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- Topic: Hungarian >
- "A hídnál sincsenek emberek."
12 Comments
I believe standard vowel harmony would normally require híd-nél, not híd-nál ... but I think híd is an exception to the rule, and that híd-nál is actually correct.
Can anyone confirm this?
Yes, it's an exception. It used to be pronounced differently, with a vowel that is similar to "í", but is pronounced more in the back of the mouth. This vowel doesn't exist anymore in Hungarian, but the declination of "híd" remained the same.
Is that also what is responsible for hívnak, hívjak with back vowel suffixes?
Nyíl, íj, szíj, díj, síp, and zsír are of the same type. And some verbs: ír, nyír, hív, iszik... you can't really tell for sure with words that are all i's, without looking it up.
The word "emberek" may be traduced as persons, too? I translated this phrase as: There are no persons at the bridge, either. Duolingo told me I was wrong and just pointed I used wrongly "persons" instead of "people". I think both are right...
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The word "persons" does exist in English but only for special context such as legal documents. It would never be used in such a sentence. The normal plural is always "people".
Thanks! I guess, I will never forget it after both replies (yours and jsiehler's !
"People" is the normal plural word in English. "Persons" sounds wrong except in a few very formal contexts like legal documents. You can safely use "people" throughout this course and forget about "persons".
Cite: https://ell.stackexchange.com/questions/1340/persons-versus-individuals/1383#1383
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Ember is more of a general term - man, human, person. "Persons" sounds like a more artificial term, a legal entity, for which Hungarian has a better word: személy. You can find that word in many derived terms, like személyautó - passenger car, személyzet - staff, or the fun-to-say "személyi igazolvány" - personal identification (card).
