"A trafik nyitva van, bejöttök?"
Translation:The tobacco shop is open, do you come in?
24 CommentsThis discussion is locked.
"Do you come in" is not normal British English usage - "are you coming in" is better.
1927
It's also not normal American English. "Are you coming in?" would be the most natural thing to say. Even simply "come in?" would work better than "do you come in?"
The person who asks the question is in the tobacconist's and asking whether the other person ever enters there generally. This sort of scenario never happens. The answer could be "Sometimes" or "Not usually".
It is a highly irregular 'verb', so it would be "trafok".
And its past tense is also irregular: "dohánybolt".
Not to worry, there are much better jokes where this came from. :)
Trafik is not an original Hungarian word. It is obviously related to traffic: a place where many people frequently come to buy small items. Similar words exist in other languages, e.g. German "der Trafik".
Yes, I haven't heard the word 'trafik' here since the new legislation on national tobacco shops.
I think we'd use tobacconist or tobacconist's rather than tobacco shop, in England.
- 705
So after 4 years, I think there is a consensus here: the preferred translation into English should be: " The tobacconist is open, are you coming in?" - with a number of variants surrounding that. Yes in UK English the word "tobacconist" is rapidly declining in usage mainly because of the rapid decline in smoking, but we have no equivalent of a "nemzeti dohanybolt" and it's surely the best equivalent.
- 1412
Is 'trafik' used only for stand with tobacco? What's the name for stand with newspapers, tickets, etc.?
