A szalvéta tiszta.

A is the definite article in Hungarian, so here it means the.

• a szalvéta = the napkin
• Hungarian has two forms of the definite article:
  • a before most consonants
  • az before vowels

So if the next word started with a vowel, you would usually use az instead.

In Hungarian, the verb to be is often left out in the present tense, third person, when talking about simple statements like this.

So:

• A szalvéta tiszta. = The napkin is clean.

Literally, it looks like:

• the napkin clean

This is completely normal in Hungarian.

But in other cases, the verb can appear:

• A szalvéta tiszta volt. = The napkin was clean.
• A szalvéta tiszta lesz. = The napkin will be clean.

That is the normal position here. In a simple sentence like this, Hungarian often puts:

• subject first
• then the description/predicate

So:

• A szalvéta = the subject
• tiszta = the predicate adjective, describing the subject

This is similar to English The napkin is clean, except Hungarian leaves out is.

No. Hungarian adjectives do not agree with the noun in gender, and Hungarian does not have grammatical gender like masculine/feminine/neuter.

So tiszta stays the same here:

• A szalvéta tiszta. = The napkin is clean.

And it would also stay the same with other nouns:

• A ruha tiszta. = The dress/clothes item is clean.
• Az asztal tiszta. = The table is clean.

So you do not need to change the adjective for gender.

No. Hungarian nouns do not have grammatical gender.

Even though szalvéta ends in -a, that does not make it feminine in a grammatical sense. Word endings in Hungarian do not work like noun gender endings in many Indo-European languages.

So szalvéta is simply the word for napkin, with no masculine/feminine category attached to it.

A helpful approximate pronunciation is:

SAHL-vay-tah

A few useful points:

• sz in Hungarian sounds like English s
• plain s in Hungarian sounds like English sh
• é is a long vowel, roughly like ay in say, but pure and not too diphthong-like
• stress in Hungarian normally falls on the first syllable

So the stress is:

• SZAL-vé-ta

An approximate pronunciation is:

TEES-taw

Useful details:

• ti sounds roughly like tee
• sz sounds like English s
• a is more like aw than the English a in cat
• stress is on the first syllable: TISZ-ta

So the whole sentence is roughly:

A SAHL-vay-tah TEES-taw.

Hungarian uses:

• a before words beginning with a consonant
• az before words beginning with a vowel

Since szalvéta begins with sz, which is a consonant sound, you use a:

• a szalvéta

Compare:

• az asztal = the table

because asztal begins with a vowel.

Yes, Hungarian word order is flexible, but different orders can change the focus or emphasis.

The neutral sentence is:

• A szalvéta tiszta. = The napkin is clean.

If you changed the order, it could sound marked or emphatic depending on context. For a beginner, the given order is the safest and most natural for a plain statement.

It means the napkin is clean, not a clean napkin.

That is because tiszta is acting as the predicate of the sentence, not as an adjective directly attached to the noun.

Compare:

• A szalvéta tiszta. = The napkin is clean.
• A tiszta szalvéta = the clean napkin

So word position helps show the difference.

The basic forms are:

• a / az = the
• szalvéta = napkin
• tiszta = clean

In this sentence, all the main words are already in their basic form. There are no extra case endings or plural endings here.

Yes, absolutely. It is a complete and natural Hungarian sentence.

Hungarian often allows very short sentences like this because the present-tense to be can be omitted in the third person.

So A szalvéta tiszta. is fully grammatical and complete.