A tortagyertya kicsi.

In Hungarian, the verb to be is usually left out in the present tense when the subject is third person and the predicate is a noun or adjective.

So:

• A tortagyertya kicsi. = The birthday candle is small.

But in other persons, the verb appears:

• Kicsi vagyok. = I am small.
• Kicsi vagy. = You are small.

So the missing is is completely normal here.

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

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

So:

• a tortagyertya = the birthday candle
• az alma = the apple

In your sentence, tortagyertya starts with t, so Hungarian uses a.

Because kicsi is not directly describing the noun inside the noun phrase here. It is the predicate adjective: it tells us what the candle is like.

So:

• A tortagyertya kicsi. = The birthday candle is small.

If you put the adjective before the noun, it becomes an attributive adjective:

• A kicsi tortagyertya = the small birthday candle

That is a very important difference in Hungarian:

• noun + adjective in this kind of sentence = X is adjective
• adjective + noun = adjective noun

Yes. Hungarian very often forms compound nouns as a single word.

Here:

• torta = cake
• gyertya = candle
• tortagyertya = literally cake-candle, meaning birthday candle

This is very natural in Hungarian. English often uses separate words where Hungarian prefers one compound word.

A simple pronunciation guide is:

TOR-to-gyer-tya

A few helpful points:

• The stress in Hungarian is almost always on the first syllable: TOR
• gy is a single consonant sound, somewhat like the d in British duke or the j/dy sound in during, depending on accent
• ty is also a single consonant, somewhat like the t in British tune or a soft ty sound

You do not pronounce g and y separately in gy, and you do not pronounce t and y separately in ty.

No, not in this sentence.

Hungarian adjectives usually do not agree with the noun in the way they do in many Indo-European languages. So kicsi stays kicsi.

• A tortagyertya kicsi. = The birthday candle is small.
• A tortagyertyák kicsik. = The birthday candles are small.

Notice that in the plural sentence, the adjective can take a plural ending when it is part of the predicate: kicsik.

But in the singular sentence, it stays simply kicsi.

It is in the nominative case, which is the basic dictionary form.

In this sentence, a tortagyertya is the subject:

• A tortagyertya = the birthday candle
• kicsi = small

So the structure is basically:

• subject + predicate adjective

No special case ending is needed here.

Yes, grammatically you could, but it means something different.

• A tortagyertya kicsi. = The birthday candle is small.
• Egy tortagyertya kicsi. = A birthday candle is small or One birthday candle is small

Egy can mean a/an or one, depending on context. It is indefinite, while a is definite.

So if you are talking about a specific candle already known in the conversation, a tortagyertya is the natural choice.

Hungarian word order is fairly flexible, but different orders give different focus or emphasis.

The neutral sentence is:

• A tortagyertya kicsi.

You could also say:

• Kicsi a tortagyertya.

This still means The birthday candle is small, but it puts more emphasis on small.

So the original version is a good neutral pattern for learners.

Yes, kicsi is a very common everyday word for small.

A related word is:

• kis

Both are connected, but they are not used in exactly the same way in every context.

For beginners, a useful rule is:

• kicsi is very common as a predicate: A tortagyertya kicsi.
• kis is very common before a noun: kis tortagyertya = small birthday candle

In real Hungarian, there is some overlap, but this is a helpful basic distinction to start with.

Because Hungarian often says the same thing with fewer words than English in this type of sentence.

English needs:

• The birthday candle is small.

Hungarian can say:

• A tortagyertya kicsi.

This happens because Hungarian:

• uses one compound noun: tortagyertya
• often omits the present-tense third-person form of to be

So even though the Hungarian sentence is short, it is completely complete and natural.