"A kanapé a nappaliban van, a fotel mellett."

Translation: The sofa is in the living room, next to the armchair.

[O_Matty]

"The sofa is in the living room, beside the armchair." That shouldn't be a problem, should it?

[RyagonIV]

That sounds like a fine translation.

[BetsyLowe]

For us English speakers, it's kind of a big easy chair, overstuffed, with arms, right?

[RyagonIV]

Yes, exactly. Kinda like a single-person couch.

[ataltane]

Armchair is also English. I'll have to take your word that "easy chair" is too, though I've never been aware of it.

[Krisbaudi]

Is fotel/armchair for all kinds of armchairs? I mean, with or without a facility for the arms? In German Sessel!

[RyagonIV]

It's pretty equivalent to the German 'Sessel', but I'm not aware of any type of those that doesn't have an armrest. °-°

[Krisbaudi]

We always had only Sessel without armrest and my parents too.

[RyagonIV]

Oh, I think I know which kind you mean. I think it's okay to call those either fotel or szék since they're kind of in the grey area there. :D

[Linda38047]

What is the difference between a kanapé and a heverő?

[RyagonIV]

Kanapé is for sitting, heverő is for sleeping (comes from hever - to lie). A Google image search of either word should help you visualise it.
Pamlag is another word you might find interesting.

[Linda38047]

I thought your answer clarified it, until I looked at the Hungarian Ikea site. Lots of kanapé, also lots of kanapéágy, even fotelágy, but no heverő?!? http://www.ikea.com/hu/hu/catalog/categories/departments/living_room/10663/

[RyagonIV]

Hui, interesting. Okay, not an expert (and not a native), but considering that this discussion was the first time I heard of heverő and the dictionaries I use are generally a bit scarce on that word, I'd say heverő simply isn't used all that much. Probably an older word.

[HeatherG7]

What would be the difference (magyarul) between this sentence and 'the sofa in the living room is next to the armchair'?

[RyagonIV]

A kanapé a nappaliban a fotel mellett van.

I guess you want to know if you can interpret the given sentence as "the sofa in the living room", no? Not really. If you leave van behind nappaliban, you're putting focus on that one sofa, but what other sofa is supposed to be next to the armchair (which apparently is in the living room in this case) than the one that's in the living room, too?

You could also create a sub-clause if you want to make it really unambiguous: "A kanapé, amely a nappaliban van, a fotel mellett van." But that's a mouthful. :)

[HeatherG7]

So van/vannak indicates the focus of this sentence?

[RyagonIV]

Yes, the focus is always* on the word/phrase right in front of the verb.

[guntunge]

Fotel is based on French fauteuil. I also believe a outdated way of writing is fotöly, which comes i assume closer to the French pronunciation.

Or simply karosszék which literally means armchair (what fotel did not originally mean, since it was once upon a time a folding chair...)

[RyagonIV]

The Arcanum lexicon notes that the spelling variant is fotőj, so you're pretty close. :)

A fotel is something different than a karosszék, even though both translate to "armchair" in English. While a karosszék is just a chair with armrests, a fotel is cushioned, more like a single-person couch.