

All of these are grammatical. The key rule: keep ne X ne de Y as a unit, and çekici geliyor together at the end as the predicate.

How else could I express the same idea in Turkish without çekici geliyor? Are there common alternatives?

Yes, several natural alternatives exist. For example:

1. Using hoşuma gitmek (“to please me / I like it”):

   • Ne alışveriş merkezi ne de sinema bugün hoşuma gidiyor.
     Literally: “Neither the shopping mall nor the cinema goes to my liking today.”

2. Using istemek:

   • Bugün ne alışveriş merkezine gitmek ne de sinemaya gitmek istiyorum.
     “Today I don’t want to go to the mall or to the cinema.”

3. Using ilgi çekmek:

   • Ne alışveriş merkezi ne de sinema bugün ilgimi çekiyor.
     “Neither the shopping mall nor the cinema attracts my interest today.”

All of these keep the same basic meaning, but çekici geliyor is a very natural way to say that something doesn’t feel appealing to you.