Learn Turkish: Salyangoz ufakça bir mercan yiyor. - The snail is eating a rather small coral.

The word ufak means "small." When we attach the softening suffix -ça, it acts like the English suffix "-ish" or words like "rather" and "somewhat." It softens the adjective, so ufakça means "rather small" or "smallish."

Why does the suffix take the form -ça here instead of -ca?

This is due to consonant harmony (often remembered by the rule Fıstıkçı Şahap). The root word ufak ends with the voiceless consonant k. When adding a suffix that normally starts with the voiced consonant c, it must harden to ç to match. Combined with a-type vowel harmony, the suffix becomes -ça.

Why is the word order ufakça bir mercan instead of bir ufakça mercan?

In Turkish, when a noun has both an adjective and the indefinite article bir (a/an), the adjective almost always comes first. The standard pattern is [Adjective] + bir + [Noun], which literally translates as "rather small a coral."

I know the verb "to eat" is yemek. Why is it spelled yiyor here instead of yeyor?