Hungarian/Lesson 3

So you've already mastered one group of the Hungarian words and you should be able to express virtually any quantity. Now let's continue with the most common groups of words: nouns, adjectives and verbs.

Besides, now it's time to start building your vocabulary. The vocabulary section at the end of the lesson gives you a great opportunity to check how you mastered the most important words. If you fail to remember one of them at a later stage of the course, just turn up the Vocabulary chapter at the end of the book.

Nouns
There are two main types of nouns: proper nouns and common nouns. Proper nouns include all unique entities and in the Hungarian language we capitalize every such word: Kovács is a surname, István is a christian name, Budapest is a geographical place, Wikipédia is the name of the free dictionary. Every other noun is called common noun and we never capitalize them (only at the beginning of the sentence): asztal means "table", fiú means "boy", lány (archaically leány) means "girl". Note that while in English nationalities are considered proper nouns and thus are capitalized, in Hungarian these are considered common nouns: magyar means "Hungarian", angol means "English", francia means "French". Now let's have a look at the most common Hungarian common nouns (note that in Hungarian there is no grammatical gender):

Plural
Here we're going to learn a difficult but crucial part of the Hungarian grammar: how to suffix, where to use link vowels and how to apply vowel harmony.

If you were observant enough, you may already know that the plural morpheme (-k) in Hungarian is suffixed to the end of nouns. The following rule may seem a bit too complicated, but you'll soon get used to this as the same (or almost the same) rule should be followed every time you use suffixes:
 * when the noun ends in -á (rare), -é, -í, -ó, -ő, -u, -ú, -ü (rare) or -ű (long vowels and -u, -ü) (we could have mentioned -o and -ö as well, but there are virtually no words ending in -o or -ö): simply add -k to the singular form e.g. nő - nők ("women"), fiú - fiúk ("boys")
 * when the noun ends in -a or -e: replace the last letter with -á or -é and add -k to the singular form e.g. alma - almák ("apples") lepke - lepkék (butterflies)
 * when the noun ends in -i it's not so clear-cut but there are only a few such words that you will be able to remember e.g. férfi - férfiak ("men", where a link vowel -a appears)


 * when the noun ends in a consonant: add a link vowel (based on vowel harmony -ö or -e for front words, -a or -o for back words, but there are some exceptions) and add -k to the singular form e.g. kör - körök ("circles"), ember - emberek ("men"), ház - házak ("houses"), barát - barátok ("friends")

As mentioned above, it is crucial to get familiar with these rules. Don't memorise them, but learn how to use them (solve the exercises at the end of every lesson).

Adjectives
In Hungarian, the adjectives always stand before the noun in the noun phrase (szép lány="beautiful girl", kis ország="small country"). If there are more adjectives belonging to the same noun, their order is usually optional. Now let's see the most common Hungarian adjectives:

Substantive verb
Here you can see the conjugation of the substantive verb lenni (this is the infinitive form of the verb, so don't worry if you can't observe any similarities between lenni and the following forms; it used to be useful though to note that in a dictionary, you would have always found the infinitive form of the verbs, however now, most dictionaries will present the declarative present third person singular) in present tense, declarative mode (it's also important to know what tense and mode we are in, as you'll perceive later): (Note: though the formal and official forms of te (maga and ön) and ti (maguk and önök) are in second person, they use the 3rd person verb forms: maga van, ön van, maguk vannak, önök vannak)

Omitting "van"
When the subject is in 3rd person, a unique rule is in effect. In these so-called equational sentences the substantive verb is not used. Later we will learn the cases of the omission, for now remember only the most common case: when using 3rd person (and the official or formal forms of 2nd person) we don't use the substantive verb (van) when the predicate is an adjective: BUT This rule is used in plural 3rd person as well, we'll see an example when learning the plural form of nouns and adjectives in the next lesson.
 * A könyv piros. ("The book is red", "The"=A, "book"=könyv, "red"=piros, "is" omitted)
 * A város szép. ("The town is beautiful", "The"=A, "town"=város, "beautiful"=szép, "is" omitted)
 * Maga fáradt. ("You (formal) are tired.", "You"=Maga, "tired"=fáradt, "are" omitted)
 * Én éhes vagyok. ("I'm hungry.", it's 1st person, so we don't use the rule)

Infinitive
In nearly every Hungarian dictionary verbs are NOT presented in their infinitive form. Instead, they are presented in the third singular present indefinite form, which is usually the most basic form of the verb. To form the infinitive, you normally just add -ni to that basic form. For example> olvas (he-she reads), olvasni (to read). ír (he writes), írni (to write). szeret (he-she loves"), szeretni (to love). There are a handful of exceptions,  but it's a bit too early to care about them.

Articles
"A" and "az" are the definite articles. Remember to pronounce it like aw and not like the English indefinite article "a". A corresponds to the English "the" and before a word beginning with a vowel, A becomes Az. e.g. a könyv but az asztal.

The indefinite article ("a"/"an") is "egy": egy könyv, egy asztal. Note that the numeral for "1" is the same word, so it's easy to confuse them: Ez egy könyv. can mean "This is a book." or "This is one book (and not two).". In speech, you have to emphasize egy when it means "one" for easier understanding.

Examples
Big brother is translated to Hungarian as "nagy testvér" because there's no such a thing in Hungarian as "nagy fiútestvér". And the phrase "nagybáty" is already used for uncle.

Some jokes which cannot be translated to Hungarian:
'''In America you can always find a party. In Soviet Russia party finds you.'''

Doesn't work in Hungarian because:

'''In America you're watching Big Brother. In Soviet Russia Big Brother is watching you. '''

Doesn't work in Hungarian because:

If you got bored from all of this, watch the Dirty Hungarian Phrasebook from Monty Python.

Pronunciation
Using your knowledge on the Hungarian letters, try to pronounce (and memorise) the following Hungarian words, then listen to the audio file to check yourself: erős (strong)  szőlő (grape)   győz (win) csat (buckle)	csík (stripe)	csacsi (donkey) kutya (dog)	latyak (slush)	tyúk (hen) rózsa (rose)	zsúr (party)	zsák (sack) nyár (summer)	kenyér (bread)	nyeremény (prize)

New exercises

 * Recall the meaning of the words in the Vocabulary section.
 * The words are essentially in alphabetical order, but there are two mistakes. Can you spot them?
 * Suffixes (Plural)
 * Suffix the following nouns with the plural morpheme (-k): könyv, föld, kör, sál, kád, lány, ember, ország, város, fogas, híd, narancs, nyeremény, zsák, kenyér, rózsa, kutya, csík, szőlő, tyúk, nyár

(For the solutions see the Exercises section of the next chapter.)

Vocabulary
Alacsony, alma, álmos, asztal, barát, barna, csacsi, csak, csík, csúnya, ember, éhes, erős, fáradt, fehér, fekete, férfi, fiú, fogas, fogás, föld, győz, hát, ház, híd, hit, hosszú, ír, kád, kék, kenyér, kérdez, kerek, kis/kicsi, köd, könyv, kör, kutya, lány, lenni (= inf. of van), lepke, lila, magas, nagy, narancs(színű), négyszögletes, nő, nyár, nyeremény, ország, öröm, piros, rövid, rózsa, rózsaszín, sál, sárga, só, süt ve, szék, szép, szeret, szó, szőlő, szürke, szomjas, tyúk, ülni, város, vastag, vékony, vér, vörös, zöld, zsák

(If you are in trouble, see Vocabulary.)