Elon.io is an online learning platform
We have an entire course teaching Turkish grammar and vocabulary.
Questions & Answers about O kapılar büyük.
Why is it O and not Onlar for "those"?
In English we change "that" to "those", but in Turkish, pointing words like O (that/those) and Bu (this/these) never take a plural suffix when they are placed directly in front of a noun. You only make the noun itself plural. So, O kapılar covers "those doors".
Why do we use -lar for the plural of kapı instead of -ler?
This is due to 2-way vowel harmony. To choose between -lar and -ler, look at the last vowel of the noun. The last vowel in kapı is ı. Because ı is a back vowel (along with a, o, and u), it takes the matching back-vowel suffix -lar.
Since "doors" is plural, shouldn't the word for "big" also be plural (büyükler)?
No, adjectives in Turkish do not change to match the noun they describe. The adjective büyük stays in its base form regardless of whether the subject is singular or plural.
Where is the word for "are" in this sentence?
Turkish doesn't use a separate word for "am", "is", or "are". When describing something, you just put the subject and the adjective together. So, O kapılar büyük literally means "Those doors big", and the "are" is naturally understood.