"Small and big ships sail on the deep seas."
Translation:A mély tengereken kis és nagy hajók úsznak.
43 CommentsThis discussion is locked.
We use 'kis' when you want to say something like: ' Can I have a little salt?' or 'here is the little girl' (kaphatok egy kis sót?, itt a kislány) And we use kicsi when we want to say 'the girl is small', or 'my shoe is too small' (a lány kicsi, a cipőm túl kicsi) So 'kicsi' is something like small, and 'kis' is like little, but sometimes we mix it up For example: I need a little salt can mean that 'Kell nekem egy kis só' (it is better I think) but it can also mean that 'kell nekem egy kicsi só' (It is just a little bit weird but that's not a big deal). But sometimes we just can't mix them up 'cause it would be very weird, like "my shoe is too little"-"a cipőm túl kis". Do you see? It sounds weird.
Yes (?), 'uszni' is what Duo wants, but it's very poor.
'Sailing' works in English, b/c it has become the common reference from the days of the 'tall ships' - before engines.
'Vitorlazik' does not work in Hungarian, b/c it has remained to mean only wind-driven sails (although it also means 'floating'). Duo had to find an alternate translation. I suggested 'navigalni' (to navigate)
I think my comment was ambiguous or I messed up the English word order. I meant that big and small ships sail on the deep seas and not somewhere else. It might help to get familiar with the parts of the sentence called topic and focus.
The phrase that starts the sentence (in yours: "kis és nagy hajók") is the topic. This is what you will form a statement about in the rest of the sentence.
The phrase preceding the conjugated verb (in your sentence: "a mély tengereken") is the focus. The focus is the element that excludes every other element of the same cathegory; in this case any place other than the deep seas is excluded.
This is not valid for all possible sentences, since it's not obligatory to include a topic and/or a focus, but it can be helpful when you're experimenting with word order and how it changes the meaning.
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I really appreciate you explaining this in depth, because it is a difficult idea for me to grasp - I had no idea what "focus" or "topic" were, as my mind simply does not work in this way. I know that to improve in Hungarian, I need to totally retrain my mind, and I hope that is possible at my advanced age !
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“Mély” means deep. “A mélyek” means “the deep ones” but using tengerek after that doesn’t create a correct anything that I know of personally.
I can't really explain (unfortunately, but to me, that at least sounds the strangest. A mély tengereken kis és nagy hajók úsznak Kis és nagy hajók úsznak a mély tengereken Kis és nagy hajók a mély tengereken úsznak I can't explain much otherwise, other than to say word order in Hungarian is always about emphasis. So each of the above sentences focuses on a different part of the sentence. So, it's like by putting the verb first you're saying their sailing rather than sinking or something.