"Book or bread?"

Translation: Könyvet vagy kenyeret?

[JMaxGlobal]

I am curious why "Könyv vagy kenyér?" was marked wrong.

[pintergreg]

It is a question. Like what do you want (a) book or (a loaf of) bread? They are subjects. It should be a question in Hungarian as well, like "Könyvet vagy kenyeret (kérsz)?" and in that case it is unambiguous why accusative form is used. The question mark should help a little bit.

(It is not easy to imagine a situation where a question is ever asked "Könyv vagy kenyér?". The only one I could come up with is still pretty unnatural. Even if I wanted to ask "What is this, a book or a loaf of bread?" I would say "Mi ez, egy könyv vagy egy kenyér?", so I would use indefinite articles.)

[danielburnier]

it is wrong. how can I know that it is accusative?

[deactivated user]

It is misleading, you can only make an intelligent guess that it is going to be the same translation now from English to Hungarian as it was before. Everybody will make a mistake here.

[BetsyLowe]

This is an English speaker's guess: for the same reason people say, "jó napoT," Boldog karacsonyT," etc. It's part of a larger thought, like "jó napot kívanok" (I wish you a good day") where "a good day" is the object of the sentence. Maybe it's the object of "a jug of wine, a loaf of bread, a book, and thou"......by Keats?