- Forum >
- Topic: Hungarian >
- "Zsuzsa rarely sees hotels."
"Zsuzsa rarely sees hotels."
Translation:Zsuzsa ritkán lát szállodákat.
15 Comments
'Zsuzsa ritkán szállodákat lát' - please can somebody explain the problem with my word order.
The same word order would be bad also in English. You can't say " Zsuzsa rarely hotels sees ".
Using English word order to explain Hungarian is usually a bad idea :) "Zsuzsa hotels sees" is equally bad but Zsuzsa szállodákat lát is fine, as far as I know.
28
Totally agreed.
But sometimes it is useful to make up a question for the sentence that could be an answer to it. So....
How often does Zsuzsa see hotels?
Zsuzsa ritkán lát szállodákat. - Zsuzsa rarely sees hotels.
What does Zsuzsa see rarely? What is it that Zsuzsa rarely sees?
Zsuzsa ritkán szállodákat lát. - It is hotels that Zsuzsa rarely sees.
Btw., this "Zsuzsa ritkán szállodákat lát" sentence is kind of weird. It is one of those where we have to invent some context to make them acceptable. Nevertheless, it is a possible sentence.
It gave "Zsuzsa ritkán szállodát lát." as the answer, without the plural of hotels. That isn't right, is it?
- 729
"English is weird" is one of my two mantras in this course. :)
It is a correct answer, and also a more natural one. In cases where you don't care about how many things are affected, but just that those things are affected at all, English prefers using the plural while Hungarian likes using the singular. A nyári nap szép - Summer days are nice. If you want to make it truly singular, you can add egy. Zsuzsa egy szállodát lát - Zsuzsa sees one hotel.
Answering with szállodákat isn't wrong either, of course.
In one answer I was wrong with singular and in another with plural for the same question. Szállodák and szállodákat were graded wrong twice with the correct answers opposite. Please check this. Am I mistaken?
- 729
Was it a multiple-choice question? If so, you have to mark all the correct answers, there are sometimes two.
Also szállodák is not correct here. You need the accusative form (because the hotels are the things that are being seen): szállodát or szállodákat.
- 392
I think alig refers to the quality of seeing not the frequency. Alig lát would be you can almost see it - but it is difficult.
- 1484
Anyone else having the same problem? 'Zsuzsa ritkan lat szallodakat' is not being accepted when typed on a device that won't allow accented characters. It makes it impossible for to finish this exercise.
