"A lot of people are traveling on the long trains."

Translation: A hosszú vonatokon sok ember utazik.

[guilth]

why is it wrong? "sok ember a hosszú vonatokon utazik"

[gergo2]

It sounds a bit unnatural, but it's not wrong. It should probably be accepted.

The reason it sounds a bit strange is that the position in the sentence just before the verb is where the emphasis usually lies, so your variant emphasizes that a lot of people travel on the long trains even though some other mode of transportation may have been expected. This may make sense in the context of a conversation, but out of context it's unnatural.

[guilth]

thanks!

[Lili920420]

Is it acceptable to use 'sokan" in place of 'sok ember'?

[MGeri92]

If you mean: "Sokan utaznak hosszú vonatokon." - Yes, absolutely correct, but I don't know if Duolingo would accept it (it should).

[NellyCsader]

Why is it not ,,...sok ember utaznak."?

[MGeri92]

[Native speaker]
Although "sok ember" means "many people", it is considered singular in Hungarian: "sok ember utazik". If you think of it as a group of people, you will recognize that the same thing happens in English, because the group itself is considered singular: The group travels/reads/writes etc.

If you want to use "utaznak", then the subject also must be plural, like: "Az emberek utaznak." = "People are travelling." If you want to express that MANY people are travelling, you can do it like this: "Sokan utaznak." = "Many [people] are travelling."

Hope that I could help you clarify the difference between the two. :)

[NellyCsader]

Yes, thank you very much :)

[Tom14147]

Why not emberek?

[MGeri92]

We always use the singular form of a noun in Hungarian, regardless the quantity.
For example:

1 tree = 1 fa

2 trees = 2 fa

3 trees = 3 fa

some trees = néhány fa

many trees = sok fa

[mizinamo]

Why not emberek?

sok "many" already indicates that there is more than one person, so you don't need a plural ending on the noun.