"Azok a férfiak is a függönyökhöz állnak."

Translation: Those men are standing at the curtains too.

[kebukebu]

"Those men are standing to the curtains too" doesn't make sense in English. I tried "by the curtains" but I don't know for sure what meaning is intended by the Hungarian sentence.

[krisz44g]

I hope this sentence will help you a bit: He set the ladder against the wall./Ő a létrát a falhoz állította. Approx. this should mean, except that is about men and a courtain.

[kebukebu]

Okay... It does make sense if the sentence is "Those men are standing against the curtains too."

[dqJacO]

From previous discussions, I think this means:
"Those men also go up to the curtains and stand." or
"Those men go stand at/by the curtains, too."

[Jean-Louis230649]

höz (movement) and áll (motionlessness) are contradictory :
either : a függönyöknél állnak
or : a függönyökhöz lépnek

[RyagonIV]

Áll doesn't need to be motionless. :)

[guntunge]

Would be nice to get that knowledge via dictionary hints.

"(Move to and) stand" or anything other than just "stand" which leaves out the essential nuance of the verb and teaches people only half of its meaning.

[febrvary]

So this is what "áll" + "...höz" means - "goes to it and stands there"? (Implies an active movement happening moments before, which the standing is the end result of)

Before I read your comment I was under the impression that "áll" + "...hoz" were interchangeable with "áll" + "...nál" ; e.g., could as well be said about statues standing close to the curtains.

[RyagonIV]

Yes. "Áll vmihez" and, by extension, "áll vmitől" describe that the person is moving to or from the object, respectively, and ends up standing at that location.

With "áll vminél" there's usually no movement happening. That's the normal "standing" in English.

The same accounts for the other static verbs, like ül and fekszik.

[febrvary]

Interesting, thanks for the clarification! It's hard to grasp intuitively, though. I wonder if verbs/ grammatical constructions with this exact meaning can be found in other languages as well, or is Hungarian unique?

[RyagonIV]

I can tell you that German and Danish (and by extension probably more Germanic languages) can make similar constructions. Similar to English, these languages feature two forms of these verbs, one intransitive (lie, sit, stand), and one transitive (lay, set, ... make stand?). Now, German and Danish can use the transitive form with a reflexive pronoun to mean that you're moving yourself to some place in that fashion.

• to stand / áll - stehen - at stå
• to make stand / állít - stellen - at stille
• I go and stand there. / Oda állok. - Ich stelle mich dort hin. - Jeg stiller mig derhenne.

Or with "lie", which works better in English:

• to lie / fekszik - liegen - at ligge
• to lay / fektet - legen - at lægge
• I lie down on the bed. / (Le)fekszem az ágyon. - Ich lege mich auf das Bett. - Jeg lægger mig på sengen.

[MaxKlbl1]

Shut up and take my lingot ;)

Btw. "stellen" could be translated with "to put", I'd say

[RyagonIV]

Max: "to put" is more of a catch-all placement verb. You can "put pancakes on the plate" but those pancakes won't "stand" there.

[LRLARG]

Mmm... in Russian (and probably other Slavic languages too) same is also expressed with the verbs: Мужчины стоят у занавеса ( A ferfiak függönyöknel állnak) and Мужчины становятся к занавесу (A férfiak a függönyökhöz állnak)

[MaxKlbl1]

Hmm... you're right

[MoniKozi]

and we know that from what? translations such as parking and standing used so far in the course? or should we hire a native Hungarian to teach us Hungarian based on DL structure?
really, DL is stretching this waaay tooo far.

[Judit294350]

It is simply that áll does not exactly translate into any single English word.

[MoniKozi]

exactly. my understanding was that the suffixes in this section show movement, whereas a'llnak is static. this is very confusing and frustrating.

[Judit294350]

But állnak is not static. It means they were moving and now they have stopped.

[StevenMans2]

"Those men are also going to stand in front of the curtains." or "Those men are going to stand in front of the curtains too."

[Krisbaudi]

With this translation i can understand the hungarian sentence :-) But i am not sure, if anybody uses such sentences in normal life.
In German we are having a direct translation: Diese (jene) Männer stellen sich auch vor die Vorhänge. Learning hungarian through English is sometimes quite confusing.

[StevenMans2]

I've learned that here on Duolingo, expecting realism in all situations is folly. ;-)

However here, you can imagine it if, say, a couple of photographers are setting up a family photo in someone's house, and one of them is talking to the other.

[Kathy979841]

Well said steve yes

[Martybet]

The nearest I could get to understandable English would be "Those men are also standing by the curtains" but a fat chance that would be accepted, especially now that we can't add comments.
The worrying thing for me is they seem desperate to move on from Beta.
Here is an extract from the latest contributors update a week ago..................................................
"We mentioned a couple of times that courses graduate from beta if the rate of error reports per 100 users remains below 3 for 14 days. On 21 June, we went below 3 for the first time, and we've stayed below since! Let's see what happens"...................https://incubator.duolingo.com/courses/hu/en/status
Today is 30 June. ......I'm reporting more than 3 a day on my own!!!

[Linda38047]

So am I. Not difficult either, since the sentences are needlessly complex so there is always a zillion translations that are not yet in the system. To move on from Beta, my advice would be to rewrite this entire course, and include lots of the comments that helpful people like VVSEY give here into the teaching notes.

[Linda38047]

Would one not translate the movement into English with:

• those men go and stand at the curtains, too
• those men go stand at the curtains, too In my mother tongue, Dutch, I would translate this into: die mannen gaan ook bij de gordijnen staan.

Now all these translations are technically near future tense, but that is because English and Dutch take the standing literally, you cannot stand and move to stand at the same time. So near future (go do something) is the way to express movement in our languages, when this obviously is not needed in Hungarian.

Am I right in assuming this and translating the áll valamihoz with near future tense?

[SevHeB1]

We often use the gramm. present tense for future actions in Hungarian. "odaáll a falhoz" means: s/he is not standing at the wall but s/he is getting there and her/his present action is going to finish in the near future when s/he reaches the wall and stays there motionless (and this standing at the wall is expressed: a falnál áll - continuously) My English is not good enough to suggest the right translation but I hope I could help you

[Jean-Louis230649]

Thanks for the explanation. I do now understand what Hungarians mean when they say : "odaáll a falhoz" (he goes and stands at the wall) But is the sentence "áll a falhoz" (without preverb oda) also correct and, in that case, does it mean the same ?

[SevHeB1]

Yes, it means the same without the preverb "oda" but the word order "a falhoz áll" sounds better.

[Jean-Louis230649]

Thanks. It is all clear now.
But it would be difficult to translate "a falhoz áll" in English with only three words and I am sorry to say that the translations proposed in the course don't seem me satisfactory.

[ElkAntlerCreek]

According the discussion page at https://www.duolingo.com/comment/19311654, the answer should be "Those men stand to the curtains too." How are we supposed to know when Duolingo wants "at the curtains" or "to the curtains"? This is not the first time I have found conflicting "correct" answers?

[RyagonIV]

"Those men stand to the curtains" is grammatically incorrect. English cannot handle verbs of non-motion (stand, sit, lie) together with indicators of direction, like "to". Well, unless it has some idiomatic meaning.

Hungarian doesn't care. The Hungarian sentence is fine and means something along the lines of "Those men go and stand by the curtains, too."

[Richard604037]

Those men also go to stand at the curtains. Not accepted, reported. The answer given here by Duo is surely wrong. There is no suggestion of movement and if they ARE STANDING, it seems much more like a fixed position, e.g a függönyök mellett állnak. We have had this several times now and, for example, odaálltok az autóhoz? has been happily translated to mean, "Are you going to stand by the car?" (Albeit we have the prefix with that example). What appears to have happened is that this question hasn't yet caught up with the debate and we've got lots of comments. Absolutely right, this isn't easy to get at in English but consistency is important and if it's függönyökhöz where the standing happens, we need a movement word to get the people there. There are masses of comments so I hope my suggestion is accepted.

[Kathy979841]

Again the same thing as the last sentance. Presumably means moving to but gibberish.

[BigWayne19]

--------- standing by is not accepted . . .

[clairelanc3]

I thought -nél meant at without a mivement and -hez at WITH a mivement. Hiw can you stand TO?

[RyagonIV]

In English you can't (at least grammatically), but in Hungarian it's perfectly fine. The men move over to the curtains and end up standing by them.

[Judit294350]

It means to move towards the curtains and stand there. The verbs don't match in the two languages.

[MoniKozi]

then an explanation would do in the tips of the lesson

[Martybet]

"Stand TO attention!" although it's used in English more as an order. They do also accept "AT" now as shown at the top of this page.

[Nick337182]

Ryagon IV's comment below is really important.

The translation here on Duo would be great is the Hungarian was "a'llnak a fuggonyokne'l". But the -hoz suffik makes a simple "standing at" an inappropriate translation - the sense of movement clearly conveyed by this in Hungarian is entirely lost.

This therefore suggests something like "moves to stand at the curtains", something covered elsewhere on comments for similar sentences elsewhere on the course. This idiom in Hungarian doesn't readily translate exactly to English, but "moves/goes up to the curtains" is probably the most economic and accurate even if the former is a little stilted. It reflects the preferred answers elsewhere in the course.