Learn Turkish: Çocuk aşağı bakıyor. - The child is looking down.

In Turkish, a specific set of direction words (like aşağı for down, yukarı for up, içeri for in) usually don't take the direction ending when they simply show the direction of an action. While aşağıya is grammatically possible and sometimes used, using just the plain word aşağı is the standard, natural way to say someone is looking or moving "down".

Doesn't the verb bakmak (to look) usually require the "to/at" ending (-a or -e) on the thing you are looking at?

Yes! If the child were looking at a specific object or animal, like a cat, you would use that ending (kediye bakıyor). But here, the child isn't looking at a noun called "down"—they are just looking in that general direction. Since aşağı acts as a directional adverb here, it doesn't need the ending.

Why does çocuk translate to "the child" instead of "a child"?

Turkish doesn't have a separate word for "the". When a noun like çocuk is the subject at the start of the sentence, it is usually understood as a specific person or thing, so we translate it with "the". If we wanted to say "a child", we would use the word bir (one/a) before it: Bir çocuk aşağı bakıyor.

Why is there an ı in bakıyor?