"There are as many girls in the room as boys."

Translation: Annyi lány van a szobában, ahány fiú.

[AlsEenPoffertje]

The type of question I got for this sentence was the multiple-choice one, and two of the sentences provided started with "ahány fiú" instead of ending with it. This made me wonder: Would it be possible to say "Ahány fiú, annyi lány van a szobában"?

[vvsey]

Yes, very good thinking (mint mindig). It is possible. Maybe more natural this way:
"Ahány fiú van a szobában, annyi lány."
But your version is fine, too. :)

[AlsEenPoffertje]

Ah, I didn't know that version was possible! Hungarian word order is so fascinating to me. XD

Köszi a választ! :D

[vvsey]

I know, if only all these boys and girls were kindergarten teachers...

[Bastette54]

"Ahány fiú van a szobában, annyi lány."

Would this translate to "As there are boys in the room, there are as many girls." I hope that sounds better in Hungarian. :)

[vvsey]

The Hungarian sentence sounds perfectly fine. Not sure about the English one though. :) The two sentences are basically the same, it is just what you say first. It slightly changes the reference. For example: "My height is the same as yours" vs "However tall you are, I am the same height". Or "Whatever your height is, my height is the same".
I guess your English sentence is doing the same, right?

[Bastette54]

Yes, but it sounds really awkward to me.

[HeydenP]

Annyi lány a szobában van, ahány fiú....was marked wrong. Why?

[RyagonIV]

Wrong focus. By placing szobában in front of van, you're focussing on the room instead of the number of girls, so the listener would expect you to go on with a different location:
Annyi lány a szobában van, ahány a konyhában. - There are as many girls in the room as there are in the kitchen.

[SoggyDTheRealest]

Thank you for answering this

[fischerfs]

Is there some special placement for 'van'? In a previous exercise 'nincs' went before 'annyi', but does that change with 'van' or was I corrected incorrectly twice?

[RyagonIV]

It's always a question of focus. He you're comparing two numbers, so the phrase containing annyi needs to directly precede van.

Are you referring to this previous exercise? (It's the only one I remember containing both nincs and annyi.) The focus is here on the nonexistence of trees, or rather that there are not as many trees in the garden as there are in the forest. You can place nincs basically anywhere there, but negations usually sound better when they are in the front.

[Forzafiori]

Yet another word order question: would "a szobàban annyi lány van, ahány fiú" work? And if not, can you explain why? Thank you in advance.

[Imre565437]

That is good