Learn Turkish: Binanın içindeki mescit neresi? - Where is the prayer room inside the building?

Binanın içindeki mescit neresi?

Where is the prayer room inside the building?

Breakdown of Binanın içindeki mescit neresi?

what place / where (nominative or subject)

mescit

prayer room

Questions & Answers about Binanın içindeki mescit neresi?

Why does this sentence use neresi instead of nerede to ask "where"?

In Turkish, nerede asks for a location (literally "at where"), while neresi asks for the identity of a place (literally "what place"). If you ask "mescit nerede?", you are asking for directions to it. By asking "mescit neresi?", you are asking "which room is the prayer room?"—perhaps you are looking at several doors in a hallway and want to know which specific one is the room you are looking for.

Break down the word içindeki. What does the -ki suffix do here?

It is built from iç (inside) + -i (possessive: its inside) + -n- (buffer) + -de (locative: at/in) + -ki (which is). The -ki suffix attaches to a locative word to turn it into an adjective. So while içinde means "inside," içindeki means "the one that is inside," directly describing the mescit.

Why is it binanın içindeki (with the genitive -nın) rather than just bina içindeki?

We use the genitive suffix -nın because we are talking about the inside of a specific building. Binanın içi is a definite noun compound meaning "the inside of the building." If you said bina içindeki, it would be a general indefinite compound, sounding more like the broad category of "indoor" or "building-interior" prayer rooms.