Learn Turkish: Adam havaalanından dönüyor. - The man is returning from the airport.

The question word nereden means 'where from'. If you wanted to ask where the man is returning from, you would ask Adam nereden dönüyor?. The answer uses the 'from' suffix -dan to match the question. Just as nere-den ends in -den, havaalanın-dan ends in -dan to show the starting point of the movement.

Why is there an 'n' before the '-dan' in 'havaalanından'?

The Turkish word for airport is havaalanı (literally 'air field'). When you add a direction or location suffix like -dan (from) to a compound noun that ends in its own special suffix (like the -ı in havaalanı), you must insert the buffer letter -n- to connect them smoothly. So it becomes havaalanı-n-dan.

Why does the verb 'dönüyor' use the '-üyor' ending?

This is because of vowel harmony. The root of the verb 'to return' is dön. According to the rules for the present continuous tense (actions happening right now), because the vowel in dön is ö, the matching vowel ü is used to connect the root to the -yor ending, making it dön-üyor.

The translation says 'The man', but where is the word for 'the'?