[#DuolingoForumGems originally posted on 2018-04-19 on the Duolingo Hungarian for English speakers forum by jzsuzsi ] 

Singular vs plural

There are differences between how Hungarian and English uses plurals.

1,  The main one, as most of you noticed already, if you are doing this course, that after numbers, Hungarian doesn't use the plural form. Egy kutya, két kutya, három kutya (one dog, two dogs, three dogs)

Similarly for Sok/kevés/néhány.

Látok sok kutyát / néhány kutyát.

2, The following refers to the Possessives skills and this is trickier:
If the object is usually in pairs: boots, shoes, socks: Plural in English but singular in Hungarian. Leveszem a cipőmet. I take off my shoes. (You could say Leveszem a cipőimet, but that sounds less natural in Hungarian.)

3, If multiple people own something. Our toothbrushes. Their phones.

Here, if usually everyone has one each (everyone has their own toothbrush), you can still use the singular in Hungarian. A ti fogkefétek koszos. Your toothbrushes are dirty. Az ő telefonjuk nem csöng. Their phones don’t ring.

But it is ambiguous, a ti fogkefétek can also be a shared tootbrush. Then use singular in English.

Also, if you think from context that it is not one for each, but just one thing, it is singular for both Hungarian and English. Our dog. A mi kutyánk. (We are a family and we have one dog.)

Feel free to add your own thoughts or correct me:)

Singular in Hungarian, but plural in English, in a table:

	Hungarian	English
given quantity	öt kutya	five dogs
	sok alma	a lot of apples
	kevés alma	few apples
paired body part	Kék a szeme.	His eyes are blue.
paired clothing item	Leveszem a cipőmet.	I take off my shoes.
one for each	A lányok szoknyában  vannak.	The girls are wearing skirts.
always plural in English	farmer	jeans
	nadrág	pants (US), trousers (UK)
	olló	scissors
	pizsama	pajamas (US) pyjamas (UK)
in general	Szeretem az almát.	I like apples.
unknown quantity	Hoztam virágot.	I brought flowers.

If multiple people own something, let's look at this again with a different table:

	Hungarian	English
shared (owned together)	singular	singular
	Van egy kutyánk.	We have a dog.
one for each	singular	plural
	a ti fogkefétek	your toothbrushes
several for each	plural	plural
	a ti almáitok	your apples

Imagine a language where 3 different grammatical forms are possible for these three situations (shared/one for each/several for each). That would help with ambiguity.
 I think we could create a conlang like that :)

But for now, as we are stuck with using Hungarian and English... both Hungarian and English have 2 possible grammatical forms for these 3 scenarios, the difference is only how they use them.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Plurals and possessives

A different thread, question by MrzzyV:

[#DuolingoForumGems originally posted on 2020-12-15 on the Duolingo Hungarian for English speakers forum by MrzzyV ] 

Hi, I kinda caught a comment out of the corner of my eye on my way to another window, and now I can't find it.

I think it said No more than one plural within a possessive construction.

It was explaining why, if the pronoun was singular in Hungarian, the English would nonetheless have it plural.

Now I am not talking about how things like socks that come in pairs are treated as singular in construction.

I mean something like Our [more than one of us] newspapers [more than one paper] are wet. I would want to say Vizes az újságokünk, or Az újságokünk vizesek. Is that not ok?

Thank you!


Answers:

comment by WberKatali:
Az újságjaink vizesek.

Comment by ViktorNemeth:
 Not sure I'm properly answering your Q but specific to the newspaper issue, "az újságunk vizes" means our newspaper, the one (and not more than one) newspaper that belongs to all of us, is wet. "az újságjaink vizesek" means there are multiple newspapers in question that happen to be wet (and they belong to a number of people as well) Does that help?

Comment by MrzzyV:

Thanks. I am trying to figure out the only-one-plural-per-possessive thing.

Újságjaink = our newspapers, ügye? That is sticking the plural "i" thing with possessives, yeah, I forgot about that. Not "k" as with un-possessed nouns.

How about Their [more than one 3rd person] children [more than one child]? The comment I am thinking of was in 3rd person. That much I remember.

And thanks!

Comment by jzsuzsi:

Their [more than one 3rd person] children [more than one child]? A gyerekeik. /Az ő gyerekeik.


Comment by MrzzyV:

Aha! Ő singular, even though 3rd p plural. Ok. I see. The plural can't be on the pronoun too. I think.

Comment by jzsuzsi:

There are a few different rules that come into play here.

1, The one with "Az ő gyerekeik" and and not "Az ők ..... ik"

Tips& notes say:
Exceptions

As usual, there are a few exceptions to the general rule. When the possessor is third person plural, the forms change in one of two ways. First, when the possessor is a pronoun, ők ‘they’, the pronoun loses its -k. (This only happens with ők, all other pronouns stay intact.)

• az ő cipőjük ‘their shoe’

• az ő asztaluk ‘their table’

So it looks like a singular possessor, but is still plural. Second, when the possessor is a noun in the plural, like a lányok, the possessed noun loses its plural ending -(j)uk or -(j)ük

• a lányok cipője ‘the girls' shoe’

• a lányok asztala ‘the girls' table'

2, One for each.

Azoknak a férfiaknak van feleségük. - Those men have wives.
(Singular in HU, but not because they share a wife, but they have one wife for each man. )

3, shoes, gloves, eyes, paired clothing items / body parts.

Kék a szeme. His eyes are blue.

Vizes a cipőm. My shoes are wet. (Likely the pair of shoes are wet, not just one.)

Some links:

-ja or -juk

Note: I first wrote Azoknak a férfiaknak van felesége. and then later realized... on Duolingo, we teach the -ük version... go back and change it. :P

Comment by MrzzyV:

Thanks! No wonder I am confused!