Az angol nehéz.

the

Breakdown of Az angol nehéz.

• nehéz: difficult
• angol: English (the language)

Questions & Answers about Az angol nehéz.

Why is there an article before angol?

In Hungarian, language names are often used with the definite article when they act like nouns in a sentence. So Az angol nehéz is the normal way to say English is difficult.

That is different from English, where we usually just say English is difficult without the.

Why is it az and not a?

Hungarian has two forms of the definite article:

• a before a consonant sound
• az before a vowel sound

Because angol begins with a vowel, you say az angol.

Is angol a noun or an adjective here?

Here, angol is a noun, meaning the English language.

But angol can also be:

• an adjective: angol könyv = English book
• a noun referring to a person: egy angol = an English person

So the word itself is flexible. In this sentence, the context makes it mean the language.

Why is angol not capitalized?

In Hungarian, names of languages and nationalities are normally written with lowercase letters:

• angol = English
• magyar = Hungarian
• német = German

So angol is lowercase here because that is the normal spelling. If it appeared at the beginning of a sentence, it would be capitalized only because it starts the sentence, not because it is a language name.