"There are nine important bridges in Budapest."

Translation: Budapesten kilenc fontos híd van.

[Bastette54]

Is "Kilenc fontos híd Budapesten van" incorrect? I assume that the different word order has a different emphasis, but are they both correct? Or does the English sentence imply a certain word order for the Hungarian sentence?

[vvsey]

I would say yes and yes and yes.
Your version sounds like "Nine of the important bridges are in Budapest." Maybe they went there for a conference of bridges. Or we are taking an inventory of the important bridges of the world.

[Bastette54]

Is that because "Budapest" comes right before "van" in my translation? Whereas if "van" comes right after "híd" then you read it as "In Budapest ... 9 bridges are... "

[vvsey]

Kind of, yes. Try to always see it this way, always ask yourself this question: what is in front of the verb? Because the position in front of the verb is the emphasized position.