Ez porcelán.

Ez means this.

It is the singular demonstrative pronoun for something close to the speaker. In this sentence, ez stands on its own, just like English this in This is porcelain.

Related forms:

• ez = this
• az = that
• ezek = these
• azok = those

Because in Hungarian, the verb to be is often omitted in the present tense, third person when the predicate is a noun or adjective.

So English:

• This is porcelain.

Hungarian:

• Ez porcelán.

This is completely normal Hungarian grammar.

You do use forms of to be in other situations, for example:

• Én orvos vagyok. = I am a doctor.
• Te fáradt vagy. = You are tired.
• Ez porcelán volt. = This was porcelain.

So the missing is is not an omission in the casual sense; it is the standard structure.

Hungarian often uses a bare noun as the predicate.

So:

• Ez porcelán. = This is porcelain.

You do not need an article here.

In English, you also usually say This is porcelain, not This is a porcelain. Hungarian works similarly in this sentence.

If you said egy porcelán, that would mean something more like a porcelain item/object, which is usually not what is meant here.

Grammatically, porcelán is a noun meaning porcelain.

But in a sentence like Ez porcelán, that noun functions as the predicate, so the whole sentence expresses the material or category of the thing.

English often does something similar:

• This is wood.
• This is metal.
• This is porcelain.

So even though porcelán is a noun, the sentence can feel adjective-like in meaning: This is made of porcelain.

A simple approximation is:

• Ez ≈ ez with e like in bed
• porcelán ≈ POR-tseh-laan

A bit more carefully:

• Ez = ehz
• porcelán = POR-tse-laan

Useful pronunciation points:

• Stress is on the first syllable: PORcelán
• Hungarian c is pronounced ts
• The á is a long vowel

The accent marks vowel length.

So a and á are different vowels in Hungarian:

• a = short
• á = long

In porcelán, the final á is held longer than a plain a.

The accent does not show stress. Hungarian stress is normally on the first syllable of the word, so PORcelán, not porceLÁN.

Usually, not if you mean This is porcelain.

• Ez porcelán. = This is porcelain.
• Ez egy porcelán. would sound like This is a porcelain [thing/object], which is incomplete or unnatural in most contexts.

If you want to identify an object as a porcelain cup, for example, you would normally name the object:

• Ez egy porceláncsésze. = This is a porcelain cup.

So for the material by itself, Ez porcelán is the natural form.

Yes, it is very close in meaning, and in some contexts it is even more explicit.

• Ez porcelán. = This is porcelain.
• Ez porcelánból van. = This is made of porcelain.

The second version clearly emphasizes the material.

So:

• Ez porcelán is short and natural.
• Ez porcelánból van is more explicit about what you mean.

Yes, but Ez porcelán is the neutral, straightforward order.

Hungarian word order is flexible, and changing it often changes the focus or emphasis.

For example:

• Ez porcelán. = neutral statement
• Porcelán ez. = marked; it can sound contrastive or emphatic, something like This is porcelain as opposed to something else

For a learner, the safest basic version is:

• Ez porcelán.

Usually, you keep the same words and change the intonation:

• Ez porcelán? = Is this porcelain?

Hungarian does not usually form yes/no questions by inverting the verb like English does. Since there is no visible is here anyway, the question is mainly shown by speech intonation, and in writing by the question mark.

Because ez is being used by itself as a pronoun: this.

You use ez a when a noun comes after it:

• ez a csésze = this cup
• ez a tányér = this plate

But in Ez porcelán, there is no noun after ez. It stands alone, so just ez is correct.

Most naturally, it is understood as talking about the material: This is porcelain.

Depending on context, a bare predicate noun in Hungarian can sometimes classify something, but here the most likely interpretation is the material.

If you want to be very clear that you mean the material, you can say:

• Ez porcelánból van. = This is made of porcelain.

If you want to name the object itself, you would usually use a more specific noun:

• Ez egy porcelánváza. = This is a porcelain vase.