A lány fehér csészét vesz, a fiú pedig piros tányért.

Here pedig means something like while, whereas, or as for. It links the second clause to the first and creates a parallel or contrast between them.

Its position is normal too. Pedig often comes after the topic of the clause, so a fiú pedig is the natural order here.

Because Hungarian often leaves out a repeated verb when it is easy to understand from the previous clause.

The full version would be:

A lány fehér csészét vesz, a fiú pedig piros tányért vesz.

Leaving out the second vesz avoids repetition and sounds natural.

The ending -t marks the accusative case, which is used for direct objects.

So:

• csésze → csészét
• tányér → tányért

That is why these words appear in object form in the sentence.

A useful extra detail: when a noun ends in -a or -e, that vowel often becomes long before -t. So csésze becomes csészét.

Because in Hungarian, an adjective directly in front of a noun usually does not take the noun’s case ending. The noun carries the case marking:

• fehér csészét
• piros tányért

But if the adjective stands alone, replacing the noun, then it does take the ending:

• A fehéret veszi. = He/She is buying the white one.

Hungarian has two main verb conjugation patterns:

• indefinite conjugation
• definite conjugation

Here the object is indefinite, so Hungarian uses vesz.

Compare:

• fehér csészét vesz = buys a white cup
• a fehér csészét veszi = buys the white cup

So veszi would be used with a definite object.

a / az is the definite article, like English the. So:

• a lány = the girl
• a fiú = the boy

The objects are indefinite. In Hungarian, an indefinite singular object can often appear without egy, especially in simple neutral sentences like this.

So fehér csészét can still mean a white cup, and piros tányért can mean a red plate.

You could also say:

A lány egy fehér csészét vesz, a fiú pedig egy piros tányért.

That is also correct. Egy just makes the indefiniteness more explicit, and sometimes can also stress one.

Yes, this word order is very natural.

Hungarian word order is much more flexible than English word order, and it depends a lot on topic and focus. In a sentence like this, it is very common for an indefinite object to come right before the verb:

• A lány fehér csészét vesz.

So this is not strange or poetic. It is a normal Hungarian pattern. Different word orders are possible, but they usually change the emphasis.

No. Hungarian has no grammatical gender.

That means:

• adjectives do not change for masculine/feminine
• articles do not change for masculine/feminine
• verbs do not agree with masculine/feminine either

So fehér and piros stay the same no matter whether the noun refers to a male, a female, or an object.

Words like lány and fiú do have natural gender in meaning, but Hungarian grammar does not treat them as separate grammatical genders.

Hungarian has two forms of the definite article:

• a before a consonant sound
• az before a vowel sound

So:

• a lány
• a fiú

both use a, because lány and fiú begin with consonant sounds.

A few helpful rules:

• Stress in Hungarian is usually on the first syllable.
• The accents in á, é, í, ó, ú mainly show vowel length. They do not mark stress.
• cs sounds like English ch.
• ny sounds like the ny in canyon or Spanish ñ.
• sz sounds like English s.
• s by itself sounds like English sh.

So, very roughly:

• lány = long á
  • ny
• csészét begins with ch
• fiú has two syllables: fi-ú
• piros ends in a sh sound, not an English s sound