Learn Hardcore Hungarian: A nappali este nyugodt, mert a tévé ma nem hangos. - The living room is calm in the evening because the TV is not loud today.

Express existence/location:
- A tévé a nappaliban van. – The TV is in the living room.
Put strong contrastive emphasis on the time/other element:
- A nappali este van nyugodt, nem nappal.
  It’s in the evening that the living room is calm, not during the day.

In neutral statements of quality like your sentence, leaving out van is the default.

Why does este mean in the evening without any ending like -ban / -ben?

Words for times of day often act as adverbs of time in Hungarian and appear without a case ending:

reggel – in the morning
délben – at noon (this one happens to include -ben)
este – in the evening
éjjel – at night

So este on its own already means in the evening.
You could add a preposition or postposition only if you change the structure, for example:

az este folyamán – during the evening
az este alatt – during the evening

But in your sentence, simple este is the natural, most common way to say in the evening.

Could the word order be Este a nappali nyugodt instead of A nappali este nyugodt? What changes?

Both are grammatically correct, but they highlight different things:

A nappali este nyugodt.
– Neutral, topic: the living room.
– You are basically talking about the living room and adding that it is calm in the evening.
Este a nappali nyugodt.
– Now este is the topic (the “when” part is in focus at the start).
– It sounds a bit more like: As for evenings, the living room is calm.

The default, neutral sentence that answers “What is the living room like in the evening?” is:

A nappali este nyugodt.

Putting este first usually implies you are contrasting evenings with some other time, or you are especially interested in what happens in the evening.

What is the difference between este and ma este? Could I say A nappali ma este nyugodt?

este = in the evening (in general, or understood from context)
ma este = this evening / tonight (specifically today’s evening)

So:

A nappali este nyugodt.
– Either a general statement (In the evenings, the living room is calm)
– Or it can refer to this evening, depending on context.
A nappali ma este nyugodt.
– Very clearly: The living room is calm *this evening (tonight).
– Sounds more like a *one‑time, specific situation.

Both are correct; ma este just pins it down to today’s evening explicitly.

In mert a tévé ma nem hangos, does ma (today) belong only to the second clause, or to the whole sentence?

Syntactically, ma belongs to the second clause:

mert [a tévé ma nem hangos] – because the TV is not loud today

However, semantically, the reader/hearer usually understands that the whole situation is about today:

Today, in the evening, the living room is calm
because today the TV is not loud.

If you absolutely wanted to make today apply clearly to the whole sentence, you could say:

Ma este a nappali nyugodt, mert a tévé nem hangos.
– This evening the living room is calm, because the TV is not loud.

But in natural conversation, your original sentence will be understood as talking about today’s situation overall.

Can I change the word order in the second part to mert ma a tévé nem hangos or mert a tévé nem hangos ma? Are these correct, and what do they mean?

All three versions are grammatically correct, but they differ slightly in emphasis:

mert a tévé ma nem hangos (original)
– Neutral, the most common order.
– Subject (a tévé), then time (ma), then negation + predicate (nem hangos).
mert ma a tévé nem hangos
– Emphasises today a bit more:
Because today the TV is not loud (maybe on other days it is).
mert a tévé nem hangos ma
– Possible, a bit more marked.
– Often felt like adding “(at least) today” as an afterthought:
because the TV is not loud — today, that is.

In everyday speech, mert a tévé ma nem hangos is the most neutral, natural-sounding choice.

Why is nem placed before hangos rather than somewhere else, like at the beginning or after the verb van?

In Hungarian, nem usually comes right before the thing it negates.
In your clause, the structure is:

a tévé ma nem hangos
subject – time – negation – predicate

There is no visible verb (van is omitted), so hangos is the predicate adjective (what the TV is like). You are negating that quality:

nem hangos – not loud

If you included van, you would have:

a tévé ma nem hangos
(with an invisible van: a tévé ma nem hangos (van))

You would not normally say:

✗ a tévé nem ma hangos – this would negate ma (not loud today (but loud some other day)), which is a different meaning.

So nem stands directly in front of hangos, because what you want to deny is the loudness, not the time or the subject.

Why is hangos (an adjective) used and not hangosan (an adverb)? In English we might think of “loudly”.

hangos is an adjective meaning loud / noisy.

In your sentence, it is part of a predicative structure: the TV is loud.
In Hungarian, with “to be” + adjective, you use the adjective form, not the adverb:

A tévé hangos. – The TV is loud.
A tévé ma nem hangos. – The TV is not loud today.

You use hangosan (adverb) when it modifies a verb, not when it describes a state via to be:

A tévé hangosan szól. – The TV plays loudly / is blaring.
Valaki hangosan beszél. – Someone is speaking loudly.

So in your sentence, hangos is correct because you are saying what the TV is like, not how it does something.

Why do we say a tévé with the definite article a? Could we omit the article and just say tévé?

You say a tévé because you are talking about a specific, known TV (the one in the living room, the one in your home, etc.). In Hungarian, when a noun refers to:

a specific, identifiable thing,
already known in the situation or context,

you normally use the definite article a/az.

So:

A tévé ma nem hangos. – The TV is not loud today.
(the TV that we both know about)

Saying just tévé ma nem hangos without the article would sound unnatural here, unless it is part of some special, telegraphic style (headlines, notes, etc.). In full sentences, you normally include a or az for definite, specific nouns.

What is the nuance difference between nyugodt and csendes? Could I also say A nappali este csendes?

Both nyugodt and csendes can be translated as quiet, but they focus on slightly different aspects:

nyugodt
– literally calm.
– suggests a peaceful, relaxed atmosphere, maybe also about how people feel.
– can be used for people, moods, situations:
- nyugodt ember – a calm person
- nyugodt este – a peaceful evening
csendes
– literally quiet, silent (low noise level).
– focuses more on the absence of sound.
– often about places, environments:
- csendes utca – a quiet street
- csendes környék – a quiet neighbourhood

So:

A nappali este nyugodt.
– The living room feels calm, peaceful in the evening.
A nappali este csendes.
– The living room is quiet (not noisy) in the evening.

In your context (TV not being loud), csendes would also fit very well, since you are talking about noise. nyugodt adds a bit more of a peaceful‑atmosphere nuance.