Sekiz kişi toplantıya katıldı.

In Turkish, nouns normally stay singular after numbers.

So:

• sekiz kişi = eight people
• not sekiz kişiler

This is a very common rule:

• iki kitap = two books
• on öğrenci = ten students
• üç gün = three days

Even though the meaning is plural, Turkish usually does not add the plural ending -ler / -lar after a number.

Toplantı means meeting.
Toplantıya is toplantı + -ya, which is the dative case ending here.

The dative case often means:

• to
• into
• sometimes for depending on context

With the verb katılmak (to join / participate in / attend), Turkish uses the dative:

• toplantıya katılmak = to attend the meeting
• literally something like to join to the meeting

Why -ya and not just -a? Because toplantı ends in a vowel, Turkish adds a buffer consonant y before the case ending:

• toplantı + a → toplantıya

In Turkish, verbs do not always need a plural ending when the subject is third-person plural, especially when the subject is explicitly stated.

So:

• Sekiz kişi toplantıya katıldı. = Eight people attended the meeting.

This is completely normal.

You can sometimes see plural marking on the verb in third person plural:

• katıldılar

But with numbered subjects like sekiz kişi, using the singular verb form is very natural and standard.

The dictionary form is katılmak, meaning to join / participate / attend.

It breaks down like this:

• katıl- = verb stem
• -dı = past tense suffix

So:

• katıldı = he/she/it joined / attended And here, because the subject is sekiz kişi, it means:
• eight people attended

This is just how the verb works in Turkish.

Some Turkish verbs require a specific case on the noun that follows them.
Katılmak takes the dative:

• derse katılmak = attend the class
• yarışmaya katılmak = participate in the competition
• toplantıya katılmak = attend the meeting

So even though in English we say attend the meeting, in Turkish the structure is more like join/participate to the meeting.

This is something learners usually need to memorize verb by verb.

Turkish does not have a direct equivalent of the English articles the and a/an.

Whether something is definite or indefinite is understood from context.

So:

• toplantı can mean meeting or the meeting, depending on the situation
• toplantıya katıldı can mean attended a meeting or attended the meeting

In many contexts, the intended meaning is clear without an article.

This word order is very natural, but Turkish word order is more flexible than English.

The neutral order is often:

• Subject + Object/Complement + Verb

So:

• Sekiz kişi toplantıya katıldı.

But you may also hear variations for emphasis:

• Toplantıya sekiz kişi katıldı. = It was eight people who attended the meeting.
• Katıldı toplantıya sekiz kişi. = much less neutral, more stylistic or conversational in special contexts

The verb often comes at the end in standard Turkish.

Kişi means person and is often used in counting, formal language, and statistics.

Examples:

• iki kişi = two people
• kaç kişi? = how many people?
• 100 kişi geldi = 100 people came

İnsan also means person / human, but it is used a bit differently and is not as common in simple counting expressions.

So in a sentence like this, sekiz kişi is the natural choice.

This is the regular simple past tense suffix, which changes form according to vowel harmony and consonant harmony.

The past tense has forms like:

• -dı
• -di
• -du
• -dü and after certain voiceless consonants:
• -tı
• -ti
• -tu
• -tü

Here the verb stem is katıl-, and the correct form is:

• katıl + dı → katıldı

So katıldı means joined / attended in the definite past.

You can tell from both meaning and structure.

In:

• Sekiz kişi toplantıya katıldı

sekiz kişi is the one doing the action, so it is the subject.
Toplantıya is the place/event being joined, marked with the dative case.
Katıldı is the verb.

A rough breakdown:

• Sekiz kişi = subject
• toplantıya = complement required by katılmak
• katıldı = verb

Yes. The exact English translation depends on context.

Katılmak can mean:

• join
• participate in
• attend

So Sekiz kişi toplantıya katıldı could be understood as:

• Eight people attended the meeting
• Eight people joined the meeting
• Eight people participated in the meeting

If the meaning has already been given to the learner, the Turkish grammar stays the same; only the best English wording may vary slightly with context.

A simple approximate pronunciation is:

SEH-kiz kee-SHEE top-lan-TUH-ya ka-tuhl-DUH

A few notes:

• ş = sh
• ı = a vowel that does not exist in English; it sounds somewhat like the vowel in roses or sofa, but without rounding the lips
• stress is often near the end of many Turkish words, though proper sentence rhythm matters too

Word by word:

• Sekiz → SEH-kiz
• kişi → kee-SHEE
• toplantıya → top-lan-TUH-ya
• katıldı → ka-tuhl-DUH