"A telefon elöl van, az alma pedig hátul."
Translation:The telephone is in front, and the apple is in the back.
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"The Apple is in back" sounds weird to me. Sounds like a missing "the"
It may vary regionally. But "in back" is normal where I grew up in the US. We can say "in back" or "in the back" almost entirely interchangeably.
in front of acts like a preposition, so it needs to be before a noun. For example, in front of the book.
Here, there is no noun, so you need an adverb -- in front.
My translation "the phone is in front, however the apple is in back." was marked as incorrect. Shouldn't this be right?
however sounds like opposition, in this sentence, pedig is more like just contrasting, like "whereas" or a fancy kind of "and"
Why is the following sentence not accepted: "The telephone is in the front, whereas the apple in the back" [without the "is" verb]? Isn't the verb implied? There's no "meg" nor "és"...
And since when are these two words related to the verb "to be"? Pedig means as far as I'm concerned whereas, while, in turn. Similar to meg which means and, more, added to.
My question referred more to the English than to the Hungarian grammar. I'm not a native speaker of any of the languages. Are you an English native speaker or hold at least a C1 language degree, 'cause otherwise we need external help.
I'm a native speaker of English (and German), and the "is" has to be there in the second sentence if you connect them with "whereas".
With "and", I would say that you could leave out the "is" (but it sounds better to me with it in); with "but", I wouldn't leave out the "is".
How can I know when "pedig" means "and" and when it means "whereas" or "but"?
I think it never means "and" exactly, it's just there is a slight overlap between "and" and "whereas", the contrasting is not very radical.
It means "but"or "even though" or something similar - when it's in the usual place of a conjunction, ie right after the former clause. If it takes a more adverb-like position, it's gonna be just casual contrasting.
Pedig az autó kint áll... But the car is out... If you want to turn the current sentence (telefon, alma..) to "...even though the apple is in the back" - move pedig right after van
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Yes, if you use "elöl" as a verb then it means "to kill" (literally "kill away") but we use it rarely. For example: A gyom elölte a palántákat. - The weed killed the seedlings. A fogorvos elöli az idegeket a gyökérkezelés során. - The dentist kills the nerves during root canal treatment.
to kill is megöl though, not elöl, el+öl makes no sense as far as I'm concerned.
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My solution : "the telephone is the front, and the apple is in the back."
Duo told me :
"You have a typo. The telephones in the front, and the apple is in the back."
I'd be surprised if that could actually show up but it surely can't anymore - contractions act weird, I deleted them because they should be handled automatically anyway.
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My answer should have been accepted, as the Hungarian sentence did not contain an 'és' I did not see why my translation should have the 'and' in it.
Elöl is an adverb on its own; előtt is a postposition that needs an argument.
I see thank you. The comment in the link below also helps for anyone with the same question: https://forum.duolingo.com/comment/34340294