Questions & Answers about A meglepetésbuli nagy meglepetés lesz.
Why is meglepetésbuli written as one word?
Because it is a Hungarian compound noun: meglepetés + buli.
Hungarian very often writes compounds as a single word, especially when English would use something like surprise party, school bus, coffee cup, and so on.
In this compound:
- meglepetés = surprise
- buli = party
So meglepetésbuli literally means surprise-party.
A useful pattern to notice is that the last part often tells you what kind of thing it is. Here it is a kind of buli.
What does a mean here, and why is it a rather than az?
A is the definite article, so it corresponds to English the.
Hungarian has two forms of the definite article:
- a before a consonant sound
- az before a vowel sound
Since meglepetésbuli starts with m, a consonant, you use a:
- a meglepetésbuli
If the next word started with a vowel, you would use az instead.
Why is there no egy before nagy meglepetés?