Learn Turkish: Herkes farklı bir otel seçti. - Everyone chose a different hotel.

Even though herkes refers to a group of people, it acts as a grammatically singular word in Turkish. This is exactly like English, where we say 'everyone chooses' (singular) rather than 'everyone choose' (plural). Therefore, it takes the third-person singular past tense suffix -ti.

In English we say 'a different hotel'. Why is the word order farklı bir otel in Turkish?

In Turkish, the indefinite article bir (a/an) almost always comes right before the noun, placing it between the adjective and the noun. The standard order is Adjective + bir + Noun. If you wrote bir farklı otel, it would sound more like you were emphasizing the number: 'one different hotel'.

Why does the past tense suffix on seçti start with a 't' instead of a 'd'?

The root of the verb 'to choose' is seç-. Because it ends in the hard, voiceless consonant ç, the standard past tense suffix -di hardens into -ti to match it. You might remember this from earlier lessons as the 'Fıstıkçı Şahap' consonant mutation rule.