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Learn Hardcore Hungarian: A girland hosszú. - The garland is long.

Hardcore Hungarian
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/A girland hosszú.

A girland hosszú.

A girland hosszú.

The garland is long.

Breakdown of A girland hosszú.

a decorative garland

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Questions & Answers about A girland hosszú.

What does a mean here? Is it the same as English a?

No. In Hungarian, a here means the, not English a/an.

a girland = the garland
Hungarian has two forms of the definite article:
- a before consonants
- az before vowels

So it is a girland, but for example az alma = the apple.

Why is there no word for is in the sentence?

Because Hungarian usually leaves out is in the present tense, third person when the predicate is a noun or an adjective.

So:

A girland hosszú. = The garland is long.

There is no van here.

Compare:

Én hosszú vagyok would be ungrammatical in this meaning, but with adjectives in 1st/2nd person you do use the verb:
- Én boldog vagyok. = I am happy.
- Te boldog vagy. = You are happy.
But in 3rd person:
- Ő boldog. = He/She is happy.

So the missing is is completely normal.

Why does hosszú come after ? I thought adjectives often come before nouns.

girland

Hungarian adjectives come before the noun when they directly describe it inside a noun phrase, but they come after the noun when they are part of the predicate.

Here:

A girland hosszú. = The garland is long.
- hosszú is a predicate adjective

But:

a hosszú girland = the long garland
- here hosszú directly modifies girland

So the position changes depending on the structure.

What exactly is girland grammatically?

Girland is a noun meaning garland.

In this sentence it is the subject, and it appears in its basic dictionary form. Hungarian does not add a special ending for the nominative subject form in a sentence like this.

So:

girland = garland
a girland = the garland

How do you pronounce A girland hosszú?

A rough English-friendly approximation is:

aw GEER-land HOSS-soo

A few helpful notes:

Stress in Hungarian is almost always on the first syllable of each word.
g is a hard g.
i is like ee in see.
sz is pronounced like English s.
The final ú is a long oo sound.

So hosszú sounds roughly like HOSS-soo.

Why is it a and not az?

Because girland begins with a consonant.

Hungarian uses:

a before consonant sounds
az before vowel sounds

Examples:

a girland = the garland
a ház = the house
az alma = the apple
az ember = the person

Can the word order change?

Yes. Hungarian word order is flexible, and changing it often changes the emphasis.

A girland hosszú. is a neutral statement: The garland is long.
Hosszú a girland. also means The garland is long, but it puts more focus on long.

So both are possible, but the first version is the most straightforward neutral one.

Would a hosszú girland mean the same thing?

Not exactly.

A girland hosszú. = The garland is long.
A hosszú girland = the long garland

The first is a full sentence.
The second is just a noun phrase, not a complete sentence by itself.

So they are related, but they are not the same structure.

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