Hungarian for beginners

Hungarian for Beginners About the course and the language Szia, kedves olvasó! - Hi, dear reader! This course doesn’t follow any book or other external resource It was prepared by a native speaker, who has no formal knowledge of linguistics at all, therefore the lessons are based on solely his observations and are strongly affected by his logic That guy is me, and I’m switching to first person at this point I’m not trying to cover the origins of the language, many have already prepared much better summaries than I ever could Also, I’m not trying to go too technical concerning grammar because of my lack of education in that area I don’t know the terminology and I’m not even convinced if it’s a good idea to apply western grammar categories to such an obscure language Summing up, I intend to follow a descriptive approach and target those who are interested in learning the language instead of some abstract theory As I see it, Hungarian is a language which is hard to describe in a simple way when it comes to specific aspects, but its intuitiveness becomes obvious for those who use it regularly First of all, it is deeply orthogonal; moving between different parts of speech is trivial (thanks to the language being agglutinative), and you’ll often find that learning a rule here might help understanding something over there For the proper description being often cumbersome I advise you to look for patterns instead of trying to learn conjugation tables by heart Just for a teaser, some features of Hungarian: • nearly phonemic orthography, i.e a strong correspondence between writing and pronunciation • two kinds of vowel harmony • agglutination, resulting in practically infinite vocabulary and blending different parts of speech • an extensive case system with dozens of cases • practically free, 'component-based' word order • no grammatical gender, not even separate words for 'he' and 'she' • two kinds of verb conjugation depending on the object of the sentence, which makes 'I love you' a single word • subordinate clauses in IE languages often correspond to structures in adjective position • you name it, we have it I hope this mouthwatering list convinces you that mastering this language gives meaning to your life Contents Lesson 1: Hungarian Alphabet, Vowel Harmony, Pronunciation Rules Alphabet • Vowel Harmony • Pronunciation Lesson 2: Short Dialogue, Picking It Apart, Overview, Some Expressions, Grammar Items The Beginning • A Short Dialogue • Picking It Apart • Overview • Vocabulary • Vocabulary • Vocabulary • Some Expressions • Grammar Items Lesson 3: Plural & Accusative Case, Vocabulary, Morphology, Subject-Verb-Complement, Using the Substantive, Using Demonstrative Pronouns Plural & Accusative Case • Vocabulary • Morphology • Subject- VerbComplement • Substantive • Demonstrative Pronouns • Exercises Lesson 4: Introduction, Riding through it Introduction • Riding Through It • Exercises Part One - The Basics Lesson 1: Hungarian Alphabet, Vowel Harmony, Pronunciation Rules This lesson on spelling and pronunciation might look overwhelming, but don’t let that discourage you You could as well skip its gory depths and train yourself with sound recordings instead However, I always found it useful to learn similar pronunciation rules for other languages, because my ears can easily deceive me if my brain doesn’t tell them what to look out for Being aware of such rules helped me overcome the bias of my own mother tongue My advice is to use this knowledge to polish your listening skills, and try to internalise it through practice Learning the tables by heart would be completely pointless The first important skill to learn is reading Since Hungarian is nearly phonemic, mastering its mile long alphabet is essential The Hungarian language is written with Latin letters The complete alphabet consists of 44 letters, but four of these (the ones in bold face) only appear in foreign words or names They are often simply omitted from the list The Hungarian Alphabet Letter Name IPA Letter Name IPA a a ɑ or ɒ ny eny ɲ á aː o o o b bé b ó ó oː c cé ʦ ö ö ø cs csé ʧ ő ő øː d dé d p pé p dz dzé ʣ q kú — dzs dzsé ʤ r er r e e ɛ s es ʃ é é eː sz esz s f ef f t té t g gé g ty tyé c gy gyé ɟ u u u h há h ú ú uː i i i ü ü y í í iː ű ű yː j jé j v vé v k ká k w duplavé — l el l x iksz — ly ely j y ipszilon — m em m z zé z n en n zs zsé ʒ Consonants and vowels are traditionally grouped by certain qualities, which are relevant to pronunciation on a practical level Classification of Consonants (pairs and pairless 'loners') Voiced Unvoiced Voiced Unvoiced b p j — d t l — dz c ly — dzs cs m — g k n — gy ty ny — v f r — z sz — h zs s Classification of vowels (short-long pairs indicated with dashes) Rounded Front Back ö-ő, ü-ű o-ó, u-ú Unrounded e, é, i-í a, Some consonants are represented with digraphs, and there is one trigraph Long consonants are denoted by doubling the letter, or the first character in the case of the aforementioned di- and trigraphs: ggy, ssz, ddzsetc Vowel Harmony Vowels are divided into four categories called depending on the position of the tongue (front or back) and the shape of the lips (rounded or unrounded) during their formation, as seen in the table above Words are classified according to their vowels as front (e.g élet, life), back (e.g álom, dream) or mixed (e.g.hotel) Most of the endings attached during conjugation have a front and a back form (some are even more specialised according to roundedness) Vowel harmony ensures that front words get the front endings and back words the back endings In the case of mixed words the last vowel has strong impact on the ending, but there are ambiguous cases For example, the ending of the inessive case is -ban/-ben; adding it to the previous words gives életben, álomban and hotelban or hotelben It is important to remember that for historical reasons i (and consequently í as well) can behave as if it was a back vowel Hence, the classification of words containing i must be memorised individually Examples: szív(heart) becomes szívben, but kín (suffering) is kínban in inessive case Typical back/front pairs are a/e, á/é, o/ö, ó/ő, u/ü and ú/ű When roundedness is also considered, o/e/ö anda/o/e/ö often form such groups Pronunciation Rules Hungarian is a phonemic language, so the basic rule is to read out all the letters as the corresponding sound Every syllable should be audible, the first being stressed all the time In the case of composite words the other components are also slightly stressed on their first syllable The vowels never change, although their length does not always match what’s written On the other hand, the consonants succumb to some rules, most of which are due to the physiology of speech Since different languages treat the same consonant combinations in different ways, it is useful to be aware of these rules The most important rule is that consonants inherit the voicedness of the following consonant unless it is pairlessand voiced Some examples (the changed consonants are in bold face): • unvoiced pairs: ezt [ɛst], dobszó [dopsoː], tölgyfa [tølcfɒ], tévhit [teːfhit], va dkan [vɒtkɒn], fogódzhat[fogoːʦhɒt], egykor [ɛckor] • voiced pairs: képzel [keːbzɛl], csontgomb [ʧondgomb], cukrászda [ʦukraː zdɒ], babusgat [bɒbuʒgɒt], ércből[eːrʣbøːl], lökdös [løgdøʃ] • no change: hatna [hɒtnɒ], képmás [keːpmaːʃ] Next, n becomes m before b, p, f and v: különböző [kylømbøzøː], színpad [siːmpɒd], rohanva [rohɒmvɒ], csalánféle [ʧɒlaːmfeːlɛ] When an sz or a z is followed by an s or a zs, the result is the long version of the latter sound: igazság [igɒʃːaːg] (this is not a zs, but a z followed by an s), egészség [ɛgeːʃːeːg], húsz zsák [huːʒːaːk] etc In faster speech sz and z can also assimilate the preceding s and zs in a similar way An even more important rule is the assimilation of j to the preceding palatal (soft) consonant, making it longer:anyja [ɒɲːɒ], hagyja [hɒɟːɒ], bátyja [baːcːɒ] In some cases two consonants melt together to form a third one These rules must be strictly followed, pronouncing the written consonants separately is outright erroneous: Written Spoken Examples d/t+s ccs, cs fűtsük [fyːʧːyk], gyújtsa [ɟuːjʧɒ], vadság [vɒʧːaːg], szilárdság [silaːrʧaːg] d/t+sz cc metsző [mɛʦːøː], maradsz [mɒrɒʦː] gy/ty+s ccs egység [ɛʧːeːg] gy/ty+sz cc egyszer [ɛʦːɛr] t+j tty, ty botja [bocːɒ], mártja [maːrcɒ] d+j ggy, gy aludjunk [ɒluɟːunk], kardja [kɒrɟɒ] n+j nny menjen [mɛɲːɛn] Important: the assimilations listed in the table above never happen on word boundaries, including compound words Examples: átjár [aːtjaːr], hadjárat [hɒdjaːrɒt], hadsereg [hɒtʃɛrɛg] (note the tʃ instead of the ʧ) etc Finally, certain words have a mute h at the end: céh [tseː], düh [dy], juh [ju], méh [meː] and some others When an ending is attached, the h appears in pronunciation: dühös [dyhøʃ], méhek [meːhɛk] and so on Lesson 2: Short Dialogue, Picking It Apart, Overview, Some Expressions, Grammar Items The Beginning A Short Dialogue Let’s start with a short conversation that touches many aspects of the language, so it will be a relatively long and hopefully rewarding lesson—brace yourself and be strong I’ll always provide a real and a literal translation for longer texts with many unknown expressions, so you can see how the sentences are built up Hungarian: - Szia! - Szia! Hogy hívnak? - Péternek És téged? - Én Márta vagyok Hogy vagy? - Köszi, ma egész jól Honnan jöttél? - Debrecenből És te hol laksz? - Budapesti vagyok, az I kerületben lakom - A Várban? - Igen Ha akarod, megmutatom - Sőt, követelem! - Akkor menjünk! English: Garami Zoltánnak hívnak, 27 éves vagyok Sopronban élek kis családommal Feleségem Anna, ő két évvel fiatalabb nálam Van egy hároméves kislányunk is: Ildikó Háziállatunk még nincs, de mindenképpen szeretnénk egy kutyát A szüleim a fővárosban élnek, és még mindketten dolgoznak Apám újságíró, édesanyám kertész Egy húgom is van Őt Katalinnak hívják, és egyelőre a szüleinknél lakik Egyetemre jár, és mostanában a diplomamunkáján dolgozik English: My name is Garami Zoltán, I’m 27 years old I live in Sopron with my little family My wife is Anna, she’s two years younger than me We also have a three-year-old daughter: Ildikó We have no pets yet, but we'd definitely like to have a dog My parents live in the capital, and they both still work My father is a journalist, my mother is a gardener I have a younger sister too Her name is Katalin, and she lives with our parents for the time being She’s a student (lit she’s attending university), and she’s currently working on her (undergraduate) thesis Literal: Garami Zoltán(DAT) they-call-me, 27 ‘yeary’ I-am In-Sopron I-live little with-my-family My-wife Anna, she two with-year younger atme Is a three-year-old our-little-girl too: Ildikó Our-domesticanimal still is-not, but definitely we-would-like a dog(ACC) The myparents the in-capital they-live, and still all-two-‘ly’ they-work Myfather journalist, my-mother gardener A my-younger-sister too is Her(ACC) Katalin(DAT) they-call-it, and for-the-time-being the atour-parents she-resides Onto-university she-is-going, and lately the on-her-undergraduate-thesis she-works Riding Through It Garami Zoltánnak hívnak, 27 éves vagyok An important thing to see here is that Hungarian names start with the family name(s) and end with the given name(s) Only the last word is conjugated To say someone is X years old we use the word éves, which comes from év, ‘year’, by adding the -s affix (with a possible link vowel of a, o, e or ö) which turns a noun into an adjective with a descriptive meaning The number always comes before this word, since it’s in adjective position with respect to éves The substantive is used for characterisation, so the usual rules apply, as seen in all the person-number combinations: 27 éves vagyok I’m 27 27 éves vagy You’re 27 (inf sg.) 27 éves He/she/it is 27 27 évesek vagyunk We’re 27 27 évesek vagytok You’re 27 (inf pl.) 27 évesek They are 27 27 should be read as huszonhét I’ll get to the numbers later Sopronban élek kis családommal You could probably guess that Sopron is an ‘in’ place too, just as Debrecen Kis is just a form of kicsi which can be used in adjective position (but not in predicate position like ‘this house is small’, ez a ház kicsi) Here you can see a new case, which usually translates to English as ‘with’ The ending is -val/-vel, but the -v-assimilates to the preceding letter if it’s consonant, making it longer If the consonant was long, the -v-disappears completely In this case it’s appended to the word családom, ‘my family’, so the -v- turns into an -m- This is the most important way to express possession: by means of an attribute The stem is család, ‘family’, and the attribute meaning ‘my’ takes the form -om in this case In general it depends on the person and number of the possessor and obeys vowel harmony rules Let’s see a reference with examples: Stem ending in a vowel: back: m, d, ja, nk, tok, juk front (unrounded/rounded): m, d, je, nk, tek/ tök, jük The preceding vowel is lengthened if it is -a or -e, as usually Also, some words ending in -ó/-ő have this vowel changed to -a-/e- when a 3rd person possessive attribute is added Examples (left column: nominative, plural, accusative; right column: my, your, his/her/its, our, your, their): crate láda, ládák, ládát ládám, ládád, ládája, ládánk, ládátok, ládájuk tale mese, mesék, mesét mesém, meséd, meséje, mesénk, mesétek, meséjük forest erdő, k, t erdőm, erdőd, erdője (erdeje), erdőnk, erdőtök, erdőjük (erdejük) time idő, t, k időm, időd, ideje, időnk, időtök, idejük door ajtó, t, k ajtóm, ajtód, ajtaja, ajtónk, ajtótok, ajtajuk word szó, szavak, t szavam, szavad, szava, szavunk, szavatok, szavuk Stem ending in a consonant: back unrounded: am, ad, (j)a, unk, atok, (j)uk back rounded: om, od, (j)a, unk, otok, (j)uk front unrounded: em, ed, (j)e, ünk, etek, (j)ük front rounded: öm, öd, (j)e, ünk, ötök, (j)ük Suprisingly, it’s easy to decide which of the four to use for any given word The 1st person singular form must have the same link vowel as the simple plural of the stem Also, the stem changes the same way as with the plural form Examples: castle vár, ak, at váram, várad, vára, várunk, váratok, váruk damage kár, ok, t károm, károd, kára, kárunk, károtok, káruk sun, day nap, ok, ot napom, napod, napja, napunk, napotok, napjuk mud sár, sarak, sarat saram, sarad, sara, sarunk, saratok, saruk blood vér, ek, t vérem, véred, vére, vérünk, véretek, vérük dagger tőr, ök, t tőröm, tőröd, tőre, tőrünk, tőrötök, tőrük stallion mén, ek, t ménem, méned, ménje, ménünk, ménetek, ménjük cleverness, mind ész, eszek, észt/eszet eszem, eszed, esze, eszünk, eszetek, eszük earth, territory föld, ek, et földem, földed, földje, földünk, földetek, földjük bush bokor, bokrok, bokrot bokrom, bokrod, bokra, bokrunk, bokrotok, bokruk Basically it can be said that you can construct this ‘possessed’ form by taking the nominative plural form, chopping off the -k and adding: -m, -d, -/-ja/-je, +nk, -tok/-tök, +k The + signs mean that you must change the last vowel to u or ü following vowel harmony if it was a link vowel In 3rd person singular the -ja/-je ending is added only if there was no link vowel before the -k of the plural form (i.e it comes right after the possibly lengthened last vowel of the stem) This approach handles most of the irregularities as well, as seen above (even oddities like szó), so you’ll only need to know the correct plural forms (which must be memorised anyway, because there is no general rule to form them properly) The only tough point is the -j- appearing in 3rd person at times I can’t see any meaningful rule to that, and some words sound good both with and without it This is like plural and accusative: you have to read and listen to Hungarian a lot to get the hang of it You can also see a striking similarity with definite conjugation: vár: várom, várod, várja, várjuk, várjátok, várják (I wait it, you wait it ) kár: károm, károd, kára, kárunk, károtok, káruk (my damage, your damage ) Basically the difference is the link vowels, except for 1st and 2nd person plural (where, on the other hand, the possessive ending is the same as the indefinite verb conjugation, várunk and vártok) And, if you remember, something very similar to these endings (especially the possessive attributes) also appears when you conjugate the personal pronouns, just to recap with -nak/nek (dative): nekem, neked, neki, nekünk, nektek, nekik There are slight differences, but it is generally good to be aware of this pattern All in all, családommal is built up as család+(o)m+val As you can see, the attribute (possession) comes before the ending (case) Feleségem Anna, ő két évvel fiatalabb nálam ‘Wife’ is feleség As the first part of the sentence is a characterisation, van is omitted Két is ‘two’ in adjective position On the other hand, its independent or predicate form is kettő Such a distinction doesn’t exist for any other number, don’t worry When making a comparison, the unit is in the -val/-vel case The word for ‘young’ is fiatal, and its comparative form is fiatalabb, i.e ‘younger’ I’ll cover the comparative and other levels of gradation later to prevent this lesson from getting too long, but you can remember that the -bb attribute is used to form it Nálam is én in the-nál/-nél case, which roughly means ‘by’, and it is used where English would put ‘than’ More on this later Van egy hároméves kislányunk is: Ildikó The word for ‘three’ is három To form the adjective meaning ‘Xyear-old’ just take the number and appendéves if it’s one of the 20 simple numbers (1-10, 20, 30, , 100 or 1000) For every other number (or even the simple ones if they are written in numeric form) they are written as two separate words: huszonhét éves Don’t use dashes or any kind of punctuation here Hungarian doesn’t have a separate word for ‘daughter’ and ‘son’ We express these concepts by saying ‘someone’s girl’ and ‘someone’s boy’ (here I used kislány, ‘little girl’, but it isn’t necessary to add kis-) Actually, fiú can receive possessive attributes in two different ways: son: fiam, fiad, fia, fiunk, fiatok, fiuk boyfriend: fiúm, fiúd, fiúja, fiúnk, fiútok, fiújuk There isn’t such a distinction for girls There is a separate word for girlfriend: barátnő, literally ‘friendwoman’,barát+nő It doesn’t necessarily refer to a spouse, it can be used for female friends as well Is simply means ‘too’ or ‘also’, and it must always immediately follow the word it refers to Back on the main track, this is something that would be expressed with the verb ‘have’ in English Hungarian doesn’t have such a word Instead, we use the substantive combined with a possessive attribute, and also the dative case comes into the picture ‘X’s Y’ or ‘Y of X’ is expressed as X Y-ja or X-nek az Y-ja in Hungarian, i.e the possession (Y) gets the attribute explained above depending on the person and number of X, and the possessor (X) is either unchanged (except if it’s ők, ‘they’, see below) or is put in dative case (-nak/-nek) and the possession gets a definite article There is a major difference: in the latter case the two components can move around independently in the sentence (although generally the possessor comes first), while the first one is rigid, only the extensions of the possession can go in between Also, the dative construct is not really used when the possessor is a personal pronoun dog - kutya, kutyák, kutyát a kutyám (az én kutyám) nekem a kutyám my dog a kutyád (a te kutyád) neked a kutyád your dog (inf sg.) a kutyája (az ő kutyája) neki a kutyája his/her/its dog a kutyánk (a mi kutyánk) nekünk a kutyánk our dog a kutyátok (a ti kutyátok) nektek a kutyátok your dog (inf pl.) a kutyájuk (az ő kutyájuk) nekik a kutyájuk their dog Note again that ők becomes ő, despite the fact that this is theoretically the nominative case Don’t worry about the difference between the nominative and dative possessor, it doesn’t matter at this point Just be aware of it and learn to recognise both structures Here are some variations for ‘Peti’s dog was born last year’ (tavaly is ‘last year’ and született is the past tense of születik, ‘to be born’): Peti kutyája tavaly született Tavaly született Peti kutyája Petinek a kutyája tavaly született Petinek tavaly született a kutyája A kutyája Petinek tavaly született A kutyája tavaly született Petinek Tavaly született Petinek a kutyája Tavaly született a kutyája Petinek These are all equivalent, putting emphasis on tavaly More on word order in a future lesson By the way,születik is the kind of -ik verb that must be conjugated with -k instead of -m in 1st singular indefinite all the time Háziállatunk még nincs, de mindenképpen szeretnénk egy kutyát Háziállat is literally ‘domestic animal’ You might notice the adjective házi in it, which is constructed by adding the already known -i affix to ház Állat means animal Még usually translates as ‘yet’, ‘still’, ‘so far’ and the like Nincs is the next nasty surprise of the substantive: negation Negation in general means adding a nem before the part of the sentence to be negated The exceptions are van and vannak Their negated forms are nincs andnincsenek, respectively: nem vagyok, nem vagy, nincs, nem vagyunk, nem vagytok, nincsenek When the substantive is used for characterisation, nem must precede the whole predicate, and the substantive changes its place: nem vagyok beteg, nem vagy beteg, (ő) nem beteg, nem vagyunk betegek, nem vagytok betegek, (ők) nem betegek Things aren't always this simple though, I’ll get back to some subtleties of characterisation in the discussion of word order The second part of the sentence is relatively straightforward, literally ‘but we’d definitely like a dog’, which sounds a bit clumsy in English to me, but that’s life Mindenképpen is ‘definitely’, literally ‘by all means’ andszeretnénk is the conditional form of szeretünk, ‘we like’ Conditional will be discussed later, but at this point you might just remember that it is indicated by an attribute which takes the form -na, -ne (or -ná-, -né- if it’s followed by an ending) A szüleim a fővárosban élnek, és még mindketten dolgoznak Starting with the easier part, főváros means capital, literally ‘main city’ or ‘head city’ (fő+város) Szüleimmeans ‘my parents’, ‘parent’ being szülő This is the first case when we have two attributes at the same time: plurality and possession The basic rule of morphology doesn’t tell you what to in this case And anyway, no matter how hard you look, you won’t find the -k of the plural anywhere To cut the story short, when there is a possessor, the plurality of the possession is denoted by inserting an -i- in the middle of the possessive attribute, just before the first consonant (the ghost j doesn’t count here) Plurality also tones down the diversity of the vowels Here are the plurals of the previous examples: ládáim, ládáid, ládái, ládáink, ládáitok, ládáik (my crates, your crates ) meséim, meséid, meséi, meséink, meséitek, meséik erdőim, erdőid, erdői, erdőink, erdőitek, erdőik időim, időid, idői, időink, időitek, időik ajtóim, ajtóid, ajtói, ajtóink, ajtóitok, ajtóik szavaim, szavaid, szavai, szavaink, szavaitok, szavaik váraim, váraid, várai, váraink, váraitok, váraik káraim, káraid, kárai, káraink, káraitok, káraik napjaim, napjaid, napjai, napjaink, napjaitok, napjaik saraim, saraid, sarai, saraink, saraitok, saraik véreim, véreid, vérei, véreink, véreitek, véreik tőreim, tőreid, tőrei, tőreink, tőreitek, tőreik mén(j)eim, mén(j)eid, mén(j)ei, mén(j)eink, mén(j)eitek, mén(j)eik eszeim, eszeid, eszei, eszeink, eszeitek, eszeik földjeim, földjeid, földjei, földjeink, földjeitek, földjeik bokraim, bokraid, bokrai, bokraink, bokraitok, bokraik You can see that idő and ajtó have their last vowels restored in plural The conjugation of szülő is simply irregular, you have to remember that -ő becomes -e- in plural possessive forms: sg.: szülőm, szülőd, szülője, szülőnk, szülőtök, szülőjük pl.: szüleim, szüleid, szülei, szüleink, szüleitek, szüleik You might have noticed that szülő, ‘parent’ has the same base asszületik , ‘to be born’ The common stem isszül, ‘to give birth’ The -ő affix turns it into literally ‘someone who gives birth’ By Hungarian logic even fathers are involved in this process Jumping to the second half of the sentence Mindketten means ‘both of us/you/them’ The verb ‘to work’ isdolgozik: dolgozni - to work én dolgozom, dolgozom, dolgozlak I work te dolgozol, dolgozod you (singular informal) work ő dolgozik, dolgozza he/she/it works mi dolgozunk, dolgozzuk we work ti dolgoztok, dolgozzátok you (plural informal) work ők dolgoznak, dolgozzák they work Apám újságíró, édesanyám kertész We have only vocabulary here Újságíró and kertész are ‘journalist’ and ‘gardener’, respectively We normally don’t distinguish between genders when talking about professions (except for one or two), but sometimes you can add -nő to make it obvious that you’re talking about a female, e.g újságírónő (but kertésznő sounds rather funny to me, to be honest) ‘Father’ is apa, ‘mother’ is anya By prefixing them with édes-, literally ‘sweet’, you make it explicit that you’re referring to biological parents: édesanya, édesapa Egy húgom is van Húg means ‘younger sister’ The other siblings are: nővér - ‘elder sister’, öcs - ‘younger brother’ and báty - ‘elder brother’ There’s also a word for ‘brother’ in general: fivér (lit boy/son-blood) In the case of ‘sister’ you need to use nővér (lit woman-blood) It is useful to know their possessive forms, because there are some irregularities here: húg, ok, ot nővér, ek, t báty, -ok, ot öcs, ök, öt húgom húgaim nővérem nővéreim bátyám bátyjaim öcsém öccseim húgod húgaid nővéred nővéreid bátyád bátyjaid öcséd öccseid húga húgai nővére nővérei bátyja bátyjai öccse öccsei húgunk húgaink nővérünk nővéreink bátyánk bátyjaink öcsénk öccseink húgotok húgaitok nővéretek nővéreitek bátyátok bátyjaitok öcsétek öccseitek húguk húgaik nővérük nővéreik bátyjuk bátyjaik öccsük öccseik Nővér means ‘nurse’ as well In the case of báty, the plural forms can also have bátyá- instead of bátyja- as an alternative stem Őt Katalinnak hívják, és egyelőre a szüleinknél lakik Egyelőre is just a sophisticated way to say még, I’d translate it as ‘for the time being’ And to recap, -nál/-nélmeans ‘by’ or ‘at’ when it comes to places 10 Egyetemre jár, és mostanában a diplomamunkáján dolgozik Egyetem means ‘university’, and it’s obvious from the sentence that it’s a ‘top’ place Jár is a general version of ‘to go’ The difference between megy and jár is that the former refers to a single occasion, and the latter is a habit, a regular action Also, jár can be definite as opposed to megy Mostanában means ‘recently’, ‘nowadays’, coming frommost, ‘now’ Undergraduate thesis is calleddiplomamunka in Hungarian, and we ‘work on’ it Exercises Exercise A: Translate to English: 1) Van egy szép házunk 2) Nincs bátyja 3) Most a szobádba mész 4) Hogy hívják a szüleiket? 5) Még nem látom a buszomat 6) Ennek a lánynak van egy szép kutyája 7) A kocsinkban ülünk 8) Itt van a barátod 9) Ez az én szobám 10) Három nővérem van Exercise B: Translate to Hungarian: 1) Our parents live here 2) I want their dog 3) My little sister is nice 4) I don’t see you yet 5) That man there is my friend 6) You are my blood 7) They have a nice day 8) Do you come from your house? 9) I hate your ugly car 10) Where is our bus? Exercise C: Write about yourself I know this is evil However, if you have absorbed everything so far, you should be able to say basic things about your family, where you live and what you Solutions Solution of Exercise A: 1) We have a beautiful house 2) He does not have an older brother 3) You go into your room now 4) How are their parents called? 5) I not see my bus yet 6) This girl has a beautiful dog 7) We sit in our car 8) Here is your friend 9) This is my room 10) I have three sisters Solution of Exercise B: 1) Itt élnek a szüleink A szüleink itt élnek 2) A kutyájukat akarom 3) A húgom kedves 4) Még nem látlak 5) Az az ember ott a barátom 6) Az én vérem vagy A vérem vagy 7) Szép napjuk van 8) A házadból jössz? 9) Utálom a csúnya kocsidat 10) Hol a buszunk? [...]... Szia This is an informal greeting along the lines of ‘hello’ or ‘hi’, but it can only be said to one person When you are addressing a group, you have to use its plural form, sziasztok In Hungarian there are three levels of formality, which affects only verb forms and greetings As long as I don’t go explicitly into these issues, only informal language will be discussed Another informal greeting is... promise, the third nasty verb has arrived menni - to go én megyek I go te mész you (singular informal) go ő megy he/she/it goes mi megyünk We go ti mentek You (plural informal) go ők mennek They go The form menjünk is the first person plural imperative form, to translate as ‘let us go’ In Hungarian all six (I mean 13) forms have their imperative counterparts (if that sounds a bit unusual to you, it would... each row the first one is the indefinite form, and the third element of the first row is the I-you form hívni - to call én hívok, hívom, hívlak I call, call it*, call you (singular or plural informal) te hívsz, hívod you (singular informal) call, call it ő hív, hívja he/she/it calls, calls it mi hívunk, hívjuk we call, call it ti hívtok, hívjátok you (plural informal) call, call it ők hívnak, hívják... ‘how are you?’ 5 Köszi, ma egész jól Honnan jöttél? Köszi is a very informal way to say thanks You can also use the less nonchalant köszönöm instead, it doesn’t make you sound formal at all In fact, it is appropriate in both formal and informal context Ma means today, both as an adverb and as a noun, so it can also take cases Just for practice, the dative case ismának This is completely regular: words... Just memorize this form as it is Jöttél is ‘you came’ This is our second nasty verb, let’s see its present indicative forms: jönni - to come én jövök I come te jössz you (singular informal) come ő jön he/she/it comes mi jövünk We come ti jöttök You (plural informal) come ők jönnek They come 6 Debrecenből És te hol laksz? Debrecenből literally means ‘from the inside of Debrecen’ In Hungarian you have... singular form instead, probably because it gives more hints on conjugation For each verb that can take an object (i.e transitive verbs) you need to know 13 forms to be able to use it in present tense indicative There are 6 indefinite forms (1st, 2nd and 3rd person singular and plural) and 6+1 definite forms (the same six plus the I-you form) Whether you need to use the definite or the indefinite depends... as well forget about this for now Overview Vocabulary The words mentioned in this lesson in order of appearance: Vocabulary szia hi (sg.) sziasztok hi (pl.) helló hello (sg or pl.) hellósztok hello (pl.) hogy how, that (the connective, not the pronoun hív to call (I'll be using 3rd person singular forms of verbs in vocabulary lists) én I te you (sg informal) ő he, she, it mi we ti you (pl informal)... and indefinite forms The rule is very simple: if the direct object is definite and 3rd person, i.e it has a definite article or it’s a name, you need to use the definite form In any other case (indefinite object or the complete lack of an object) the verb is indefinite Despite this atypical simplicity among Hungarian grammatical rules, most foreigners have trouble picking the right form Don’t worry... or ‘palace’ You should probably stop and try to form its other cases we already know, just to have some work with this sentence as well It is also the dictionary form of the verb várni, ‘to wait’ It receives the very same endings as hív, you could probably write down its different forms if you feel diligent today 9 Igen Ha akarod, megmutatom The words for ‘yes’ and ‘no’ are igen and nem, respectively... by the end of the lesson you’ll know the three worst Hungarian verbs lenni - to be én vagyok I am te vagy you (singular informal) are ő van he/she/it is mi vagyunk We are ti vagytok You (plural informal) are ők vannak They are Since the verbs clearly indicate the subject, you normally don’t need to include the subjects explicitly They can be added for emphasis though Here I felt it appropriate, because