"A group of people is going to that hotel."
Translation:Bir grup insan şu otele gidiyor.
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Can someone explain the "grup insan" construction? It's unlike any other I've seen in Turkish.
Bir kilo peynir - 1 kg of cheese
bir bardak şarap - a glass of wine
bir şişe bira - a bottle of beer
bir grup insan - a group of people
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I might have missed something then, but could you please explain why we don't use the accusative in this case?
Do you mean a genitive construction like "bir grubun insanı"? I was wondering about this too. German does something similar with "eine Tasse Kaffee" for "a cup of coffee" -- but literally, it's "a cup coffee," similarly to how the Turkish seems to work here.
On "bir grup insan"? That is the subject, and it never takes the accusative.
Okay in that case it is like another construction I've seen - thanks!
The comments to these sentences have detailed explanations of this construction and why a noun compound is not used here:
https://www.duolingo.com/comment/8001709
https://www.duolingo.com/comment/12012604
https://www.duolingo.com/comment/11288812
I think it would be wrong. Because the subject is "a group (of people)". It's one group, it's singular, so I don't think we would say "gidiyorlar". I don't know though, I'm not a native Turkish speaker.
No, in Turkish, wherever (well, almost wherever) there is a word in front of a noun that makes clear you are dealing with the plural version of that word, the word itself must remain in the singular. So: bir grup insan, 24 insan, birkac cocuk.
to this hotel = bu otele (one very near the speaker); to that hotel = şu otele (one at some distance from the speaker); to that hotel = o otele (one that is quite a distance from the speaker). That's the distinction that I had been told.
Hmm. No. That sounds like Japanese. Şu doesn't have much to do with the distance from the speaker or listener, in Turkish. If something is next to the listener and far from the speaker, every native would say "o ne?". So it's not like the Japanese kono-sono-ano. We would use şu to draw attention to something. "Bu ne?" (what's this?) "O ne?" (what's that?) "Peki şu ne?" (Okay, but how about that one I'm showing with my finger? What's that one?)
Why kişi is wrong here when in another sentence talking about people kişi was correct? Also another time when using insan for people it was wrong and in the comments some natives said you shouldn't use insan as translation for people, better use kişi. Some of these errors are really stupid. Make up your mind guys!
The problem is that birey means an individual, not people. Otherwise the sentence is correct.
I understand that here "group of people" is not to be translated as a noun conpound, but as a noun with a quantifier. But is there a noun compound for something like "crowd" (which arguably also is a group of people)?
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Grub is a quantity particle, it doesn't take any suffix, bir grub , iki litre, dört şişe, on bardak and so on.
... bir şişe su, bir bardak çay, ...
It's also interesting that "grup" carries plural meaning, so "insan" can remain singular and we still get the idea.