# eszem reggelire - about order of words



## cincplug

Hello, 

How much is Hungarian flexible about order of subject, predicate and object in a sentence?

For example, does it matter whether you say:

_Szerdánként eszem halat reggelire._​ 
or, for example: 

_Csütörtökönként banánt eszem vacsorára._​ 
Thanks for your help.


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## Zsanna

Hello cincplug and welcome to our forum

Hungarian word order is famous for being flexible.  So both of your examples are right.
However, there is a slight difference in where the accent is in your sentences.
In the first, _szerdánként_ is accentuated to express that "it is on Wednesdays" that you do that action - and not on Mondays or any other day of the week.
Meanwhile in your second example the word order is "normal" (= nothing is accentuated in particular) so your sentence just informs us about what you eat for dinner on Thursdays.

There are rules, of course, but they are fairly complicated. To put it short: you can express an accent on a particular part of the sentence by putting it before the verb.

There have already been some discussions about this on this forum so it's worth looking in the Search Thread (top of this page on the right above the first post).


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## Ateesh6800

Zsanna said:


> In the first, _szerdánként_ is accentuated to express that "it is on Wednesdays" that you do that action - and not on Mondays or any other day of the week.



Zsu is basically right; however, the second sentence also has a focus (emphasis); in speech, _banánt_ is slightly accentuated:

It is bananas that I eat on Thursdays for dinner and not, say, ham and eggs.

As a very general rule of the thumb, the position right in front of the verb is in focus and it tends to be the important piece of information. But again, this is a very general rule, so Zsu is right when she proposes that you read into other word order threads and maybe some literature. 

It is a lot of fun, I assure you. 

*A.*


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## cincplug

Thanks for your help Zsanna and Ateesh6800. So, sentence accent functions more or less similarly like in Slavic languages, although Hungarian belongs to completely different group. 

Of course, I'll take a look on other threads too. I am completely new to Hungarian, but I am familiar to it's sound.


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## Zsanna

cincplug said:


> So, sentence accent functions more or less similarly like in Slavic languages, although Hungarian belongs to completely different group.


I don't know how similar it is really but I remember that I didn't have any particular problem with word order learning Russian.
A different language group doesn't indicate that every single aspect of language should be different... and luckily for us, learners, at least everything is not completely new.


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