A lencse tiszta.

In Hungarian, the present-tense form of to be is usually left out in simple third-person sentences like this one.

So:

• A lencse tiszta. = The lens is clean.

This is normal Hungarian, not an omission or a shortcut.

You do use to be in other persons and tenses, for example:

• Tiszta vagyok. = I am clean.
• A lencse tiszta volt. = The lens was clean.

So the missing is is one of the first big differences English speakers notice.

A is the definite article, so it means the.

Hungarian has two forms of the definite article:

• a before consonant sounds
• az before vowel sounds

Since lencse begins with l, you use a:

• a lencse = the lens

Egy means a/an or one, so that would make the noun indefinite:

• egy lencse = a lens

So a lencse means a specific, identifiable lens, not just any lens.

In this sentence, tiszta is not directly describing the noun inside the noun phrase. It is the predicate adjective: it tells you what the lens is like.

So:

• A lencse tiszta. = The lens is clean.

But if you want to say the clean lens, where the adjective is part of the noun phrase, the adjective goes before the noun:

• a tiszta lencse = the clean lens

So compare:

• a tiszta lencse = the clean lens
• a lencse tiszta = the lens is clean

Hungarian has no grammatical gender, so adjectives do not change for masculine, feminine, or neuter the way they do in many European languages.

So tiszta stays the same regardless of whether the noun would be he, she, or it in English.

With number, Hungarian is a bit different from English:

• In this sentence, the subject is singular, so tiszta is singular.

• With a plural subject in predicate position, the adjective is often plural too:

• A lencsék tiszták. = The lenses are clean.

But when the adjective comes before the noun, it usually does not take a plural ending:

• a tiszta lencsék = the clean lenses

Because it is the subject of the sentence, and the basic subject form in Hungarian is the nominative, which usually has no ending.

So lencse here is just the dictionary form:

• lencse = lens

Hungarian adds endings mainly when a noun has another role, such as object, possession, direction, location, and so on.

In this sentence, there is no need for an extra ending because the lens is simply the thing being talked about.

Yes. Lencse can mean:

• lens
• lentil

Hungarian often relies on context to tell you which meaning is intended.

So A lencse tiszta would normally be understood as The lens is clean if the context is about cameras, glasses, microscopes, and so on. In a food context, it could point toward lentil, although that sentence would be less typical in everyday use.

A rough English-friendly pronunciation is:

• A = aw (short)
• lencse ≈ LEN-cheh
• tiszta ≈ TEES-taw

Useful spelling points:

• cs sounds like ch in church
• sz sounds like s in see

So:

• lencse = len-cse
• tiszta = tisz-ta, with sz pronounced as plain s

Also, Hungarian stress normally falls on the first syllable of each word.

Yes, you can. Hungarian word order is flexible, and changing the order changes the focus or emphasis more than the basic meaning.

• A lencse tiszta. = neutral statement: The lens is clean.
• Tiszta a lencse. = emphasis on clean: The lens is clean / It’s clean, the lens is.

So the second version may sound more contrastive, as if you are stressing that it is clean rather than dirty.

To make it negative, add nem before the adjective:

• A lencse nem tiszta. = The lens is not clean.

To put it in the past, use volt:

• A lencse tiszta volt. = The lens was clean.

So this sentence is a good example of a basic Hungarian pattern:

• present, third person: often no expressed copula
• past: use volt
• negative: add nem before the predicate adjective