A fiú sokat jegyzetel az órán, mert hamarosan vizsga lesz.

to be

Breakdown of A fiú sokat jegyzetel az órán, mert hamarosan vizsga lesz.

• mert: because
• sok: a lot
• hamarosan: soon

Questions & Answers about A fiú sokat jegyzetel az órán, mert hamarosan vizsga lesz.

Why is it a fiú but az órán?

Hungarian has two forms of the definite article:

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

So:

• a fiú = the boy
• az órán = in/during the class

Both a and az simply mean the. The choice depends only on the sound that follows, not on gender or case.

What exactly is sokat doing here?

Sokat means a lot in this sentence.

It comes from sok = many / much / a lot, and with verbs Hungarian very often uses the -t form:

• sokat olvas = reads a lot
• sokat beszél = talks a lot
• sokat jegyzetel = takes a lot of notes / takes notes a lot

So even though it looks like it has an object ending, here it functions adverbially: it tells you how much he is taking notes.

What does jegyzetel mean, and how is it different from just ír?