Learn Turkish: Manken, podyumda düşmekten korkarak yürüyor. - The fashion model is walking on the runway afraid of falling.

The suffix -arak (or -erek) is added to verbs to show how an action is performed, translating roughly to "by doing" or "while doing". Here, it attaches to the verb root kork- (to fear). korkarak tells us exactly how the model is walking: she is walking while fearing (or simply, afraid).

Why does düşmek (to fall) have the -ten ending?

In English, you are afraid of something, but in Turkish, the verb korkmak (to fear) requires the thing you fear to take the ablative "from" case (-dan/-den/-tan/-ten). So, "afraid of falling" is literally expressed as "fearing from falling" (düşmekten korkarak).

Is it normal to add case endings directly to a dictionary-form verb like düşmek?

Yes! The dictionary form of a verb (ending in -mak or -mek) acts as a "verbal noun"—it represents the concept of the action itself, like "falling" or "to fall". Because it functions like a noun, you can safely attach noun case endings to it. That is how we get düşmekten.

Does podyum mean "runway" or "podium"?