Questions & Answers about Ziyaret ne zaman başlıyor?
Literally, what does ne zaman mean?
It literally translates to 'what time' (ne = what, zaman = time). While English uses 'when', Turkish asks 'what time' to find out the time of an event. Notice that question words in Turkish usually sit right in front of the verb!
The dictionary form of the verb is başlamak (to start). Why does it become başlıyor instead of başlayor?
This is due to a rule called vowel narrowing. When a verb root ends in -a or -e (like başla-), and you add the present continuous suffix -iyor, that final vowel narrows to fit the suffix. So, the a changes to ı, giving us başlıyor.
The translation says 'the visit', but where is the word for 'the' in Ziyaret?
Turkish doesn't have a specific word for 'the' (a definite article). When a noun is the subject of the sentence, like Ziyaret is here, it is automatically understood as specific ('the visit') rather than general ('a visit').
Why does the Turkish sentence use the present continuous tense (başlıyor / is starting) instead of the simple present (starts)?