Learn Turkish: İstasyon nerede? - Where is the station?

In English, we usually put question words like "where" at the very beginning of the sentence. In Turkish, the question word often goes exactly where the answer would go. Since the answer might be "İstasyon burada" (The station is here), the question becomes "İstasyon nerede?" (The station is where?).

What exactly does nerede mean?

Nerede is the Turkish word for "where". If you look closely, you might notice it ends with -de, which is the Turkish ending for "in", "on", or "at". Because of this, nerede literally means something closer to "at where".

Where is the word for "is" in this sentence?

Turkish doesn't have a separate, standalone word for "is" or "are". When talking about a "he", "she", "it", or "they", you often just put the subject and the location side-by-side. So, "İstasyon nerede?" literally translates to "Station at-where?" but translates perfectly to "Where is the station?" in English.

Why does İstasyon sound so much like the English word "station"?

İstasyon is a borrowed word! Turkish has many loanwords from French, which often look and sound very similar to their English equivalents. Because Turkish always spells words exactly as they are pronounced, a supportive İ is added to the beginning to make the "st" sound easier to say.