# Expressing gerund in Hungarian



## Katalijn

How do would you translate the following sentence?
*
1) I saw an airplane flying in the sky.*

my suggestions:
1a) Egy repülőgépet láttam, amely az égen repült.
1b) Egy repülőgépet láttam az égen repülve. 1c) Az égen repülve egy repülőgépet láttam.

Thanks a lot for your help in advance!


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## Zsanna

Hello Katalijn,

1a  (although there may be some other possibilities that would sound even more natural to some... e.g. Using the infinitive: Láttam az égen egy repülőt repülni. This could be an idea for the translation of the gerund but practically it wouldn't work too well here because Hungarian doesn't like repetition of this sort.)
1b  wouldn't put it like that (unless the subject of the sentence was flying in the sky)
1c  changing the word order doesn't solve the problem (at best it is ambiguous who was flying -- if the plane, it sounds lame, if the speaker, it doesn't mean the same as the original English sentence)


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## AndrasBP

Hello Katalijn,

My suggestions are: 
Egy repülőgépet láttam az égen.
Láttam az égen egy repülőgépet.
Láttam egy repülőgépet az égen.

I think the verb "fly" should be omitted to avoid repetition. "Láttam egy repülőgépet repülni" kind of sounds like "They're building a building" in English.
Btw, "repülőgép" is usually shortened to "repülő" in colloquial Hungarian.


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## AndrasBP

The use of the _-va / -ve_ gerund is much more limited than the -ing gerund in English, so the Hungarian translation of a sentence like "I saw an airplane flying" doesn't normally work with _-va / -ve_.

E.g.:
I saw a dog swimming in the lake. = Láttam egy kutyát úszni a tóban. OR Láttam, hogy egy kutya úszik a tóban.


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## franknagy

Katalijn said:


> How do would you translate the following sentence?
> *
> 1) I saw an airplane flying in the sky.*
> 
> my suggestions:
> 1a) Egy repülőgépet láttam, amely az égen repült.
> 1b) Egy repülőgépet láttam az égen repülve. 1c) Az égen repülve egy repülőgépet láttam.
> 
> Thanks a lot for your help in advance!


The solution 1a) is absolutely good.
The solutions 1b) and 1c) are wrong. The mean  that I was flying on the sky. The airplane might be stang on the airport or flying.

I suggest you:
2a) Egy gépet láttam az égen *repülni*. 
2b) Egy az égen *repülő* gépet láttam.


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## tomtombp

I think (please correct me if I'm wrong) there are two cases even in English.

I saw an airplane fly.  Láttam egy repülőt repülni.  I think this one is perfectly ok as I could have seen the same plane on the ground. Adding "in the sky" makes using "repülni" less justified but if you change the plane to a helicopter which could just hover in one place instead of moving horizontally (flying) it could make the sentence more clear.
I saw an airplane flying.  Láttam egy repülőt repülve. 

Repülő is short for repülőgép in informal conversations.


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## francisgranada

Well, I have a "contrary" (or "reverse") question: How do you say in English "Láttam egy repülőt az égen repülve"? ( = when I was flying in the sky, I saw an airplain) using only the gerund (not the continuous past tense "to be flying")?

In other words, I think the sentence *I saw an airplane flying in the sky* is somehow a priori ambiguous. In English the gerund tends to belong to the object (the _airplain _was flying) while in Hungarian it's rather referring to the subject (_I_ was flying; it's _me _who was flying).

This difference may be given by the fact that the ending _-va/-ve_ does not fully correspnd to the English _-ing_. For example, "the flying airplain" cannot be translated as "a repülve repülőgép", as "repülve" is not an adjective while in English "flying" is an adjective (participle. not only gerund). Thus, perhaps, a grammatically more adequate translation of _*I saw an airplane flying in the sky *_would be "Láttam egy (az) égen repülő repülőgépet".


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## alias_hun

Katalijn said:


> How do would you translate the following sentence?
> *
> 1) I saw an airplane flying in the sky.*
> 
> my suggestions:
> 1a) Egy repülőgépet láttam, amely az égen repült.
> 1b) Egy repülőgépet láttam az égen repülve. 1c) Az égen repülve egy repülőgépet láttam.
> 
> Thanks a lot for your help in advance!



Hello Katalijn,

I think that using either the infinitive form of the word "fly" (_repülni_) or any other derivatives (e.g., _repülő_) is redundant. It is obvious that if you saw an airplane in the sky, it was flying. It'd sound even more awkward to include _repülni _since the word "airplane" (_repülőgép_) already contains _repül_.

So my suggestion is very simple and sounds natural: *Láttam egy repülőgépet az égen.*


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## francisgranada

AndrasBP said:


> ... I think the verb "fly" should be omitted to avoid repetition. "Láttam egy repülőgépet repülni" kind of sounds like "They're building a building" in English.


 I agree, but sometimes we _need _to say things like "They're building a building", even if they sound a bit cacophonic ... For example, "Láttam egy repülőgépet lezuhanni _(neadjisten ...)_. Te is láttad?". A possible answer: "Nem, de (akkortájt) láttam egy repülőgépet (az égen) repülni". 


Fredsky said:


> Szerintem a "*I saw an airplane flying in the sky"* tukorforditasa nem "Egy repülőgépet láttam az égen repülve", hanem "Egy repülőgépet láttam az égen repülni". Ez szerintem egy teljesen jo mondat magyarul, ...


Egyetértek.


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## franknagy

tomtombp said:


> Láttam egy repülőt repülve.



The above sentence means that I was flying while I saw an airplane. 

Maybe somebody kicked my ass and I was flying out of the pub next to the runway. The seen airplane might have rolled, stood, as well as flied. (It could mean that I was hallucinating.)


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## Zsanna

Moderator's note:
I think we all agree about the value of the use of -va/-ve in this case, there is no need for further comment on that. 
Repeating the same thing is *not* new information.


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## tomtombp

franknagy said:


> The above sentence means that I was flying while I saw an airplane.



I marked it wrong.


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