Learn Turkish: Dekor yıkıldığında salonda büyük bir sessizlik oldu. - When the set collapsed, there was a great silence in the hall.

This uses the exact time structure from your current lesson! It starts with the verb yıkılmak (to collapse). Then we add the participle suffix -dık (which softens to -dığ), the 3rd person possessive -ı (meaning "its", referring to the set), and the locative case -nda (at/in). Literally, it translates to "at the time of its collapsing."

I know the verb yıkmak means "to destroy." Where does the -ıl- in yıkıldığında come from?

The -ıl- is the passive suffix. While yıkmak means "to knock something down," adding -ıl- creates yıkılmak, meaning "to be knocked down" or "to collapse." It emphasizes that the set fell down, rather than the set knocking something else down.

The translation says "there was a great silence." Why does the Turkish use oldu (became/happened) instead of vardı?

In Turkish, var and vardı are used for static existence, like describing a piece of furniture that was already sitting in a room. However, when a new state or event suddenly happens, like a sudden silence filling a room after a loud crash, Turkish uses olmak. Here, sessizlik oldu essentially means a silence happened or came into being.

Could I say bir büyük sessizlik instead of büyük bir sessizlik?