"It often rains here."
Translation:Itt gyakran esik az eső.
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"Itt" is not so much before "Gyakran" but at the start of the sentence. "Itt" is the topic here; we are discussing what happens here. "Gyakran" is an adverb modifying "esik az eső" and so should be placed before it.
If something were to take focus away from the verb, then you'd shift the adverb to after the verb. Had the English been "Spiders often fall here.", then the sentence might become, "Itt pókok esnek gyakran."(?)
``gyakran itt esik az eső.''
Should this sentence be accepted as well?
Edit: Thanks for the answer.
That's a possible translation, but it puts the focus on "itt". So to a native Hungarian speaker this would mean something like "it often rains HERE (as opposed to over there)". This would sound weird except in the particular context where you wanted to express exactly this notion.
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Living in Australia, I would expect someone in Budapest to emphasise "here", as it rarely rains HERE. I can't see that the particular context can be excluded on the basis of the presented English. So often we are expected to imagine a context in order to second guess their preferred word order.
You aren't talking about focus, though. You are talking about topic. Topic comes first, it should be something mutually known, "let's make it clear I will be talking about this". This is how you wanted to "emphasize here", too. On the other hand, focus is the new piece of information that makes the difference in communication. Generally in a sentence, everything apart from the focus is either agreed upon (topic) or obvious by the time of the sentence (stuff that comes after the verb.)
So, while "Itt gyakran esik az eső" expresses the common thought that "Let me share you something about my place: it often rains", "Gyakran itt esik az eső" has an awkward topic ("Let me talk about often...") in the first place and surely some contrasting is going on.
With intonation, you could make this sentence convey fairly different but equally unlikely information. "It happens often that it rains exactly here (instead of any other place)", "there must be a place where it rains often and it's this place", "I made a statistics about the likelyhood of raining and different places, reading by likelyhood, the "often" category belongs to this very place".
esik is a verb, az is an article. Articles don't work for verbs
Sorry, I missed your intention... az for "it" doesn't really work here since that "it" simply doesn't exist in Hungarian. What is "it"? Is it rain itself? Then say it's the rain. Or is it god? Nature? Really...
First of all, what does eso mean Second of all, is "Itt gyakran esik az eso" different from "Gyakran esik az eso itt"?
"eső" is the noun meaning rain. So literally "esik az eső" means the rain is falling - which translates into English as "it is raining".
Your two sentences have slight shades of difference but are basically the same.
As a new Hungarian learner, apparently word order is important in determining meaning. Hungarian syntax places meaning on certain words over others. I still don't nearly understand how word order is used in hungarian as opposed to English and other languages that I have some basic knowledge about, but it seems very interesting to learn.
Hungarian word order, IT MATTERS!!!!! 1.)Topic 2.)Preverb /Neutral and Focused...can't have both, that's why there are splitters. 3.) Conjugated verb 4.) The X
Really question!!!! How do I know the order in the Topic section, and the order in the pre-verb section?
Example: itt gyakran esik az eső/ Gyakran itt esik az eső.
The "itt" and "gyakran" both classify as Preverb neutral position. How?????
If we want to be very formal... as you have, "can't have both" so what matters is how these words bear other positions. "Gyakran" is a pretty unusual topic while "Itt" is just fine. Both are possible technically, one version will sound much more common sense.
esik is the same as word "to fall". Hungarians literally say rain is falling. But, note that esik can be used as raining on its own.
I have a question. What is correctly "to rain" translated into Hungarian? "Esik az esö" or only "esik" PS: what is the infininite form of esik? Thanks for your help
The normal sentence would be "esik az eső". The infinitive of "esik" is "esni". (But dictionaries will list "esik")
I don't understand how 'esik' can be used to mean 'rains' in some contexts, while requiring that 'az eső' follow it here?
I think it's confusing because in the lesson, there is this question"Is it raining?" For which you only have to answer "Esik?" That is why I'm confused also.
I think "Itt gyakran esik" is a bearable solution here. Generally, I'd say the tendency is "esik az eső" is more common and stylistically neutral than "esik" in itself.
After all, I think "eső" for "rain" is a separate dictionary entry while "esik" for "to rain" is more like a secondary idiomatical use, the main meaning of the verb being "to fall".
So far in these lessons I've come accustom to "Gyakran itt van.." sentence structure. Now without the "van" the first two words switch spots?? So confusing!
What is being emphasized? "Often" - so "gyakran" goes before the verb ("esik")
Exactly.
Let me elaborate a bit further: Zam, don't try to deduce word order from the given words - it's not coded into them. It's a different aspect of information. Depends on what you want to get through. In the "gyakran itt van" example, the difference is less crucial, mainly because location is almost a mandatory argument of "van" hence it has to stay close to the verb anyway. In this example, though, the difference is very plastic. "Gyakran itt esik az eső" sounds like "Quite often, this is the exact place where it rains". This just sounds rare, both "gyakran" as topic and "itt" as focus. Who would say: "Let me ask something about "often"... Where does it rain often?" This is pretty much the question "Gyakran itt esik az eső" would answer.
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Do you by any chance offer virtual Hungarian lessons? To say this language confuses me is a huge understatement :)
Umm... I can't vow I would be consistent. :) Anyway, let me give you some links.
If you know Discord, there is a Hungarian learning server that I know more than well. https://discord.gg/etbZDx7 We once tried to hold lessons but that didn't really work since both the "teachers" and the learners are hobbyists who sacrifice they free time and try what they think would be the best. Generally, you can ask questions, you can talk with natives, sometimes there are little challenges to solve, you can gain motivation from the others (or you can join arguments that are still too frequent but yeah that's not something I'd advise :D)
https://magyartanulas.github.io/ we started a site too, to complement hungarianreference and resolve some issues with it. It's by no means finished but it might be useful.
And finally, some unpaid promotion: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCjZrfHwul22yOTl2G57eWPQ She has instagram, facebook, a website and who knows what... I can't keep track of all of her content obviously, I watched some videos and I think it really shows she is an actual professional who is enthusiastic for what she is doing. So it may worth taking a look at. :)
Two things with it. Let me start with the general practice and then move on to a very definite problem.
"Esik az eső." This is a complete sentence; whatever you put after it, is going to feel quite unimportant. It's best not to add many unimportant details to simple and complete sentences like "Esik az eső" or it will feel odd anyway.
Second, "gyakran" can't stand this unimportant role at all. Frequency adverbs (always, sometimes, often) are more natural before the verb in English as well. They fundamentally modify the action so they can't just randomly appear at the end. They function quite similarly to "nem", after all.
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Itt=here Gyakran =often If I am right but can someone explain the rest to me? It's only missing the rain...
esik - falls, eső - rain (derived from the present participle of esik, i. e. "raining", which is literally the same form)
"esik az eső" = "it is raining" Often when switching between languages you cannot translate word by word.
A comment from two years ago pretty much answers it: Esik can refer to raining directly.
In Hungarian the idiom is it falls the rain ie the rain falls for it is raining.