"The woman is an engineer."
Translation:A nő mérnök.
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Why can't you say "van" at the end of this? why is "A nő egy mérnök van" wrong??
We don't use van or vannak in Hungarian when we say what something is (noun) or what something is like (adjective).
Yes, but Hungarian doesn't use it in all cases where English would use "is".
A predicate consisting of a noun or an adjective can stand by itself in Hungarian: a könyv kék "the book is blue", a lány színésznő "the girl is an actress" -- literally, "the book blue", "the girl actress". van is not used in this kind of sentence in Hungarian, even though English needs "is" also for this kind of predicate.
ok thanks... can you give me an example of when we WOULD use it??? thanks a lot :)
To describe where something is, for example: Hol van a ház? "Where is the house?" A ház a folyó mellett van. "The house is next to the river.
I believe that it's also used with adverbs: Mindenki jól van. "Everybody is OK, is doing fine."
Adding to what Mizinamo said. You would use "van" with adverbs. Like "hol van" or "mellett van". That's a general rule that could take you far; but there can still be exceptions.
Okay thanks! Just one last thing... Do we use Vagyok like this? Like mérnök vagyok?
"I am an engineer". Sure; that sentence is fine.
It's just van and vannak which must sometimes be omitted.
The other forms (vagyok, vagy, vagyunk, vagytok) always have to be present, whether you're talking about a location, an attribute, or something else.
I realize this conversation is from 4 years ago, but for anyone looking for an explanation of this, Duolingo has put one on this tips page: https://www.duolingo.com/skill/hu/Basic-2-alternative/tips-and-notes
I was wondering the same thing. Can you use the masculine (default?) occupation title if it's clearly stated that the subject is a woman?
Conversely, when saying mérnök, it's always otherwise implied the engineer is male?
Nope, not really. For a profession like engineer, this separation isn't really established. Mérnöknő is rarely used, everyone is a mérnök by the same rights.
Thanks for your helpful responses which help me to understand the nuances of the language.
Sounds unnatural, I can't think of an example when you could use your sentence. From the point of the exercise, you should definitely memorize the given solution.
Why "ö ügyvéd" but" ö egyedül VAN" ?I mean in both cases you have the same construction( subject and attributive) but in one case you use van ( and I was marked wrong for not doing so) and in the other case you don't.
It's exactly because you do NOT have the same construction. "Egyedül" is not attributive, it's a plain old adverb that you can use with basically any verb.
It would mean "the engineer is a woman". The engineer is the subject not the woman.