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- "What is in front, the car or…
"What is in front, the car or the bus?"
Translation:Mi van elöl, az autó vagy a busz?
15 Comments
150
Why "mi van elöl" and not "mi elöl van"? Does this thing change in questions, or am I missing something?
The reason behind it is because 'Mi elöl van?' doesn't actually make sense, you need 'van' to join the two words to make it a question sentence.
Hi! Why is the following wrong "Mi elöl van, az autó vagy a busz?" I thought that the usual word order is that the question word comes first and the verb at the end of the phrase, with other possibilities for emphasis.
I think Gergo2 above answered your question: question word, eg 'mi', followed immediately by the verb, eg 'van'. Just a Hungarian thing, I suppose.
- 760
Why is it Elol mi... instead of Mi elol...Is there a rule of sorts for placing question words?
The main rule is that the verb must be immediately after the question word. Other than that, parts can move around. The neutral version is "Mi van elől?".
You can also ask "Elől mi van?", which stresses the fact that you are asking what is in front. This is (only) appropriate if the conversation has already established that something else is somewhere else.
So... If we had already established that the car is in the back, we could say "Elől mi van?" to ask what's in front, yes?
I see you write "elől", not "elöl" in your examples, while the answer specifies the latter. Is there a difference?
why is it wrong to translate bus to busz? In English you can use the short form, in German also, an the word translation was also "busz".
Mi van elöl az autó vagy pedig a busz IS ALSO CORRECT. - hungarian partner says so
In Basics Lesson 1, there was a rule stating not to use van, or vannak with WHAT in the third person. Does this rule not apply in this case?
The lesson said "Don't use van or vannak if you are saying what someone or something is", it did not refer to questions with "what", rather to statements where you say what something is.
