Az ár öt százalékkal alacsonyabb.

Hungarian has two forms of the definite article:

• a before a consonant sound
• az before a vowel sound

Because ár begins with the vowel á, the correct form is az ár.

Ár means price.

In this sentence, az ár is the subject: the price.

A useful point for English speakers: Hungarian nouns do not change for gender, so there is no masculine/feminine/neuter distinction to learn here.

The ending -val / -vel often means with, by, or by means of, but with comparatives it commonly expresses the amount of difference.

So:

• öt = five
• százalék = percent
• öt százalékkal = by five percent

In this sentence, it tells you by how much the price is lower.

This is because of a very common sound change in Hungarian.

The ending is basically -val / -vel, but when it is added to a word ending in a consonant, the v often assimilates to that consonant, and the consonant gets doubled in spelling.

So:

• százalék + val
• becomes százalékkal

The same thing happens in many other words, for example:

• ház + val → házzal
• kéz + vel → kézzel

So százalékkal is the normal correct form.

Alacsonyabb is the comparative form of alacsony.

• alacsony = low
• alacsonyabb = lower

The ending -bb is the usual comparative marker in Hungarian, similar to English -er or more.

So this part means is lower.

Because Hungarian often does not use mint when you are stating the amount of difference directly.

Compare:

• Az ár alacsonyabb. = The price is lower.
• Az ár öt százalékkal alacsonyabb. = The price is lower by five percent.

If you want to say what it is lower than, then mint can appear:

• Az ár alacsonyabb, mint tavaly. = The price is lower than last year.

So in your sentence, the comparison target is understood from context, and the sentence focuses on the degree of difference: by five percent.

This is a natural neutral Hungarian word order.

A simple way to read it is:

• Az ár = topic / what we are talking about
• öt százalékkal = the amount of difference
• alacsonyabb = the main descriptive idea at the end

Hungarian word order is quite flexible, but it is strongly influenced by topic and focus, not just by fixed English-style patterns.

This sentence sounds natural and straightforward. Other orders are possible in special contexts, but this is a very normal way to say it.

Yes. In everyday writing, especially in business, statistics, headlines, and charts, you will often see:

• Az ár 5%-kal alacsonyabb.

This means exactly the same thing.

Writing it out as öt százalékkal is just the fully spelled-out version.

No. Hungarian adjectives do not agree with nouns in gender, and they also do not change here to match the noun the way they might in some Indo-European languages.

So:

• alacsonyabb stays alacsonyabb
• it does not change because ár is singular
• it would not change for gender either, because Hungarian has no grammatical gender

That makes this part simpler than in many European languages.

Word-for-word, it may look a bit like that at first, because -val / -vel often means with. But in this structure, the natural English equivalent is by:

• öt százalékkal alacsonyabb = lower by five percent

So it is better to learn this pattern as:

• [amount] + -val/-vel + comparative
• meaning comparative by [amount]

For example:

• két centivel magasabb = higher by two centimeters
• tíz perccel rövidebb = shorter by ten minutes

A learner-friendly approximation is:

SAA-za-layk-kal

A few points:

• stress in Hungarian normally falls on the first syllable
• á is a long vowel
• the kk is really pronounced as a longer k sound

So don’t reduce the double k too much; Hungarian spelling usually reflects pronunciation quite closely.