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Questions & Answers about A kutya nagy.
Where is the verb in the sentence A kutya nagy?
In Hungarian, the verb van (meaning is) is often omitted in the third-person singular present tense when describing a characteristic. So while A kutya nagy literally reads as The dog big, it's understood as The dog is big. You'd usually only include van if you want to emphasize location or existence (for example, A kutya a kertben van, meaning The dog is in the garden).
Does A in A kutya nagy always mean “the,” or can it mean “a”?
A is the definite article in Hungarian, so here it specifically means the. If you want to say a dog, you would use Egy kutya. Thus, A kutya nagy is The dog is big, while Egy kutya nagy would be A dog is big (nonspecific dog).
Why does the adjective nagy come after kutya, instead of before it like in English?
In Hungarian, stating A kutya nagy is the neutral way of saying The dog is big as a complete sentence. If you say A nagy kutya, that means The big dog (as a noun phrase). The position of the adjective depends on whether you’re describing a state (is big) or creating an adjective-noun phrase (big dog).
How would the sentence change if we wanted to say “The big dog”?