Talk:Hungarian/Lesson 4

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I think we badly need a section about verb conjugation. Later we could have one about imperative, then one about tenses, one about making nouns from verbs and vica versa and then one about conditional. Has anyone a different priority/vision?

P.S.: Of course not all of these should come into this lesson :) --Sourcerror 13:33, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

There's a mistake at the conjugation of the verb "enni". Because it's "-ikes" verb, it's indefinite version is the same to the definite in 1st person singular (instead of eszek it should be eszem). Drkazmer
 * As as native Hungarian I beg to differ. The correct ways is this: [] --Zslevi (talk) 15:32, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

Conjugation
Eszik is probably not the best example if you want to show basic conjugation, because eszik is an "ikes ige". Maybe olvas would be a better option, for example, since it has definite and indefinite forms as well, and I think that is a classic example. Eszik should be treated as an "ikes ige", maybe in a different section. Also, some may consider eszek egy joghurtot very, or at least a bit uneducated, depending on the person. - Vargamate (talk) 18:47, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

Conjugation order
As pointed out above, the eszek form is actually incorrect. I also agree that conjugation should be introduced systematically. A good idea would be to first introduce the regular verbs (énekelni, élni, tudni, ülni) followed by the special cases of verbs that end in -ít or double consonants (tanítani, érteni, tartani), and then the -ik verbs. I would do this all in the indefinite forms first. One of the reasons is that intransitive verbs can't take a direct object, and they use the indefinite conjugation. This way simple sentences can be introduced without having to understand the accusative case. In order to use transitive verbs (in either definite or indefinite mode) the accusative case must be introduced first(in Hungarian the -t ending). This is especially tricky for English speakers as they do not normally have to indicate direct objects in a sentence so they are not familiar with the accusative case.

I would recommend after describing the indefinite conjugation of all types of verbs, to introduce the accusative case, followed by the definite conjugation forms. In doing so, the other important consideration is to show pragmatically when a direct object is definite or when it's indefinite. There are specific rules for this that the students can easily learn (applying it is another matter and takes lots of practice...)