A tanú jelzi és dokumentálja a kopogást.

A is the singular definite article, equivalent to English the.

So:

• a tanú = the witness
• a kopogást = the knocking

It appears twice because Hungarian, like English, uses the article separately with each noun phrase. Also, a is used before consonant sounds; before vowel sounds, Hungarian uses az.

Tanú is the subject of the sentence, and subjects in Hungarian are normally in the nominative, which usually has no ending.

Kopogást is the direct object, so it takes the accusative ending -t.

So the contrast is:

• tanú = subject, no special ending
• kopogást = object, marked with -t

This is one reason Hungarian can have more flexible word order than English: case endings help show what each noun is doing.

Because Hungarian uses the definite conjugation here.

Hungarian verbs have two main conjugation patterns in the present tense:

• indefinite conjugation
• definite conjugation

The definite conjugation is used when the verb has a definite direct object. In this sentence, the object is a kopogást, which is definite because it has a.

So:

• jelez → jelzi
• dokumentál → dokumentálja

Both mean roughly he/she indicates it and he/she documents it, with the explicit object already stated in the sentence.

That is due to different verb stem patterns in Hungarian.

In the 3rd person singular definite form, verbs do not all behave exactly the same:

• jelez → jelzi
• dokumentál → dokumentálja

So both are correct definite forms, but they belong to different conjugation patterns. Unfortunately, this is not something you can always predict perfectly from English; learners usually pick it up by learning verb forms and seeing lots of examples.

A useful practical point is:

• if the verb form is jelzi, that is simply the correct definite form of jelez
• if the verb form is dokumentálja, that is the correct definite form of dokumentál

It is a noun.

The base noun is kopogás, which means knocking or tapping. In this sentence it appears as kopogást, because it is the direct object and gets the accusative -t.

So:

• kopogás = knocking
• kopogást = knocking, as the object of the verb

English often uses an -ing form for this kind of idea, but in Hungarian this is a regular noun.

They are closely related.

• kopogni = to knock / to tap
• kopogás = knocking / tapping

Hungarian often forms nouns from verbs with endings like -ás or -és. This is similar to how English can turn actions into nouns, such as knocking, arrival, or movement.

So kopogás is the action or sound of knocking, turned into a noun.

Because the same object belongs to both verbs.

The structure is:

• A tanú = the witness
• jelzi és dokumentálja = indicates and documents
• a kopogást = the knocking

This means:

The witness indicates the knocking and documents the knocking.

Just like in English, Hungarian does not need to repeat the object if both verbs share it.

This sentence uses a very natural, neutral order:

subject + verb + verb + object

So:

A tanú jelzi és dokumentálja a kopogást.

But Hungarian word order is more flexible than English word order. Different orders can change emphasis or focus.

For example, moving a kopogást earlier could make the knocking more prominent. The sentence would still be understandable because -t marks it as the object.

So this sentence is the neutral, straightforward version, but not the only possible one.

A few useful pronunciation points:

• Stress is always on the first syllable of each word.
• j sounds like English y.
• s sounds like English sh.
• Long vowels such as á, é, ú are held longer than short vowels.

A rough English-style guide:

• a = short aw
• tanú = TA-noo
• jelzi = YEL-zee
• és = aysh with a long vowel
• dokumentálja = DO-ku-men-taal-ya
• kopogást = KO-po-gaasht

So the whole sentence is roughly:

aw TA-noo YEL-zee aysh DO-ku-men-taal-ya aw KO-po-gaasht

It means the witness, not a witness.

Hungarian distinguishes these clearly:

• a / az = the
• egy = a / an or one

So:

• a tanú = the witness
• egy tanú = a witness

In this sentence, the speaker is referring to a specific witness, or at least presenting the witness as definite in the context.