Questions & Answers about A kartondoboz nagy.
A is the Hungarian definite article, so it means the.
In Hungarian, the definite article has two forms:
- a before consonant sounds
- az before vowel sounds
So here it is a kartondoboz because kartondoboz starts with a consonant.
In Hungarian, the verb to be is usually omitted in the present tense, third person.
So:
- A kartondoboz nagy. = The cardboard box is big.
Literally, Hungarian is saying something like:
- The cardboard box big.
But this is completely normal Hungarian grammar.
The verb van or vannak appears in other situations, but not usually in simple present-tense sentences like this one.
Because here nagy is not directly describing the noun inside the noun phrase. It is the predicate adjective: it tells us what the box is like.
So Hungarian uses:
- A kartondoboz nagy. = The cardboard box is big.
But if you want to say the big cardboard box, where big directly modifies box, then the adjective goes before the noun:
- a nagy kartondoboz = the big cardboard box
So the position of the adjective changes depending on its job in the sentence.