Learn Turkish: Kız bakkaldan çıkıyor. - The girl is coming out of the grocery store.

This is the ablative suffix being taught in this lesson, meaning 'from' or 'out of'. It follows vowel harmony: the last vowel in bakkal is 'a', which is a back vowel, so we use an 'a' in the suffix. It uses 'd' instead of 't' because bakkal ends in 'l', which is a voiced consonant, not an unvoiced one.

Does bakkaldan always mean 'out of the grocery store'?

The suffix -dan means 'from' or 'out of'. Its exact translation into English depends on the verb. Because the verb here is çıkıyor (is exiting or coming out), bakkaldan translates smoothly to 'out of the grocery store'. With a different verb, it might simply mean 'from the grocery store'.

What is the root of the verb çıkıyor?

The root is çık, which comes from the verb çıkmak (to go out or to exit). The -ıyor ending is the present continuous tense, meaning the action is happening right now. The ı acts as a vowel bridge to connect the root's final consonant k to the yor suffix.

How do we know it means 'the girl' and not 'a girl' since there is no word for 'the'?

Turkish does not have a definite article like the English word 'the'. When a noun like kız is the subject at the start of a sentence, it is usually understood as specific by default, so we translate it as 'the girl'. To specifically say 'a girl', you would add the word for one and say bir kız.