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- "Tegnapelőtt vagy holnapután?"
"Tegnapelőtt vagy holnapután?"
Translation:The day before yesterday or the day after tomorrow?
21 Comments
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’.
802
Why is their no article 'the' in the Hungarian sentence, but it is expected in the English sentence?
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.
2283
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 :-)
1015
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.
1015
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.
272
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.
230
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!!!!
272
"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.
155
There's a statue of liberty in Gellért park, in Budapest. Any statue symbolising liberty would be a statue of liberty.