Markete geç gidince sadece bayat ekmek kaldı.

When I went to the market late, only stale bread was left.

Breakdown of Markete geç gidince sadece bayat ekmek kaldı.

• ekmek: the bread
• gitmek: to go
• market: the market
• sadece: only

Questions & Answers about Markete geç gidince sadece bayat ekmek kaldı.

Why is it markete and not just market?

Because gitmek means to go, and destinations usually take the dative case in Turkish.

• market = market
• markete = to the market

The dative ending is -a / -e, chosen by vowel harmony. Since market has a front vowel, it takes -e.

So:

• markete gitmek = to go to the market

What does geç mean here?

Here, geç means late.

In this sentence it works like an adverb, describing how/when the going happened:

• geç gitmek = to go late
• markete geç gidince = when/after going to the market late

So geç is modifying the action gidince.

What exactly does gidince mean?

Gidince comes from gitmek and the suffix -ince.

It means something like:

• when ... goes/went
• after ... going
• sometimes even since/because ... went

So:

• gidince = when/after going

In this sentence, Markete geç gidince means when/after going to the market late.

This -ince form is very common in Turkish for making a time clause.