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Questions & Answers about Çocuklar bahçede.
If I wanted to ask "Where are the children?", how would I form that question?
You would ask Çocuklar nerede?. The question word nerede (where) simply takes the exact place of the location (bahçede) in the sentence.
Why is there a -de at the end of bahçede?
The suffix -de is the Turkish way of saying "in", "on", or "at". Since bahçe means garden, adding -de makes it "in the garden". You will use this suffix to answer almost any nerede (where) question!
There is no verb for "are" in this sentence. Is it still complete?
Yes! In Turkish, simple statements using "am", "is", or "are" usually don't need an actual verb. Çocuklar bahçede literally translates to "Children in-garden", but it functions perfectly as a complete sentence meaning "The children are in the garden."
How do we know it means "The children" and not just "Children"?
Turkish does not have a separate word for "the". However, when a noun is the subject at the start of a sentence like Çocuklar, it is generally understood to be specific. That is why "The children" is the most natural English translation here.