Breakdown of Ma jól alszom, mert fáradt vagyok.
Questions & Answers about Ma jól alszom, mert fáradt vagyok.
Hungarian often uses the simple present to talk about the near future when the time is clear from context.
- Ma jól alszom literally: Today I sleep well,
but it’s naturally understood as Today I will sleep well (i.e. tonight).
Because you say ma (today), people understand you’re talking about what’s going to happen later today / tonight, so there is no need for an explicit future.
You can say:
- Ma jól fogok aludni. – I will sleep well today.
This is perfectly correct, but sounds a bit more emphatic or formal; in everyday speech, Ma jól alszom is more natural.
Jó is an adjective (good), and jól is the adverb (well).
In English you say sleep well, not sleep good (at least in standard English). Same logic in Hungarian:
- jó – good
- jó könyv – a good book
- jól – well
- jól alszom – I sleep well
So you need jól because it describes how you sleep (adverb), not what kind of thing you are.
Hungarian verb endings show the subject clearly, so subject pronouns are usually dropped:
- alszom already means I sleep / I will sleep
- vagyok already means I am
So Én ma jól alszom, mert fáradt vagyok is grammatically correct, but:
- Without Én, it’s neutral:
Ma jól alszom, mert fáradt vagyok. - With Én, it adds emphasis on I:
Én ma jól alszom, mert fáradt vagyok.
→ I will sleep well today (as opposed to someone else, or contrary to some expectation).
In normal, neutral statements, people omit Én.
Both are possible, but they are not equally natural and they don’t have exactly the same focus.
Default, neutral-sounding word order here is:
- Ma jól alszom. – Today I’ll sleep well.
This puts Ma (today) early, like in English Today I’ll sleep well, which sounds very natural.
You could also say:
- Jól alszom ma.
This is grammatically correct, but it sounds a bit marked or less usual in isolation. It can be used:
- in contrast, e.g.
Tegnap rosszul aludtam, de jól alszom ma.
Yesterday I slept badly, but I’ll sleep well today.
So: Ma jól alszom is the best neutral version; Jól alszom ma is possible when you want to emphasize well vs badly, or contrast days.
Yes, ma means today, and in everyday speech it naturally includes the coming night when context suggests sleeping.
So:
- Ma jól alszom.
is understood as
I will sleep well tonight (on this calendar day, during the coming night).
If you want to be more specific, you can say:
- Ma este jól alszom. – I will sleep well this evening.
- Ma éjjel jól alszom. – I will sleep well tonight (during the night).
But usually ma is enough; people infer tonight from the verb alszom.
Yes. In Hungarian, you normally put a comma before mert when it introduces a reason clause.
- Ma jól alszom, mert fáradt vagyok.
I’ll sleep well today, because I’m tired.
This is similar to English, where you also usually write a comma before because when it joins two full clauses.
So:
main clause → comma → mert + subordinate clause.
mert = because (introduces the reason)
ezért = therefore / for this reason (introduces the consequence)
Your sentence uses mert, so the structure is:
- [Consequence], mert [Reason].
Ma jól alszom, mert fáradt vagyok.
I’ll sleep well today, because I’m tired.
With ezért, you flip the order:
- [Reason], ezért [Consequence].
Fáradt vagyok, ezért ma jól alszom.
I’m tired, therefore I’ll sleep well today.
Both are fine, but:
- mert links backward to the reason
- ezért points forward to the consequence
In first and second person, you must use the verb lenni (to be) in the present tense with adjectives describing states:
- fáradt vagyok – I am tired
- fáradt vagy – you (sg) are tired
You cannot say *fáradt alone here. That would be ungrammatical.
The rule about dropping van/ vannak in the 3rd person present only applies when the predicate is a noun or adjective, for example:
- Ő fáradt. (3rd person) – He/She is tired.
(Here van is omitted: Ő fáradt = Ő fáradt van, but the van is not used.)
But in 1st person you always say:
- Én fáradt vagyok. (not *Én fáradt)
So fáradt vagyok is required and standard.
No, not in neutral speech. The natural word order is:
- mert fáradt vagyok.
Hungarian word order is flexible, but it follows rules about focus and information structure. The basic, non-emphatic order with an adjective and vagyok is:
- [Adjective] + vagyok
→ fáradt vagyok – I am tired.
mert vagyok fáradt sounds wrong in standard Hungarian; it would only appear in very specific poetic or heavily emphasized contexts, and even then it would be odd. Stick with mert fáradt vagyok.
The infinitive is:
- aludni – to sleep
The 1st person singular present indefinite is:
- alszom – I (will) sleep
The stem changes from alud- to alsz-. This is just an irregular pattern of this verb. Other forms:
- alszom – I sleep
- alszol – you (sg) sleep
- alszik – he/she/it sleeps
- alszunk – we sleep
- alszotok – you (pl) sleep
- alszanak – they sleep
So if you look in a dictionary, you’ll find aludni, but in actual sentences you need the conjugated form alszom here.
alszom is the standard, recommended written form.
alszok is very common in spoken language and widely understood. It’s not “wrong” in everyday conversation, but in:
- careful speech
- writing (essays, exams, formal texts)
you should prefer alszom.
So for learning purposes, memorize:
- Ma jól alszom, mert fáradt vagyok.
Without ma, the sentence becomes:
- Jól alszom, mert fáradt vagyok.
Grammatically this could describe a general habit, but semantically it’s strange in both languages: I sleep well because I am (always) tired.
More natural meanings would be:
- Right now I’m sleeping well because I’m tired (but that would usually require some context, and you’d more likely use a progressive construction in English).
- Or as a one-time situation, referring to tonight, but then you’d typically keep a time word like ma.
So:
- With ma, it clearly refers to this day / tonight.
- Without ma, the sentence is grammatically okay but slightly odd unless the context clarifies the time or you are saying something unusual about yourself.