Ez egy városi lakás.

Because Hungarian often leaves out the verb to be in the present tense when the subject is third person and the predicate is a noun or adjective.

So Hungarian says:

• Ez egy városi lakás.
• literally something like This a city apartment

but it means This is a city apartment.

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

• Én fáradt vagyok. = I am tired.
• Ez egy városi lakás volt. = This was a city apartment.

So this missing is is completely normal here.

Here ez is a standalone pronoun meaning this.

Hungarian distinguishes between:

• ez = this on its own
• ez a lakás = this apartment

In your sentence, ez stands by itself as the subject, and egy városi lakás is the part that identifies what it is.

So the structure is:

• Ez = this
• egy városi lakás = an urban apartment / a city apartment

If you said ez a lakás, that would be one noun phrase meaning this apartment.

It can be both.

In Hungarian, egy is:

• the number one
• and also the indefinite article a/an

In Ez egy városi lakás, it is functioning as the indefinite article, so it means a/an, not specifically one.

Context and emphasis decide the difference. If you stress it strongly, it can sound more like the number one.

Compare:

• Ez egy lakás. = This is an apartment.
• Ez egy lakás, nem kettő. = This is one apartment, not two.

Normally, no. Ez városi lakás would sound unnatural in standard Hungarian.

With a singular countable noun like lakás, Hungarian usually needs egy when the meaning is indefinite.

So:

• Ez egy városi lakás. = normal
• Ez városi lakás. = not the usual neutral form

There are some special cases where Hungarian can omit the article in predicate nouns, especially with professions, roles, nationality, and similar categories:

• Péter orvos. = Péter is a doctor.

But that does not apply naturally here.

városi comes from város, which means city or town.

The ending -i is a very common Hungarian adjectival suffix. It often means something like:

• from
• of
• connected with
• located in

So:

• város = city
• városi = urban, city, city-based, in the city

In this sentence, városi is an adjective modifying lakás.

This pattern is very common in Hungarian. For example:

• budapesti = from Budapest / in Budapest
• iskolai = school, school-related
• otthoni = home, at-home

No. Hungarian adjectives do not agree with nouns the way adjectives do in many Indo-European languages.

Hungarian has:

• no grammatical gender
• no adjective agreement for singular vs plural in the normal attributive position

So the adjective stays the same:

• városi lakás = urban apartment
• városi lakások = urban apartments

Notice that városi does not change.

This is good news for learners: you do not have to memorize masculine, feminine, neuter, or adjective endings for agreement here.

Yes. In Hungarian, adjectives normally come before the noun they modify, just like in English.

So:

• városi lakás = urban apartment
• nagy ház = big house
• szép kert = beautiful garden

That means the word order inside the noun phrase is very natural here.

If the adjective comes after the noun, it is usually not directly modifying it in the same way anymore; instead it is more likely part of the predicate or a different structure.

This is the normal, neutral word order.

Hungarian word order is more flexible than English word order, but changes usually add emphasis, contrast, or special focus.

So:

• Ez egy városi lakás. = neutral, standard
• Városi lakás ez. = more marked or emphatic
• Egy városi lakás ez. = also marked, often stylistically unusual in everyday neutral speech

For a beginner, the given order is the safest and most natural one to use.

A rough pronunciation guide is:

• Ez ≈ ehz
• egy ≈ ehdy or edy as a rough approximation
• városi ≈ VAA-ro-shee
• lakás ≈ LAH-kaash

A few useful notes:

• Hungarian stress is normally on the first syllable of every word.
• á is a long vowel.
• Hungarian s is pronounced like English sh.
• Hungarian sz would be the regular English s, but there is no sz in this sentence.

So the sentence is roughly:

EHZ ehdy VAA-ro-shee LAH-kaash

That is only an approximation, but it is a good start.

Not exactly.

lakás usually means:

• apartment
• flat
• a dwelling unit in a building

It is not usually the same as house in the sense of a detached building. For house, Hungarian normally uses ház.

So the word suggests a specific kind of home: an apartment-type residence.

The plural would be:

• Ezek városi lakások. = These are urban apartments.

What changed:

• ez → ezek = this → these
• lakás → lakások = apartment → apartments
• városi stays the same
• egy disappears, because Hungarian does not use an indefinite article with plural nouns in the same way English uses some or zero article

Also notice that there is still no separate word for are. Just like is, the present-tense to be is omitted here in third person.