Sem a tanú, sem a bejelentő nem vár itt.

It means neither ... nor.

So Sem a tanú, sem a bejelentő nem vár itt means Neither the witness nor the complainant/reporting person is waiting here.

A useful extra point: sem can have other negative meanings in other sentences, but when it appears in the pattern sem X, sem Y, it is the standard way to say neither X nor Y.

Yes. In this construction, Hungarian normally repeats it:

sem a tanú, sem a bejelentő

That repetition is what gives the clear neither ... nor structure. Using sem only once would not sound right here.

Yes, the whole idea is negative, but Hungarian normally uses negative concord here. That means the verb is also marked as negative:

Sem a tanú, sem a bejelentő nem vár itt.

So even though English already feels complete with neither ... nor, Hungarian still wants nem before the verb. This is normal and required in standard Hungarian.

Because both nouns are definite here: the witness and the complainant/reporting person.

Hungarian keeps the definite article in this kind of structure:

sem a tanú, sem a bejelentő

This is very natural when you are talking about specific, identifiable people. English sometimes omits articles more easily in certain structures, but Hungarian usually keeps them here.

That is a very common question.

With sem ... sem, Hungarian often uses a singular verb when each item is singular:

Sem a tanú, sem a bejelentő nem vár itt.

This treats the two items in a somewhat separate, distributive way: not the witness, and not the complainant either.

In real usage, a plural verb can sometimes also occur in similar sentences, especially when the speaker thinks of the two people together as a group. But the singular vár is fully normal and very common here.

Bejelentő is the person who made a report, notification, or complaint.

The best English translation depends on context:

• in a police or legal context, it may be complainant or reporting person
• in a more general context, it can mean the person who reported it

So it does not always map perfectly to one single English word.

Here vár means wait in the intransitive sense.

There is no direct object in this sentence. Itt means here, and it is a place adverb, not an object. Because there is no object, Hungarian uses the indefinite verb form:

nem vár itt = is not waiting here

Compare:

• vár itt = waits/is waiting here
• várja a tanút = is waiting for the witness

In the second example, there is a definite object, so the verb form changes.

As for várakozik, that also means wait, but it often sounds a bit more formal or process-focused, like be waiting around. Vár is perfectly natural here.

Because this is a neutral, natural word order in Hungarian.

The sentence first introduces the subject area: Sem a tanú, sem a bejelentő

Then it gives the negative predicate: nem vár

And finally the location: itt

Hungarian word order is flexible, so words can move for emphasis or contrast. But in this sentence, putting itt at the end is an ordinary, unmarked choice.

You might hear article-less noun pairs in some special styles, but in this sentence the version with articles is the natural standard one.

Sem a tanú, sem a bejelentő... sounds like you mean specific people in known roles.

Without the articles, it would sound more generic, reduced, or stylistically unusual in normal prose. So for a learner, the safest version is definitely the one with a repeated before both nouns.