Learn Turkish: Bira içmiyorum, teşekkürler. - I do not drink beer, thank you.

In Turkish, the present continuous tense (-yor) is often used to talk about general habits, where English uses the simple present. Depending on the context, içmiyorum can mean either "I am not drinking (right now)" or "I don't drink (as a habit)."

Why isn't bira marked with the accusative suffix (birayı) since it's the direct object?

In Turkish, you only add the accusative suffix to specific direct objects (like "the beer" or "that beer"). Because the speaker is talking about beer in general, bira stays in its plain, dictionary form.

I know the negative suffix is usually -me or -ma. Why does içmiyorum have a -mi instead?

This is due to a rule called vowel narrowing. The verb root is iç- and the negative is -me. But when you add the -yor ending, it forces the wide vowel e to narrow into an i. So, instead of saying "içmeyorum", it becomes içmiyorum.

Is there a difference between saying teşekkürler and teşekkür ederim here?