Ağabeyim bugün işe dolmuşla gitti, çünkü araba serviste kaldı.

Ağabeyim is made of:

• ağabey = older brother
• -im = my

So ağabeyim means my older brother.

This is a very common Turkish pattern:

• annem = my mother
• babam = my father
• arkadaşım = my friend

The possessive ending changes according to vowel harmony, so it is not always -im.

Yes.

• ağabeyim is the fuller, more standard form.
• abim is very common in everyday speech and means the same thing: my older brother.
• abi usually means older brother or is used like bro / big brother when addressing someone.

So in casual Turkish, many people would naturally say Abim bugün işe dolmuşla gitti...

Because gitmek usually takes a destination in the dative case, which often corresponds to to in English.

• iş = work
• işe = to work

So:

• okula gittim = I went to school
• eve gidiyor = he/she is going home
• işe gitti = he/she went to work

This is an important pattern:

• bir yere gitmek = to go to a place

Dolmuşla means by dolmuş or with a dolmuş.

It has two parts:

• dolmuş = a shared minibus / shared taxi route vehicle
• -la / -le = with, by means of

So:

• otobüsle = by bus
• trenle = by train
• arabayla = by car
• dolmuşla = by dolmuş

This suffix is attached directly to the noun.

A dolmuş is a specifically Turkish kind of public transport, so it does not match perfectly with one single English word.

Because Turkish normally puts the main verb at the end of the clause.

This sentence follows a very typical Turkish order:

• Ağabeyim = my older brother
• bugün = today
• işe = to work
• dolmuşla = by dolmuş
• gitti = went

So Turkish often looks like:

Subject + time + place/direction + means + verb

English is much less strict about putting the verb last, but in Turkish this is the normal default structure.

Çünkü means because.

It connects two full clauses:

• Ağabeyim bugün işe dolmuşla gitti
• çünkü araba serviste kaldı

A useful thing to notice is that after çünkü, Turkish still uses a normal finite clause. You do not need a special verb form here.

Compare:

• ... çünkü araba serviste kaldı = ... because the car stayed/was left in the shop
• ... araba serviste kaldığı için = ... because the car was in the shop

Both are possible, but they are built differently.

Serviste means at the service shop / in the repair shop / at the mechanic's.

It is:

• servis = service, servicing, repair service
• -te = in / at / on

So serviste means in service or, more naturally here, at the repair shop.

Why -te and not -de? Because the locative suffix changes according to the final consonant of the word:

• after a voiceless consonant: -te / -ta
• after a voiced consonant: -de / -da

Since servis ends in s, which is voiceless, the form is serviste.

Compare:

• evde = at home
• okulda = at school
• parkta = in the park
• serviste = at the service shop

Because kalmak often means to stay, remain, be left somewhere.

So araba serviste kaldı gives the idea that the car ended up staying at the service shop, or had to remain there.

That is why it fits this situation very well: the older brother went by dolmuş because the car was not available; it was still at the shop.

So kaldı here is more expressive than a simple was.

Both are in the simple past tense.

gitti

• verb stem: git- = go
• past tense suffix: -di / -dı / -du / -dü or -ti / -tı / -tu / -tü

Because git- ends in a voiceless consonant t, the suffix appears as -ti:

• git + ti = gitti

kaldı

• verb stem: kal- = stay, remain
• past tense suffix here is -dı

Because kal- ends in a voiced consonant l, the suffix appears as -dı:

• kal + dı = kaldı

So:

• gitti = went
• kaldı = stayed / remained

Because Turkish does not use articles the way English does.

So:

• araba can mean a car or the car
• dolmuş can mean a dolmuş or the dolmuş, depending on context

In this sentence, context tells us that araba refers to a specific car already understood in the situation, so English naturally uses the car.

Turkish leaves that unstated unless there is a special reason to make it explicit.

Yes, Turkish word order is flexible, but changing it changes the emphasis.

The neutral version is:

Ağabeyim bugün işe dolmuşla gitti, çünkü araba serviste kaldı.

Possible variations include:

• Bugün ağabeyim işe dolmuşla gitti... → emphasizes today
• Ağabeyim işe bugün dolmuşla gitti... → possible, but less neutral
• Ağabeyim bugün dolmuşla işe gitti... → also possible

The verb usually still stays near the end, especially in standard sentence structure.

It is partly a general grammar pattern and partly a common expression.

The grammar pattern

With gitmek, destinations usually take the dative:

• eve gitmek = to go home
• okula gitmek = to go to school
• işe gitmek = to go to work

The common expression

İşe gitmek is also a very common fixed phrase in daily life, so it is worth learning as a chunk.

A native speaker will immediately recognize it as the normal way to say go to work.