"Tegnapelőtt vagy holnapután?"

Translation: The day before yesterday or the day after tomorrow?

[fischerfs]

Okay are these words able to be broken up to be understood or are they standalone words?

[AndrsBrny]

They are standalone words. If you use the parts separately as in tegnap előtt, that means ‘before yesterday’. If you say tegnapelőtt, that means ‘the day before yesterday’. The same is true for holnap után vs. holnapután where the former means ‘after tomorrow’ and the latter means ‘the day after tomorrow’.

[AnCatDubh]

And to think in Hebrew this sentence has three words and seven syllables:

• שִׁלְשׁוֹם אוֹ מָחֳרָתַיִם
• shilshóm o mokhrotáyim

(Prescriptively pronounced with another o before the r but eh)

[malsci]

Absolutly correct

[btiirwin]

Why is their no article 'the' in the Hungarian sentence, but it is expected in the English sentence?

[mizinamo]

Because English and Hungarian are different languages :)

The words in Hungarian work (grammatically) similarly to "tomorrow" and "yesterday" in English, which do not need an article, either.

For whatever reason, English has no single word for the "the day after tomorrow" and "the day before yesterday" and needs to use a phrase; this phrase then includes "the". We always say "I will come the day after tomorrow" and not "I will come day after tomorrow".

So English needs the "the" because this is the way English phrases those days.

Hungarian does not need "the" (or the Hungarian equivalent a) because Hungarian does not use such a phrase -- they have a single-word adverb instead.

[btiirwin]

Thank you for this good explanation!

[Andreas305]

In German we also use to say "vorgestern" (the day before yesterday) and "übermorgen" (the day after tomorrow) instead of "der Tag vor (dem) gestern" or "der Tag nach (dem) morgen".

Though German and English have same roots, they are often very different :-)

[guntunge]

When learning English the blown up way for saying this baffled me. English has (or had) the alternative week numbering with sennight and fortnight, but nothing to elegantly modify/extend yesterday and tomorrow. Just foyesterday & aftomorrow would sound perfect to me.

[sharnik]

You might want to check wiktionary for: overmorrow (the day after tomorrow) and ereyesterday (the day before yesterday). They're archaic and not used anymore.

[guntunge]

lol, thx, I actually did stumble upon them in the meantime

A pity they are not used anymore. Sure "two days ago" or "in two days" works fine (better), but those long clumsy phrases sound like they should be archaic.

[vvsey]

Your first sentence says it all. It deserves a lingot! :)

[Forzafiori]

In some parts of the southern US, we actually do (sometimes) drop the "the" and just say "day after tommorow" or "day before yesterday." Especially at the start of sentences: "Day before yesterday, i was struggling with Hungarian, and day after tomorrow i will be too."

I know it isn't correct english (very little of southern vernacular is) but its worth pointing out.

[Liggliluff]

ereyesterday and overmorrow

[Harold77079]

The - "a" is not in the written text - what happened here?

[Harold77079]

there is no a (the) in the sentence - day before yesterday or day after tomorrow - should be correct. EVERY ENGLISH SPEAKER WOULD KNOW WHAT IS SAID!!!!

[mizinamo]

task is no "make sentence what English spiker understand".

The task is to produce a sentence in correct English.

[BigWayne19]

------ relax, hal. it'll all be ok . . .

Big 17 feb 20

[Forzafiori]

"The" is kind of implied when there is only one of whatever you are talking about. Saying "a day before yesterday" doesn't make sense - it implies there is at least one other "day before yesterday." When there is only one, it is automatically "the [noun]."

Similarly, you would never say "a state of california," "a statue of liberty", "a mona lisa", of "a country of england." There is only one of any of those things so they can only be THE state of California, THE Statue of Liberty, THE Mona Lisa, or THE country of England.

While your answer should also be accepted, there are always going to be times where you have to imply words when translating between languages, because things rarely translate perfectly and exactly.

[Liggliluff]

There's a statue of liberty in Gellért park, in Budapest. Any statue symbolising liberty would be a statue of liberty.

[MrtonPolgr]

However, when you say "the statute of liberty", it's implied there is exactly one you can be thinking of. For me, this can be the one on Gellérthegy but it's still uniquely identified - with the help of context.