"A vendégek arról a vonatról szállnak le, amelyik Szegedre megy."
Translation:The guests get off the train that goes to Szeged.
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697
I'm hoping someone can explain why "The guests get down off of that train which goes to Szeged" isn't a possible answer. How do I tell when/whether "arról" is "from that" or "from the"?
3130
@ray.meredith : I just got a "put the words in the correct order" type of exercise and I couldn't form "The guests get down off THAT train which goes to Szeged" , only "The guests get down off of THE train which goes to Szeged".
535
Here the noun "train" has been qualified by a subordinate clause (not just any train, but the train that goes to S). In these cases (when the noun is further qualified by a clause), English tends to use "the" rather than "that". It is possible to use two "that"s and say "that train that goes to S", but in English it sounds like overkill. That is the reason DL uses "the" here.
"That" has been interpreted as the again for no obvious reason. Oh well az az élet
535
Here the noun "train" has been qualified by a subordinate clause (not just any train, but the train that goes to S). In these cases (when the noun is further qualified by a clause), English tends to use "the" rather than "that". It is possible to use two "that"s and say "that train that goes to S", but in English it sounds like overkill. That is the reason DL uses "the" here.
535
Here is one way to look at the matter.
Remember that the relative pronouns are related to the interrogative pronouns:
ami - mi
amelyik - melyik
Then remember that mi = what and melyik = which.
In English you use "which" when you are asking about a specific member of a finite list of possibilities. For example, "Which of the ties do you like best?" not "What of the ties ...". *
Similarly, with the relative pronoun, "He took the train that (which) left at nine", not "He took the train what left at nine". Similarly, I would suggest, with Hungarian "amelyik" vs. "ami".
Based on the above, you should be using "amelyik" most of the time. You should save "ami" for those rare times when you want to refer to an entire preceding clause, not just a single noun. For example, "He lies all the time, which disturbs me very much." Here the "which" refers to the entire preceding clause "he lies all the time", and that is why the singular "which disturbs" is used. (Cf. the German use of "was" instead of "welcher/der" in such situations.)
Now having said all this, I admit that many English speakers will say "What tie are you wearing?" instead of "Which tie are you wearing". And I imagine there are many Hungarian speakers who use "ami" instead of "amelyik" despite the distinction I have just suggested.
If I am wrong about any of this, please correct me!
*Note the difference: "What are you wearing to the dance tonight?" You use "what" (not "which") because the finite list has not yet been established. But "You own several dresses. Which (not "what") are you wearing to the dance tonight?"