# Adamın biri doktora gider



## Stranger_

This is quoted from a post by our friend "MetinS" in a recent thread.



> *Adamın biri* doktora gider ve "ben çok hastayım" der...
Click to expand...


Could someone translate the highlighted part and explain its structure?

I have come across this similar phrase in my book: "Yolculardan biri".

What is the difference between them?

- Adam+ın bir+i
- Yolcular+dan bir+i


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## boggiee

Adamın biri: One guy (One guy opened the door and said 'hi' to us).

Yolculardan biri: One of the passengers ( one the bus, suddenly one of the passengers stood up and drew a gun towards us).


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## Rallino

This question had popped up in a different thread, but I can't seem to locate it.
There is no clear-cut answer. Most of the time, both the genitive (-in) and the ablative (-den) work, without a difference. _Yolculardan biri _and _Yolcuların biri _mean the same thing, though the previous sounds better.

When it's singular like _adam_, you should definitely go with genitive, though. _Adamdan biri_ is unintelligible.


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## Stranger_

Thank you both.

Rallino, would you translate it the same as boggiee did? 



> Adamın biri: One guy



--- 

  Does "bir adam" mean the same as "adamın biri"?

For example, in English, many jokes start with: "A man ....". 
How do these types of jokes start in Turkish? → [Bir adam] or [Adamın biri] or maybe both?


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## Rallino

Yes, I'd translate it the same way as boggiee.
*Adamın biri* is the more common way of starting a joke, indeed.

If there are more characters in the joke, it would probably go: _Bir adam, bir kadın ve bir köpek… _


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## Reverence

It's rather "a man". The number of people here isn't the main concern. That the guy in question is a complete generic one is.


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## MetinS

Stranger_ said:


> This is quoted from a post by our friend "MetinS" in a recent thread.
> 
> 
> 
> Could someone translate the highlighted part and explain its structure?
> 
> I have come across this similar phrase in my book: "Yolculardan biri".
> 
> What is the difference between them?
> 
> - Adam+ın bir+i
> - Yolcular+dan bir+i



"Adamın biri" is exactly "A man"
"Yolculardan biri" is different; this means there are number of other passangers and one of them is mentioned.
But if you say "Yolcunun biri" this means "A passenger", no matter there are other passengers or not, this not important.
As other members say, this is usually used when you tell jokes as a starting sentence. This implies his identity is not important.


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## schimdi

Stranger_ said:


> This is quoted from a post by our friend "MetinS" in a recent thread.
> 
> 
> 
> Could someone translate the highlighted part and explain its structure?
> 
> I have come across this similar phrase in my book: "Yolculardan biri".
> 
> What is the difference between them?
> 
> - Adam+ın bir+i
> - Yolcular+dan bir+i



Adamın biri = Some guy / Some random guy

Yolculardan biri = One of the passengers


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