Oldal 204 [204]
HUNGARIAN-ENGLISH LINGUISTIC CONTRASTS. A PRACTICAL APPROACH
GRAMMATICAL REPLACEMENT: CHANGE OF SUBJECT
The crash killed four people. — Négyen haltak meg a baleset¬
ben.
The snowfall brought traffic to a standstill. -— A hóesés miatt megbénult a
közlekedés.
(See Chapter 4.2.1 and 4.2.2: external causer subjects in English)
GRAMMATICAL REPLACEMENT: ACTIVE TO PASSIVE
In English-Hungarian translation, the Passive is usually converted into the
Active. However, there are several other ways employed in translating the
passive (see Chapter 4.3). In the case of the short passive, the Hungarian sen¬
tence will have a general subject, signalled by a plural 3" person verb, but in
some cases, it will be a plural 1*t person verb.
In Hungarian-English translation, especially of academic texts, there often
has to be a change from Active to Passive:
Meg kell jegyezniink, hogy ... — It should be noted that... (*We have
to remark that ...)
In translating impersonal constructions, including the Passive, the agent that
is unexpressed in English is often added in the Hungarian translation.
This was the hardest-hit area. — A természeti csapás ezt a területet
sújtotta a legjobban.
GRAMMATICAL REPLACEMENT: REPLACING GRAMMATICAL STRUCTURES
BY LEXICAL ITEMS
Lehet, hogy szép nem vagyok ... — I may not be beautiful ...
Pigs might fly. — Előfordulhat, hogy a disznók repülnek.
In general, there is a tendency in Hungarian to use lexical words where English
uses modal auxiliaries. In speaking and translating into English Hungarian
learners will tend to use lexical words and neglect modal auxiliaries. In this
way, what they say and write will be grammatically correct, but the distribution
of lexical words and modal auxiliaries in their speech and writing will deviate
from native speaker norms. The sentence Eléfordulhat, hogy a disznok repülnek
would probably be translated into English (by many learners) as It can happen
that pigs (will) fly.
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