Learn Turkish: Hasta adam ilaca bugün başlıyor. - The sick man is starting the medicine today.

This is a great example of consonant mutation! When we add a suffix starting with a vowel (like the -a ending here) to a word ending in k, t, p, or ç, that final consonant usually softens. Here, the ç in ilaç softens to a c, making it ilaca instead of "ilaça". This makes the word easier to pronounce.

Why do we add the -a suffix to ilaç in the first place?

In Turkish, you don't just start something, you start to something. The verb başlamak (to start) requires the dative case (the to/towards suffix) for the object being started. Because of vowel harmony, we add -a to the end of the word to connect it to the verb.

The dictionary form of the verb is başlamak. Why does it change to başlıyor instead of "başlayor"?

This happens because of a rule called vowel narrowing. When a verb ends in a wide vowel like a or e, and you add the present continuous suffix -yor, that wide vowel gets squeezed into a narrow one (ı, i, u, or ü). So, başla plus the continuous tense becomes başlıyor.

Could I put bugün at the very beginning of the sentence?