A fogorvos azt mondja, hogy ki kell húzni a bölcsességfogat.

The dentist says that the wisdom tooth has to be extracted.

Breakdown of A fogorvos azt mondja, hogy ki kell húzni a bölcsességfogat.

• az: the
• mondani: to say
• hogy: that
• azt: it

Questions & Answers about A fogorvos azt mondja, hogy ki kell húzni a bölcsességfogat.

Why is it mondja and not mond?

Because Hungarian verbs have a definite and an indefinite conjugation.

Here the verb mond takes the object azt (that), which is definite, so the verb appears in the definite form: mondja.

Compare:

• mond valamit = says something
• azt mondja = says that / says it

So A fogorvos azt mondja... literally starts as The dentist says that...

What is azt doing in the sentence?

Azt is a pronoun meaning that, and here it points forward to the whole clause introduced by hogy.

So the pattern is:

azt mondja, hogy... = says that...

This is a very common Hungarian structure. Literally, it is something like:

• He says that thing, namely that...

In natural English we usually just say He says that..., but Hungarian often keeps this extra azt.

What does hogy mean here?