"A ő pulóverükben vagyok."
Translation:I am in their sweater.
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2751
You are right, it must be "az ő".
While giving less emphasis on the owner of the pullover you can say: "A pulóverükben vagyok."
Maybe one of the contributors added the pronoun without considering the form of the article ;-)
Your confusion is well-founded, yet the sentence is correct this way. This is a special case, with the third person plural possessive. It is driven by the possessor.
There are three possibilities:
-
the possessor is omitted
"a pulóverük" - (their) sweater
The possessed retains its third person plural suffix, "-(ü)k" -
the possessor is the personal pronoun "ők"
"az ő pulóverük" - their sweater
The possessed retains its third person plural suffix, "-(ü)k". However, the pronoun loses its "-k" ending. You can think of "ők" as the plural of "ő". -
the possessor is anything else, most probably a noun
"a gyerekek pulóvere" - the children's sweater
The possessed loses its third person plural suffix, and acts like a singular case. However, the possessor keeps its "-(e)k" suffix.
Maybe you can think of it like this: there can be only one "-k" plural ending in a possessor-possessed construction.
The rule also stands if the possessed is plural:
- "a játékaik" - (their) toys
- "az ő játékaik" - their toys
- "a gyerekek játékai" - the children's toys.
Let's compare the third person singular and plural, so you can clearly see the difference:
Singular - plural:
"pulóvere" - "pulóverük"
(his) sweater - (their) sweater
"az ő pulóvere" - "az ő pulóverük"
her sweater - their sweater
"a gyerek pulóvere" - "a gyerekek pulóvere"
the child's sweater - the children's sweater
"játékai" - "játékaik"
(her) toys - (their) toys
"az ő játékai" - "az ő játékaik"
his toys - their toys
"a gyerek játékai" - "a gyerekek játékai"
the child's toys - the children's toys.
Top response, vvsey. Have a lingot. Köszi for taking the time to even give examples. The differences between poss. pron. singular & plural are clearer to me now. I agree with carolgoslen, it is easy to remember the 'only one k' rule in case both possessor and possessed are in plural.
wow! Thanks for that very detailed and complete explanation. This is all very confusing but the "only one K' rule is memorable. I have trouble seeing all the little details and usually make some mistake somewhere so dropping k's only adds to the challenge.
Well, I only hope it's a challenge worth conquering! You are welcome, and good luck!
Thank you. I believe it is and I think I kind of like the challenge to be honest. ( It does make me realize that learning French was relatively easy. ) I have friends I'd like to be able to communicate with and so far my Hungarian is much better than their English so I have that to keep me motivated. Are you a native speaker ?
- 1137
Why is this answer wrong? I am wearing their sweater. Is "I am in their sweater" not very strange in English?
- 1402
It is.. less common to say it like that, yes. "I am wearing their sweater" is now the preferred translation. :)
"I am in their sweater" sounds pretty strange to me. It sounds like the speaker is a bug, or a small animal. However, it's pretty natural to say something like, "She showed up in a long gown." It would sound just as natural to say, "She showed up wearing a long gown."
But in this sentence, I think "wearing" is the only valid choice. I can't really explain why - maybe someone else can? My explanation is basically, "Because that's just how we do it."
- 1402
Yes, it can. :)
If you want to express a habitual action ("I wear their sweater often/usually"), though, you should use a different construction for the Hungarian sentence, like:
- Az ő pulóverüket viselem/hordom. (lit. "I wear their sweater.")
- Általában az ő pulóverükben vagyok. (lit. "I am usually in their sweater.")
