Learn Hardcore Hungarian: A buszmegálló és a mozi között új étterem nyílt. - A new restaurant opened between the bus stop and the cinema.

In Hungarian you often drop egy (“a/an”) in sentences announcing the opening of something. Saying Új étterem nyílt (“A new restaurant opened”) is perfectly natural, even though literally “egy új étterem” would be “a new restaurant.” The verb nyílt itself implies “one has opened,” so egy is redundant in this context.

Why do we see only one definite article a before buszmegálló instead of repeating it for mozi?

Hungarian lets a single article scope over two coordinated nouns: A buszmegálló és a mozi means “the bus stop and the cinema.” You could repeat the article (A buszmegálló és a mozi), but it’s not required—one a covers both.

Why don’t buszmegálló and mozi take any case endings?

They form a locative expression with the postposition között (“between”). In Hungarian, nouns in a postpositional phrase stay in their bare (nominative) form, and the postposition attaches to the entire phrase: A buszmegálló és a mozi között.

What exactly is között, and how does it work?

között is a postposition meaning “between.” Unlike English prepositions (“between”), it comes after its noun (or noun phrase). It always governs bare nouns, so you say házak között (“between houses”), barátok között (“among friends”), and here A buszmegálló és a mozi között.

Why is nyílt placed at the end of the sentence?

Hungarian has relatively free (topic–focus) word order. If you start with a topic or adverbial phrase (here, the location), the verb typically appears toward the end. Our sentence’s neutral order is: [Location topic] + [New restaurant as focus] + [Verb nyílt].

Is nyílt a passive form? What about megnyílt?

No, nyílt is simply the third person singular past-tense (indefinite) of the intransitive verb nyílik (“to open”). It’s not passive. Adding the prefix meg- (making megnyílt) emphasizes the completion of the action—“it was opened/has opened up”—but in everyday speech nyílt already conveys that something opened.

How would you ask “Where did the new restaurant open?” in Hungarian?

You can say Hol nyílt új étterem? or more fully Hol nyílt meg az új étterem? Notice hol (“where”) goes first, then the verb, and the subject új étterem follows.

Could you rearrange this sentence, or must it stay in this order?

You can rearrange for emphasis. For example:

Új étterem nyílt a buszmegálló és a mozi között. (focus on the restaurant)
A buszmegálló és a mozi között megnyílt egy új étterem. (using megnyílt and including egy)
All are grammatically correct; you choose word order to highlight different parts.