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- "Két híres állatkert van Magy…
"Két híres állatkert van Magyarországon: egy Budapesten és egy Veszprémben."
Translation:There are two famous zoos in Hungary: one in Budapest and one in Veszprém.
23 Comments
By the way, being from Nyíregyháza I strongly disagree with this sentence. If you ever go to Nyíregyháza or travel through the city while heading to more Eastern parts of Europe, I recommend visiting the Nyíregyháza Zoo (also known as Sóstó Zoo). You won't be disappointed. :)
That's quite inconsistent and unfortunately there are no rules at all. [EDIT: After all, there is a rule, see my comment below] Veszprémben, Győrben, Sopronban, Debrecenben, but Budapesten, Miskolcon, Nyíregyházán, Szegeden. Thankfully, as far as I know, this weirdness only happens with towns in Hungary and in neighbouring countries (where many towns have a Hungarian name too). Towns of other countries always get the inessive.
Also, in the case of Pécs and a few other cities there's even a third, archaic suffix in use: Pécsett. But no need to worry, because Pécsen is correct as well.
A little note about countries, while I'm at it: the default is the inessive here as well, the exceptions are islands (Izlandon, Grönlandon, Fülöp-szigeteken) and Hungary itself (Magyarországon).
One last note: when expressing motion, the places that previously took inessive and superessive will take illative and sublative, respectively. So at least there's some consistency.
Are there lists where you can look up which case to use with which placenames?
I found this
Hungarian cities ending in –j, -m, -n, -ny, -i take the suffixes -ba, -be, -ban, ben, -ból, -ből. All other Hungarian cities (more or less) take -ra, -re, -ról, -ről and -on, -en, -ön
I checked this rule with a few towns and it seems correct, yay! :)
It's worth to read the rest of the article too, it explains very well which suffix to use with cities/countries.
I would like to read this article, too, but I don't see a link to it here. Could you post it? Thanks.
why don't the contributors put this info into the lecture space of this topic? This seems to be one of the most complicated and conflicting topics of Hungarian and there's no course material in the lesson at all
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I live in Badacsonytomaj. (I was born here.) Ending: -j. But I live Badacsonytomajon, not Badacsonytomajban. :) And I go Badacsonytomajról (not Badacsonytomajból) Budapestre. :) A linguist said, "Let's see how local people are using it. :)
Are you sure Badacsonytomaj is a city? :)
Anyway, it is indeed interesting to learn how the locals are using it. I would have probably used "-ban", following the pattern of "Tokajban".
Uhh, it's not, I don't know how I made that mistake. I have a vague memory of wanting to put Grönland -> Grönlandon there (well, it's not an independent country, but it's good enough to be an example). Whatever. I corrected it now, thank you.
Thaiföld has the -n suffix because it ends in -föld ("land").
in Swaziland = Szváziföldön
in the Low Countries = Németalföldön
How about Málta? Is it "Máltára" because it is an island? I wonder...
Yeah, that must be it. Let's see a few islands, without any land or island in their names:
Málta, Korzika, Szardínia, Ciprus, Kréta, Madagaszkár, OK.
But the rule does not stick to:
Kuba, Nagy-Britannia, Japán, etc.
So all we can say is be cautious with the names of islands.
Does anyone know why it's wrong to say "two famous zoos are in Hungary, one in Budapest and one in Veszprem"?
As a native English speaker, I'd say that wording sounds maybe a little less natural to me, but not wrong. It should be accepted.
Wouldn't a more natural Hungarian sentence be: "Két híres állatkert van Magyarországon: egyik Budapesten és a másik Veszprémben." ?
Both are natural, your version is more definite.
You can have
"egyik ..., másik ... "
"az egyik ..., a másik ..."
"az egyik ..., a másik pedig ..."
Etc.
