"Mi van elöl, az autó vagy a busz?"

Translation: What is in front, the car or the bus?

[RyanMeskil]

This could probably also be translated in English as 'Which is in front...', not just 'what'.

[miafromtheblock]

Right?!
Do we want a literal translation, or one that makes sense?! Both?

[killerman64]

melyik seems to be which. I don't know Hungarian, and that was a stand alone translation.

[Aerilin]

I would argue that "which is in front" is more correct in this situation. At the very least, it's an alternative meaning

[JanetVande1]

Does elöl mean "in front" as in ahead of the other, like in a race, or passively sitting in front of a building, like in English we would say "the car is out front"

[tinzie215]

i'd say the first definition you gave is "elöl" and the second, passive definition is "elött"

[JanetVande1]

Köszönöm!

[DeanBetts]

In English we would generally say either of the following, which differs from how this question is written:
1. "WHICH is in front, THE car or THE bus?"
2. "WHAT is in front, A car, or A bus?"

[mahatch]

Is there a different Hungarian word that would mean "which" instead of "what"?

[doraszell]

Yes, which is 'melyik'. You can say 'Melyik van elöl, az autó vagy a busz?'

[Heroldnak]

Also, not "up front"?

[rsail]

this completely threw me: mi van elöl = what is in front
so I proceeded to say, a car or a bus
and got zinged on it...
supposed to be the car or the bus.

[Oyinbalo]

Me too

[JFORD574]

I have a noob word order question. Why Mi van elöl... and not Mi elöl van?

[mizinamo]

In general, question words are followed immediately by the verb, so Mi van elöl? or Elöl mi van?.

[androghost]

Can we say "ahead" instead of "in front?"

[oszkarsikl]

which is in front and what is in front have the same meanings in this sentence structure

[DutkaD]

I wrote "what is THERE is the front,..."

[Mandy982422]

There was only one "the" to choose from...so I couldnt use both as needed

[Zeke602025]

Difference between az and a? They seem to be used interchangably for "the"?

[Liggliluff]

This is something you don't learn in the German course until after checkpoint 2. So why is it in the second Hungarian lesson called "basics"?

"But Hungarian is a hard language"; no, don't be stupid. In German you learn "the man", "the man drinks", does the man drink?" and similar before the first checkpoint. THAT is how the Hungarian course should be.

[idk980559]

Kind of irrelevant question, but shouldn't "elől" be written like this and not "elöl" like in the lesson?