Learn Hardcore Hungarian: A jegypénztár a vasúti állomás mellett van, nem a buszmegállónál. - The ticket office is next to the train station, not at the bus stop.

A jegypénztár a vasúti állomás mellett van, nem a buszmegállónál.
literally: The ticket office the railway station next-to is, not the bus stop-at.

You cannot normally drop these a’s; each definite singular noun needs its article unless there is a special reason to omit it (titles, labels, etc.).

What exactly does jegypénztár mean, and is it always one word?

Jegypénztár is one word. It is a compound noun:

jegy = ticket
pénztár = cash desk, till, cashier’s office, box office

So jegypénztár literally means something like “ticket cash desk”, and in normal English we translate it as ticket office or box office.

You can use jegypénztár for places where you buy tickets:

at a railway station
at a cinema or theatre
at some museums, events, etc.

It declines like a regular noun:

singular: a jegypénztár – the ticket office
plural: a jegypénztárak – the ticket offices

What does vasúti mean, and how is it different from vasút?

vasút = railway (the system, the rail network)
vasúti = railway- (adjectival form)

Vasúti is formed with the suffix -i, which often turns a noun into an adjective meaning “related to / belonging to / coming from X”:

ország (country) → országi (belonging to a country)
magyar (Hungarian) → magyar(i) (Hungarian, adjectival)
vasút (railway) → vasúti (railway-, as in railway station, railway company)

So:

vasúti állomás = railway station (literally: railway station with vasúti as an adjective)

There is also a common compound vasútállomás (one word), which also means railway station. Both vasúti állomás and vasútállomás are correct and natural.

Why is vasúti állomás written as two words, but buszmegálló as one?

This is mostly a matter of how the language has standardized certain expressions:

buszmegálló = bus stop (one word)
- busz (bus) + megálló (a place where something stops / a stop)
vasúti állomás = railway station (two words: adjective + noun)
- vasúti (railway-) + állomás (station)

However, vasútállomás (one word) is also very common and means the same thing as vasúti állomás. So for “railway station” you can see:

vasúti állomás – adjective + noun
vasútállomás – compound noun

Both are widely used and understood. For “bus stop”, though, you generally only see buszmegálló as one word.

What does mellett mean, and how does it work grammatically?

Mellett is a postposition meaning next to, beside, by, alongside.

Key points:

It comes after the noun phrase, not before it (unlike English prepositions).
- a vasúti állomás mellett = next to the railway station
The noun itself stays in its basic form (with article), and mellett is a separate word:
- az iskola mellett – next to the school
- a ház mellett – next to the house

So the structure is:

[article + noun phrase] + mellett
a vasúti állomás mellett = beside / next to the railway station

What does the ending -nál in buszmegállónál mean?

The suffix -nál / -nél is a locative case ending that usually means at, by, near something.

-nál is used after back vowels (a, á, o, ó, u, ú)
-nél is used after front vowels (e, é, i, í, ö, ő, ü, ű)

Buszmegálló has back vowels, so we get buszmegálló + nál → buszmegállónál.

It is used for people’s places and for some locations:

Péternél vagyok. – I’m at Peter’s place.
A templomnál találkozunk. – We’ll meet at the church.
A buszmegállónál vagyok. – I’m at the bus stop.

So in the sentence:

a buszmegállónál = at the bus stop / by the bus stop

What’s the difference between mellett and -nál/-nél? They both seem to mean “next to / at”.

Both can overlap in meaning, but they are not identical.

mellett

literally beside, next to, alongside
usually implies right next to or along the side of something
used as a separate postposition:
- a vasúti állomás mellett – next to the railway station

-nál / -nél

usually at, by, near
a case ending attached to the noun:
- a buszmegállónál – at/by the bus stop

In many contexts, you can choose either, with a small nuance:

a buszmegálló mellett – beside the bus stop (emphasis on being next to it)
a buszmegállónál – at the bus stop (emphasis on being at that location)

In your sentence, it is natural to say:

a vasúti állomás mellett – next to the railway station
nem a buszmegállónál – not at the bus stop

You could also make it more symmetrical:

A jegypénztár a vasúti állomás mellett van, nem a buszmegálló mellett.
(The ticket office is next to the railway station, not next to the bus stop.)

Both versions are grammatical; they just choose slightly different locative expressions.

Why is van used here? I thought Hungarian often drops van in the present.

Hungarian does often omit van (the 3rd person singular of “to be”) in the present tense, but not in all situations.

Basic rule of thumb:

With a noun or adjective as the main predicate, you usually omit van:
- Ő tanár. – He is a teacher.
- A jegypénztár kicsi. – The ticket office is small.
With a place / adverb / postpositional phrase as the main predicate, you normally keep van:
- A jegypénztár a vasúti állomás mellett van.
  – The ticket office is next to the railway station.
- A könyv az asztalon van. – The book is on the table.

In your sentence, the predicate is a location phrase (a vasúti állomás mellett), so van must be present:

A jegypénztár a vasúti állomás mellett van. ✅
A jegypénztár a vasúti állomás mellett. ❌ (incorrect / incomplete)

Could I also say “A jegypénztár nem a buszmegállónál van, hanem a vasúti állomás mellett”? How is that different?

Yes, that version is perfectly correct:

A jegypénztár nem a buszmegállónál van, hanem a vasúti állomás mellett.
= The ticket office is not at the bus stop, but (it is) next to the railway station.

Difference in emphasis:

Original sentence:
A jegypénztár a vasúti állomás mellett van, nem a buszmegállónál.
- Focuses first on the correct location (railway station), then quickly adds a correction: not at the bus stop.
- Roughly: It’s (actually) next to the railway station, not at the bus stop.
Alternative with nem … hanem …:
A jegypénztár nem a buszmegállónál van, hanem a vasúti állomás mellett.
- First denies a wrong assumption (bus stop), then gives the correct location.
- Roughly: It’s not at the bus stop, but next to the railway station.

Both are natural. The second one has a more explicit “not X, but Y” structure (nem … hanem …).

Why is nem used here and not nincs?

In the full, non-elliptical version, the negative clause would be:

A jegypénztár nem a buszmegállónál van.
– The ticket office is not at the bus stop.

Here we are negating where it is, not its existence, so we use nem + van:

nem … van – is not (in that place / in that state)

Nincs is a fused form of nem + van mainly used for existence / presence:

Ott nincs jegypénztár. – There is no ticket office there.
Nincs pénzem. – I have no money. / I don’t have money.

You can see sentences like:

A jegypénztár nincs a buszmegállónál.

This is also grammatical, but it feels closer to “The ticket office is not (located) at the bus stop (at all).” In your original contrastive sentence, the structure nem a buszmegállónál (“not at the bus stop”) is more naturally built with nem.

In the shorter original:

…, nem a buszmegállónál.

the verb van is simply omitted in the second part because it’s understood from the first clause.

Why is there a comma before nem?

The sentence actually consists of two clauses:

A jegypénztár a vasúti állomás mellett van,
nem a buszmegállónál (van).

The second clause is elliptical (it leaves out van, which is understood from the first clause). The comma marks the boundary between:

main statement: The ticket office is next to the railway station,
contrasting correction: not at the bus stop.

Hungarian normally uses a comma where English would also separate such contrasting clauses with a comma.

Could I say a buszmegállón or a buszmegállóban instead of a buszmegállónál? What’s the difference?

For “at the bus stop”, the most usual choice is a buszmegállónál.

Other possibilities:

a buszmegállón – literally “on the bus stop”
- grammatically possible, but sounds odd unless you specifically mean “on top of it” (e.g. on the sign, on the platform).
- It is not the standard way to say “at the bus stop”.
a buszmegállóban – “in the bus stop”
- could be used if you imagine being inside the bus shelter (e.g. inside a glass shelter), but for normal “I am at the bus stop” you don’t use this.

So:

I’m at the bus stop. → A buszmegállónál vagyok. ✅ (normal)
The timetable is on the bus stop sign. → A menetrend a buszmegállón van. (here -on makes sense)
We are standing inside the bus shelter. → A buszmegállóban állunk. (here -ban can be meaningful)

For everyday “at/by this place” (bus stop, church, crossing, bridge, someone’s house), -nál/-nél is the standard choice.

Can I say vonatállomás for “train station” instead of vasúti állomás / vasútállomás?

Normally, no. The natural words are:

vasútállomás – railway station (one word)
vasúti állomás – railway station (two words)

Vonat means train (the vehicle), while vasút refers to the railway system. In Hungarian, the conventional term is built from vasút, not from vonat.

If you say vonatállomás, people will understand you, but it sounds non-standard or foreign-influenced. Use vasútállomás or vasúti állomás instead.

How are some of the tricky parts of this sentence pronounced?

Key items:

jegypénztár
- gy in jegy is a single consonant, similar to the “d” in British “during” or “duke” (a soft dy sound).
- Roughly: yedy-paynst-ar (with é like in “café”, á as a long a in “father”).
vasúti
- s is pronounced /ʃ/ (like English “sh”).
- Roughly: vash-oo-tee.
- ú is a long “oo” sound.
buszmegállónál
- sz is /s/ (like English “s”).
- busz is pronounced like “boos” with a final s-sound.
- Stress is always on the first syllable: BUSZ-me-gál-ló-nál.
- á and ó are long vowels.

Whole sentence, marked for main word stresses (each word gets stress on its first syllable):

A JEGYpénztár a VAsúti ÁLlomás MELlett van, nem a BUSZmegÁLLÓnál.

Hungarian stress is simple: always on the first syllable of each word, no shifting like in English.