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- "Az orvos ott sétál, ahol a t…
"Az orvos ott sétál, ahol a tanár vár."
Translation:The doctor is walking there, where the teacher is waiting.
26 Comments
Hmm not too sure the English interpretation is correct English, it would probably mirror as 'The doctor is walking near/by where the teacher is waiting.
187
'there' is just a placeholder. Apparently 'ahol' needs to refer to an antecedent. In this case 'ott' is the antecedent of 'ahol' (similar to Czech or Russian).
To me, the use of "there" in this sentence (English version) is very awkward. I wrote "The doctor is walking where the teacher is waiting", which thankfully is accepted. In this case, "where", acting as a subordinating conjunction, kind of includes the meaning of "there", making the latter a bit redundant.
Could 'the doctor is walking over there where the teacher waits' be correct?
I do believe so, especially with a comma following "there", preceding "where". So is "ahol" a relative adverb?
- 226
Two "actions" are in progress at the same time, from this follows that both are in the present progressive.
The statements in the hungarian pack can be odd in this program at times but this one is by far the weirdest statement. And certainly not a beginner's statement.
Sorry to disappoint you but if you consider this a "weird statement", 75% of sentences will feel ultra weird...
To make it a reason for me to write this comment: this sentence is meant to teach you relative adverbs/pronouns/whatnot. This is mostly done by a demonstrative linking word ("ott" for the location to describe, for example) and the corresponding relative word ("ahol" in this case). So you dummy the part of speech you're going to give details about ("Az orvos ott sétál" - I think we can agree this is not a very complex clause) and then you can use the linking word that's typically a+{the corresponding interrogative word}, in order to define the dummied part of the speech.
Hol (sétál az orvos)? Ott, ahol (a tanár vár).
- 409
This is not correct english. In hungarian you say "there, where..." in english you only say "where". It's a relative pronoun in itself.
Just to make it sure there is no misunderstanding. "where" (ahol) is "a relative pronoun in itself" in Hungarian too - it's just you need to use a demonstrative linking word as well, 90% of cases.
- 409
Thank you. I understand. But I don't think it's correct English to say: "I'm standing there where the boy is standing". English has the same construction as my native language Swedish. You only say: "I'm standing where the boy is standing". So there's a difference in the contruction between Hungarian and English there. I don't think you use the demonstrative linking word in English. :-) sara
Yes, that one I can imagine as I haven't seen anything like "there where" before... the translation does look strange, I should have made it clear I don't question that.
- 430
The second half of the sentence didn't sound like "...ahol a tanár vár." I'll try again at the end of this practice round.
Hm, did it not? It sounds quite clear to me. (If there is something in this course that's better than most other courses, it's the audio.)
- 430
I listened again with the right words in place, and maybe it's just my old ears, but I can kind of hear it now. ;-)
It actually accepted "Az orvos őt sétál ahol a tanár vár." I knew I wasn't hearing something right when I saw the English translation - it's "ott" as in "there"....."ahol" is kind of like "whereas" - a simultaneous condition - he is walking at the same time she is waiting.
It probably accepted it "as a typo". Not much can be done about it, that's a quite arbitrary automatic feature of Duolingo.
I'm not sure you understand the point well, though. It's probably not your fault as this "ott, ahol" structure doesn't translate to English one-by-one and this sentence definitely needs some revision. The second clause is subordinated to the first one. It's NOT "The doctor is walking there. And by the way, in the meantime, the teacher is waiting at the same place." The information structure is different. It's actually "So, you asked where the doctor is walking... it is walking [there] where the teacher is waiting." - "Where the teacher is waiting" being a description of the place. The thing is, in English, you don't usually say "there, where" - in Hungarian, though, you keep two complete clauses and you dummy the location you are going to describe with "ott" and elaborate on it using "ahol" in the subordinated clause.
