Learn Turkish: Kitap yazmak zor mu? - Is writing a book hard?

The suffix -mak creates a verbal noun, which is the dictionary form of a verb. It can translate to "to write" or "writing" depending on what sounds natural in English. Here, Kitap yazmak acts as the subject of the sentence, just like the English phrase "Writing a book".

Why is there no word for "a" (bir) before kitap?

In Turkish, when you are talking about a general activity like "book-writing", you leave out bir. If you said Bir kitap yazmak, it would sound like you are focused on the task of writing one specific, single book, rather than the general concept of being an author.

Why is the word order Kitap yazmak instead of Yazmak kitap?

Turkish almost always puts the object before the verb. Even though yazmak is acting as a noun here ("writing"), it still takes kitap as its object. Therefore, "book" comes before "writing".

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

In Turkish, there is no separate word for "is" when stating a general fact about an "it" (in this case, the act of writing). Placing the adjective (zor) after the subject automatically means "is hard".

Why do we use mu at the end instead of mı or ?