"A madarak sem repülnek be a fürdőszobába."

Translation: The birds are not flying into the bathroom either.

[Krisbaudi]

Is either not wrong? Neither was not accepted, nor Nor the birds are flying into the bathroom.

[mizinamo]

• The birds are not flying into the bathroom, either. -- correct

but

• The birds are not either flying into the bathroom. -- wrong
• The birds are not flying into the bathroom, neither. -- wrong
• Nor the birds are flying into the bathroom. -- wrong
• Neither the birds are flying into the bathroom. -- wrong

What would be possible is

• Neither are the birds flying into the bathroom.
• Nor are the birds flying into the bathroom.

but it means something different: Not only ...., but neither are they flying into the bathroom. For example, "The birds are not flying into the bedroom. Neither are the birds flying into the bathroom." or "The kindergarten teachers are not climbing onto the roof, nor are the birds flying into the bathroom." It negates the action, rather than the birds.

In German, those would use "noch" rather than "auch (nicht)" -- "Die Vögel fliegen nicht ins Schlafzimmer, noch fliegen die Vögel ins Badezimmer" bzw. "Die Erzieherinnen steigen nicht aufs Dach, noch fliegen die Vögel ins Badezimmer." / "Weder steigen die Erzieherinnen aufs Dach, noch fliegen die Vögel ins Badezimmer."

[vvsey]

So, just to clarify this, what exactly does "The birds are not flying into the bathroom either." mean to you? What is negated here? Is it the birds or the bathroom? Is this an ambiguous sentence in English?
The Hungarian sentence is very clear on what is negated. "Sem" works like "is": it refers to what is in front of it. "A madarak sem" means that the birds are also not. So, there are several things that do not fly into the bathroom. And the birds belong in that group.

[mizinamo]

The English sentence is ambiguous. It could be "the birds", "the bathroom", or even "flying" which is being denied.

[Krisbaudi]

Yes, this sentence confused me and I'm afraid, it was not the last one.

[Bastette54]

Thank you for this. I didn't realize that "sem" was like "is" and that it comes right after the word it refers to. I thought this was about several places that the birds aren't flying into, including the bathroom.

[vvsey]

You are welcome.
What you thought would then be:
"A madarak nem repülnek be a fürdőszobába sem."
Or:
"A madarak a fürdőszobába sem repülnek be."
These two mean the same thing. You may want to analyze how the word order makes us use two negating words in the first version.

[Bastette54]

Is it because the negating word has to come right before the verb? And "sem" has to come after the word it's referring to, so unless you can put the sentence together neatly -- as in the first example, where "sem" is right between the two words it needs to be between, and in the right order -- then you need another negating word?

[vvsey]

Yup, here's a lingot for you! :)
A small correction: "as in the second example".

The "is" part of "sem" has to be after the bathroom, and the "nem" part of "sem" has to be in front of the verb. So, there you go, exactly as you described.
And of course you can do the same variation with the sentence above, as well, where the birds are also'ed.

[Bastette54]

Igaz, a második... Köszi!

[Krisbaudi]

Nagyon köszönöm :-)

[Lili920420]

My answer was: Not even birds fly into the bathroom. Since 'sem' means 'even' or 'either', I chose it to mean the first.