18 Comments
As I understand it, "fölött" is relative to something ("above the ---", "over the ---"), while "fent" stands alone ("up there", "upstairs", etc)
27
Köszönöm! So does that mean that both can be used interchangeably when talking about "above"?
- 344
No. Like stated above, you can use fölött only in relation to something else (a fa fölött - above the tree), while fent is the place itself - above, upstairs, at the top.
Or more grammatically spoken - fölött is a postposition, fent is not.
I said "what is the city above?" which is wrong. But how would you say this?
- 344
Hmm, first, a word about fölött. Like English works with prepositions (above the city), Hungarian mostly uses postpositions (and suffixes) instead (a város fölött), so those always have their respective relation to the noun appearing before them.
Now, "What is the city above?" can have two meanings in English. If you're wondering about that city up in the sky, you could ask "Mi az a város fent?" The fent here is not a postposition, but a location, it's not above something, but just above. On the other hand, if you want to know above what the city is (where you also could ask "what's below the city?"), you simply go with "Mi fölött van a város?" Here's the postposition fölött again, making the corresponding English question better as "Above what is the city?"
Thanks for that, much appreciated i think i understand :) . I'm sure the penny will drop with regards to sentence structure eventually :S
A little correction. "Mi van a város fent" doesn't really seem to work. "Mi a város fent" is grammatical and "Milyen a város fent" (aka what is it like) even makes sense.
- 344
Ah, right, thank you. That needs some fixing.
I intended to go for a more literal "What is the city?", basically asking for the name/identification of that city. I thought that something like "Mi az a város?" could work, but maybe it doesn't work that literally in Hungarian. Maybe something like "Melyik város az (a fent)?"
I think "Melyik város" works basically the same way as "Which city" would. "Mi az a város" would work for "What is that city" just fine.
I see that "város" can mean town or city. In English, a town and a city are two different types of places. Can anyone tell me if in Hungarian there is a distinction between the two? Thanks!
- 344
The main difference is the size, no? If you want to make a difference between "town" and "city", you can call them kisváros (small city) and nagyváros (big city), respectively. Other than that, Hungarian doesn't really care.
