"A könyvtáratoktól nincs messze a rendőrség."

Translation: The police station is not far from your library.

[sheepishangel]

I thought rendőrség was police station?

[carolgoslen]

The phrasing "the police is" sounds wrong to me. The word "police' is plural if it stands alone. Singular would be "police officer".

[Mate349153]

No

[Mate349153]

The police is not plural.

[JohnWeber786406]

We use "police" as the entire team at once.
"Call the police!"
"The city police has determined that a crime was committed".

[MortenMumo]

You are wrong. English always uses the plural with "police" (same as with "people").

[Hunniel]

As a native both one is correct to my ears :D

[SedatKlc]

normally should we use -otok after á according to vowel harmony?

[Hunniel]

No, -atok is more common (e.g. házatok, váratok, tájatok, hárfátok, kályhátok) This one is just an exception (like e.g. károtok, királyotok) or it's just normal to me because of dialect.

[SedatKlc]

okey köszönöm szépen

[Hunniel]

szívesen!

[SedatKlc]

i think it must be könyvtárotoktól

[Iva818387]

Unfortunately "police station" is still not accepted :(

[guntunge]

Shouldn't this be "nem messze van" instead of "nincs messze"?

It is not about is/isn't, but where it is: far/not far?
And it is "not far from your library" / "nem messze a könyvtárataktól"???

The reverse: The police station is far from from your library.
A könyvtárataktól messze van a rendőrség.
And now we negate far and not is???

As it is the Hungarian seems to mean:
There is no police station far from your library. ? i.e. If there are police stations at all, they are all near your library. ???

[sheepishangel]

As I understand it, the negative of 'van' is always 'nincs'. It doesn't matter if we would translate 'van' as 'there is' or just 'is' or even 'have', the negative is always 'nincs'.

Also, I don't think it helps to think of negating the adjective. It's the verb that is negated: 'The police station [is not] far ...' rather than 'The police station is [not far] ...'

Don't think about van/nincs as meaning 'there is/there isn't' in this context. When it's with messze we would just translate 'van/nincs' as 'is/isn't'

Messze van = it is far

Nincs messze = it isn't far

(native or more advanced Hungarian speakers, please correct me if I'm wrong!!)

[guntunge]

Yes, nincs is the negated van, but I think negating messze is equally possible.

It is not here. Either:
Ez nem itt van. (hanem ott)
Ez nincs itt.

itt, messze, közel should act the same?