"Kovácsék kutyája az utcán fut le a tóhoz."

Translation: The Kovács family's dog runs down the street, to the lake.

[Andreas305]

To translate a family name (Kovács=>Smith) might be interesting, but to force the learner to do that, is just stupid!

[vvsey]

This is another issue that is actively being corrected. Please report any that was missed.

[mizinamo]

Do you know something we don't about the current activity on the course?

[vvsey]

No, I am not an insider. But I did read up on the incubator blog while all of us were waiting for this. Many of these things were mentioned there. And I see improvements here and there. And I am receiving the occasional confirmation of my accepted translations.

The blog:
https://incubator.duolingo.com/courses/hu/en/status
It has not been updated since the first week of beta.

[Cvmoorsel]

What is wrong with 'my' translation: "the dog of the kovács family runs down the street to the lake"?

[RyagonIV]

Nothing wrong with it.

[Elloughton]

I put: "the Kovacs's dog", and although it was accepted, it said that there was a typo. This is what we would say in everyday English, but there was no way to report this. Sometimes it seems like "discussion over", when in fact it isn't!

[RyagonIV]

You can't report your sentence if it's been accepted, unfortunately.

I'd argue that "the Kovacs's dog" isn't correct anyway. If it's a family dog, you'll make is a possessions of all family members, so you'll say something like "the Millers' dog" or "the dog of the Millers". "The Miller's dog" would be the dog of only one Miller.

So in this case it would rather be... "the Kovacses' dog"? However you pluralise "Kovacs" in English.

[Forzafiori]

your correct that the plural of Kovacs would likely be Kovacses. The other fun part of this sentence is the possession - there is debate in English about whether to add an s after the apostrophe for nouns ending in "s". I was taught in public school to not add the S, but in university and law school they prefer it. It is also perfectly correct to use the singular last name to refer to the entire family. I believe this is at least partly because when referring to family's possession, you always use "The" - you wouldn't use this if reffering to a single person. "Kovacs' dog" is a dog that belongs to one person you call by their last name, and "The Kovacs' dog" belongs to the family. However, one is still free to pluralize the family if you want to, like you did.

Because of this, you could refer to this dog in four different ways: "the Kovacs' dog," or "the Kovacs's dog," or "the Kovacses' dog," or "the Kovacses's dog."

[RyagonIV]

Forza, your very last example isn't correct. It's valid to use either a lone apostrophe and " 's" for a singular noun that ends with 's'. However, if a plural noun ends with 's', only the lone apostrophe gets added:

• the princess' dress or the princess's dress - the dress of the princess

• the princesses' dresses - the dresses of the princesses