Questions & Answers about Március óta gyakran meglocsoljuk a rozmaringot.
Why is Március capitalized here? I thought month names in Hungarian are usually lowercase.
They are usually lowercase in Hungarian: március.
It is capitalized here only because it is the first word of the sentence:
- Március óta... = sentence-initial, so it starts with a capital letter
- In the middle of a sentence, you would normally write március óta
So this is just normal sentence capitalization, not a special rule about month names.
What does óta mean, and why does it come after Március?
Óta means since.
In Hungarian, it follows the time expression:
- március óta = since March
- két nap óta = for/since two days in certain contexts
- tegnap óta = since yesterday
So Hungarian uses:
- [time expression] + óta
rather than English-style since + [time expression].
Why is the verb in the present tense if the sentence means something like we have often watered the rosemary since March?