Breakdown of A barátommal szállodában fogunk aludni a tengerpart közelében.
Questions & Answers about A barátommal szállodában fogunk aludni a tengerpart közelében.
Hungarian usually drops subject pronouns because the verb ending already shows the person and number.
- fogunk = we will (the ending -unk means “we”)
So fogunk aludni already tells you it’s we who will sleep.
You can say Mi a barátommal szállodában fogunk aludni… but mi (we) is only used for emphasis or contrast (e.g. We, not someone else).
Hungarian commonly uses the auxiliary verb fog + infinitive to talk about the future:
- fog = will (auxiliary verb)
- fogunk = we will (1st person plural)
- aludni = to sleep (infinitive)
So:
- fogunk aludni = we will sleep
In everyday speech, Hungarians also often use the present tense for the future (with context), e.g.
Holnap szállodában alszunk. = Tomorrow we’re sleeping in a hotel / we’ll sleep in a hotel.
Using fogunk aludni makes the future a bit more explicit or formal.
barátommal is made of three parts:
- barát = friend
- -om = my (1st person singular possessive) → barátom = my friend
- -val / -vel = with
- after a word ending in t, the v often assimilates to t, giving -tal / -tel,
- then barát
- -val becomes barát-tal, and with the possessive: barátommal.
So barátommal literally means with my friend.
Because Hungarian adds possessive and case endings directly to nouns, it becomes one word instead of several separate words as in English.
Hungarian articles:
- a / az = the
- egy = a / an (usually optional)
In the sentence:
A barátommal:
- a = the
- barátommal = with my friend
You normally use the definite article with possessed nouns:
a barátom = my friend (literally the my friend).
szállodában (in a hotel):
There’s no article, so it is understood as in a hotel (unspecified).
If you said a szállodában, it would mean in the hotel (a specific hotel known from context).
So:
- A barátommal szállodában fogunk aludni = With my friend, we will sleep in a hotel.
- A barátommal a szállodában fogunk aludni = With my friend, we will sleep in the hotel. (a particular hotel)
The ending -ban / -ben is the inessive case, meaning “in, inside”.
- szálloda = hotel
- szállodában = in a hotel
Choice between -ban and -ben follows vowel harmony:
- after “back” vowels (a, á, o, ó, u, ú) → -ban
- after “front” vowels (e, é, i, í, ö, ő, ü, ű) → -ben
szálloda has back vowels (á, o, a), so it gets -ban → szállodában.
They are two different cases:
- szállodában – inessive: in a hotel (location, inside something)
- szállodába – illative: into a hotel (movement into)
Examples:
- Szállodában fogunk aludni. = We will sleep in a hotel.
- Szállodába megyünk. = We are going to a hotel / into a hotel.
Hungarian word order is flexible, but it is guided by focus (what is emphasized) and by a rough pattern:
[Topic] – [Focus] – [Verb] – [Rest].
In A barátommal szállodában fogunk aludni a tengerpart közelében:
- A barátommal – topic (who we’re talking about: “with my friend”)
- szállodában – place information
- fogunk aludni – verb phrase (future “will sleep”)
- a tengerpart közelében – additional place detail (“near the seaside”)
You could also say, for example:
Szállodában fogunk aludni a barátommal a tengerpart közelében.
→ more neutral, starting with the location “In a hotel we’ll sleep with my friend...”A tengerpart közelében fogunk a barátommal szállodában aludni.
→ puts stronger emphasis on “near the seaside”.
All these are grammatical; the difference is mainly in emphasis and what you want to highlight.
közelében comes from közel (near):
- közel = near
- közele = its vicinity (közel + a possessive-like -e)
- közelében = in its vicinity, near it (közele + -ben “in”)
So a tengerpart közelében literally means:
- a tengerpart = the seaside / the seashore
- közelében = in its vicinity
→ in the vicinity of the seaside = near the seaside.
It’s a very common and natural way in Hungarian to say “near X”.
Here a is the definite article the.
- a tengerpart = the seaside
- tengerpart alone feels more like naming the concept “seaside” rather than referring to a particular one.
In this type of phrase (X közelében), it is normal to use the article when you mean a specific place:
- a város közelében = near the city
- a folyó közelében = near the river
- a tengerpart közelében = near the seaside
Without the article it would sound less natural in this context.
tengerpart is a compound:
- tenger = sea
- part = shore, bank, side
So tengerpart = seashore, seaside. In English we usually just say “the seaside” or “the beach”, but Hungarian keeps the two parts together as one word.
In the original sentence, barátommal means with my friend, so the subject is “my friend and I”.
If you want only my friend as the subject, you say:
- A barátom szállodában fog aludni a tengerpart közelében.
- A barátom = my friend (subject)
- fog aludni = will sleep (3rd person singular)
- szállodában = in a hotel
- a tengerpart közelében = near the seaside
Here barátommal disappears, because now your friend is not “with you”, he/she is the one doing the sleeping.
fog is conjugated according to the subject:
- fogok = I will
- fogsz = you (sg.) will
- fog = he / she / it will
- fogunk = we will
- fogtok = you (pl.) will
- fognak = they will
Since the sentence means “we will sleep”, the appropriate form is fogunk (1st person plural).
The ending -unk is what encodes we, so Hungarian doesn’t need the separate pronoun mi.