"Ezek repülőterek?"

Translation: Are these airports?

[zbigmlyn]

how would you ask:

these airports?

[Findil]

Ezek a repülőterek?

[zbigmlyn]

thanks, so as usual - the other way round :)

[weitzhandler]

Why is the é removed from repülőtér?

[Findil]

There's a group of nouns where the vowel gets shortened when you add certain suffixes. Tér belongs to this group. And since repülőtér is a compound word containing repülő and tér, it behaves similarly

• Tér -> terek, teret, tere... / térre, téri, térről...
• Kéz -> kezek, kezet, keze... / kézre, kézi, kézből...
• Víz -> vizek, vizet, vize... / vízre, vízi, vízből...
• Tűz -> tüzek, tüzet, tüze... / tűzre, tűzi, tűzből...
• Madár -> madarak, madarat, madara... / madárra, madárnak, madárhoz...
• And there are probably more

Unfortunately I don't know about a rule that defines which suffixes cause this, but good news is that the same suffixes are always to blame, so there's at least consistency.

[mizinamo]

And some do the opposite, lengthening the vowel before some suffixes (fa -> fák).

[jsiehler]

But that class of words is "every word that ends in a or e" so it's more of a rule than an exception.

[JohnWeber786406]

Tűz and Tüz - The vowels are different sounds, right? It's not about the length of the sounds like S -> SS and SZ -> SSZ.

[chunderbirdsrgo]

Would you be able to say "Ezek a repülőterek" or is the omission of the definite article necessary?

[RyagonIV]

You're able to say that, of course. But it rather means "These are the airports" or just "these airports". Not a proper translation of the given sentence.