Learn Turkish: Roman çok ilginç değil. - The novel is not very interesting.

In this sentence, çok comes right before the adjective ilginç (interesting), so it translates perfectly to "very". However, when you use çok before a noun or with an action verb, it usually means "a lot" or "many".

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

Turkish doesn't use a separate word like "is" or "are" for simple descriptive sentences. The word değil handles the negative part, essentially meaning "is not" all by itself. If the sentence were positive ("The novel is very interesting"), you would just say Roman çok ilginç without needing an extra verb.

Does roman mean someone from Rome?

It looks like it, but roman is a "false friend." In Turkish, it means "novel" (a fictional book), borrowed from French. If you wanted to talk about a Roman person, you would use the word Romalı.

What exactly does değil negate here?

değil negates the phrase that comes right before it. Here, it is negating çok ilginç (very interesting), so the meaning is "is not very interesting". It means the novel might be a little interesting, but not a lot!