How do I learn Hungarian?
It seems to me that almost everyone has heard that the Hungarian language is one of the most difficult in the world. And how many people know that it originated in the Urals, and that nomadic Hungarians brought it to Europe over time?
While they were walking with stops here and there, they adopted the features and expressions of local dialects, so a lot of things are mixed in the Hungarian language, and even Russian words are found.
- CHALLENGING YOURSELF
From my personal experience, I can say that the language is really difficult, but studying it has become for me a kind of challenge to myself as a linguist.
When I first came to Hungary and our guide told us that the language of the population is super-duper twisted and it takes a lot of time to learn it, I thought that God forbid, in the future, life will push me close to it. I quickly shook off this stupid thought, because there were no signs of my moving to that country. But life is a paradoxical thing, and three years later I had the Hungarian alphabet in front of me.
If anyone does not know why I had to learn Hungarian, I inform you that this is the native language of my current husband. Although I tried to learn the basics for several months before moving to Hungary, it did not help much when I got into the language environment. Honestly, I felt like I was on another planet. I understood absolutely nothing, except greetings and the word “thank you”. I had a desire to use English in communication, but in the immediate environment only my husband spoke English, so I perceived the entire information flow through him.
It took me about three months to begin to speak a little bit, and this despite the fact that I seem to quickly grasp the structure of the language.
Hungarian is part of the Finno-Ugric language group. It seems to me that these two languages \u200b\u200bwere combined into one category simply because after the groupings they remained like white crows. I can assure you with confidence that Finnish and Hungarian are like an ax and a saw. The only thing that unites them is some kind of general melody and sound of speech. Once we worked on a ship and I often had to listen to the Finnish dialect. It seemed to me that I was about to understand something. No, in vain.
- WHY IT WAS DIFFICULT TO LEARN HUNGARIAN
For me, the main feature that I had not encountered before was that Hungarian is a very synthetic language and word formation occurs with the help of agglutination. This means that phrases and word forms are formed within the word itself, and not with the help of auxiliary words. For example, if we take the Russian “in our family” and compare it with “a mi családunkban”, then grammatical analysis shows that the word “családunkban” already contains two morphemes: “unk”, meaning “our” and “ban”, meaning "V".
Getting used to such a construction of words is akin to twisting the brain inside out, when the latter needs to capture not only the meanings, but also how the words end. Plus, they are quite long, which makes them difficult to read.
Is it possible to easily understand a word that has, for example, 62 letters!?
folyamatellenőrzesiügyosztályvezetőhelyettesképesítésvizsgalat- request for the qualifications of the deputy head of the process management department
Add to the above the presence of 20 cases, and rapid progress in learning can slow down for a very long time. Here are a couple of unusual case names: causalis finalis, instrumental comitative, translative factive.
The second moment of the language is vocabulary. You also need to get used to the words, and only after that the process of catching suffixes and prefixes and other parts that indicate some meanings begins. At first the words seemed strange. "Vissayelzysh", "töryulközö", "megishmerkädni"... how-how? Although in the process I managed to find associations or other principles of memorization.
- SOME INTERESTING WORDS
Here are a few words that did not leave me indifferent:
"cleaning" is "cucumber" in Hungarian;
"cannon" - a pistol;
"pusi" - a kiss;
“bitch” - is used not only in the usual sense for us, but also as an amplifying “very” (“bitch yo” - very cool);
"villa" - fork;
"babu" - a doll;
"papier" - paper.
In general, some words made me laugh, and some - irritation, because they were not remembered.
I can not help but note one more specificity of Hungarian - phonetics, that is, sounds, especially vowels, of which there are only 14. In addition to the fact that some analogues are not in Russian (ü, ö which are present in French), the duration of the sound also matters (there are short and long vowels: o - ó, u - ú ). Ironically, Hungarian doesn't have a short vowel "a". It exists in writing, but its pronunciation is not a pure "a", but between "a" and "o". By this sound, you can easily identify foreigners learning Hungarian. In addition to a short sound, there is a long "a", which looks like "á" in writing.
Yes, I confess, there were moments when I wanted to finish and forget Hungarian forever, but one scientific fact was spinning in my head: learning languages is the best coach for the brain. It probably saved me. Now, looking back, I see how many hours have been invested in being able to speak a hitherto incomprehensible language.
By the way, I learned Hungarian on my own from a textbook (as in the picture below), and my husband was the main explainer.
- #1
the article is interesting, learning a language in the environment is a classic, but with all the complexity of the language, do not be afraid,
I learned the language for 3 years after 60 years! I use it 3-4 times a year. - #2
Words are remembered very easily, and since I have absolute pitch, I learned all the Hungarian songs that musicians sang in hotels very easily and quickly, but when Hungarians speak, I don’t understand anything!
- #3
Magyarorszagon elek. És magyar nyelv nagyon nehéz nekem. Én körülbelül egy év ezt nyelvet tanulok, de tudok nem nehéz a mondatokat beszélni.
Szerintem öt vagy hét ev kell magyar nyelv meg tanulni.
The Hungarian language is recognized by Europeans as the second most difficult language to learn. In this ranking, it is second only to Finnish. However, with the right (most importantly - professional) approach, the learning process becomes quite accessible and effective and allows you to freely master this beautiful and sonorous language.
Features of the formation of the Hungarian language
Mysterious origins and a rich past, replete with important historical events - this is how Hungary is characterized, the language of which has been formed over many centuries. The founders of the Hungarian state are the Magyars - an alien people from Western Siberia. This theory is confirmed by the proximity of the Magyar language with the language of the Khanty and Mansi, who inhabit the north of Russia. Thus, Hungarian is one of the few languages that are not included in the Indo-European group of languages, but have common roots with the Ugric group of the Finno-Ugric language family.
The Magyars who invaded the territory of present-day Hungary involuntarily assimilated with the Slavs who inhabited this region. As a result, many Slavic lexical elements appeared in the Magyar language. The adoption of Christianity by the Magyars led to the introduction of Latin and Greek terms into the language of the Hungarians.
The result of the Tatar-Mongol yoke and subordination by the Ottoman Empire was the emergence of a strong Turkic substrate in the Hungarian language. After the formation of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Hungarians were strongly influenced by the German language culture, but to this day they have managed to preserve the originality and originality of their language.
Currently, Hungary attracts thousands of tourists with its numerous cultural, historical, architectural, literary. From year to year, the popularity of Hungarian as one of the most colorful and unusual languages in the world is increasing.
Learning Difficulties
- The main reason for the difficulties and complexities with which the language in Hungary is inextricably linked is the principle of agglutinative inflection. That is, when forming a phrase, several different formants are added to the main form of the keyword - prefixes and suffixes that carry the function of the plural, pronouns and other forms or parts of speech. As a result, the original word becomes almost unrecognizable - difficult to pronounce, difficult to perceive and translate.
- The next feature that makes it difficult to learn the Hungarian language is morphological diversity, which is expressed in more than 20 cases for nouns, a certain word order in a sentence. The absence of grammatical gender in nouns and the complex rules of conjugation of verbs make it difficult for Russian speakers to learn the Hungarian language.
- Unusual for foreigners is the phonetics of the Magyar language, in which there are 14 vowels and many diphthongoids, there are no reduced sounds. Strong articulation in Hungarian speech requires a clear pronunciation of vowels and syllables that have short and long sounds, varying elevations and intonations.
Numerous features determine the exclusivity of the Magyar language - the Hungarians are rightfully proud of their melodic, sonorous and expressive language.
Impossible is possible
The specificity of learning the Hungarian language lies in the need to master a huge variety of lexical and grammatical nuances and subtleties. Intelligible correct Hungarian speech can be mastered quickly and effectively, provided that you study with a native speaker.
You need to contact experienced teachers who are able to teach the Hungarian language, depending on the purpose of the trip to Hungary. There are effective training programs for tourists, students, businessmen, vacationers. Groups with different levels of training provide an opportunity to start learning with any amount of starting knowledge, allowing you to start from scratch or improve the level of existing linguistic knowledge.
The language in Hungary has been formed over many centuries and is currently a complex set of phonetic and morphological features. The historical past of the country makes it possible to rank the Hungarian language in the Finno-Ugric group, which also includes Finnish, Estonian languages and the language of the Khanty and Mansi in Western Siberia. Due to various circumstances, the Hungarian language has a Slavic, Turkic, German, Latin substratum.
Translation from Hungarian into Russian requires knowledge of many Russianisms, Gallisms, Anglicisms and other language elements. Its accuracy largely depends on deep knowledge in various spheres of the life of the Hungarian people. Difficult to learn, the Hungarian language has a number of exclusive grammatical, lexical and phonetic features. But with a strong desire, you can easily overcome obstacles in mastering the Hungarian language, master this melodic and sonorous language of the Magyars to perfection.
Planning to learn Hungarian? Or have you already started learning this language? Share your experience in the comments to the article. And to stay up to date with the release of our new materials, subscribe to the mailing list.
I will give an excerpt from the text “Velo-Hungary through the eyes of a bicycle proletariat”
romanycz.travel.ru/stories/ve…
Maybe you'll find something useful.
Why am I writing about him? Yes, because in Hungary (and not only ...) almost everywhere, with the exception of the mentioned tourist zones, no one simply speaks any other language. This is not Sweden-Holland, where every tractor driver in a checkered cap speaks fluent English. Even German in Hungary is spoken only by a narrow layer of people employed in the service sector. Many people you potentially need, in particular, there are drivers and conductors among them, no longer speak any language. English is able to speak, as a rule, only a very narrow circle of the intelligentsia, far from the working people, in the villages you will not find such people in the daytime. Of course, you can, like inveterate imperialists, try to speak your imperial languages: Russian or English, but communication will be completely different, and not only in a pragmatic sense: you will not be able to feel all the warmth and friendliness of the Hungarian soul. So do not hesitate to speak, albeit sloppy, but in Magyar!
And at the same time, you don’t need to know the language at all, just:
Learn to read (if you are not an angophile, then it is very simple, there are few rules for reading, and they are followed almost without exception)
learn a dozen or two important words
learn the heels of the most common affixes
And that's it! All! A wonderful world will open before you!
As I have repeatedly mentioned in my previous opuses, when I retire, I will still sit down and write the book "Pangloss" - about my structural approach to languages (a note for philologists who want to have an idea about Pangloss: Academician N .Ya.Marr, but did not have time). Here I will give some practical recommendations. Let me remind you that an anglophile is a person who, having seen any text written in Latin, immediately tries to read it in English. As a rule, these are people who do not really know either English or their native language. So, if one of them tells you that the Hungarian (or Estonian, Turkish, etc.) language is "unlearned" - spit on him. These languages are more consistent and "algebraic" in their structure than, say, Russian or English.
First of all, you need to learn to read. No need to impersonate a Magyar in the fifth generation, just enough to be understood. This is truly simple: the Hungarians have a phonetic letter and you just need to CAREFULLY read a couple of pages in any textbook; reading rules are also in some dictionaries. Firstly, there are not so many of these rules, and, most importantly, there are almost never exceptions either in words or in geographical names - they are found only when reading surnames.
The most commonly forgotten reading rules are:
The stress is always on the first syllable
- "s" is read as "sh", and "sz" - as "s", and not vice versa! For example, kis is read as "kish", and sz?z is read as "sa-az".
- "?" it is read as a Russian elongated "a" (as in the surprised "Yes ?!"), and "a" - as a Russian UNSTRIKED "O" (for some reason this rule is the worst to assimilate). In particular, Budapest in Russian sounds like Budopest (with the stress on the first syllable)
- The letter "c" is never, no matter how the Anglophiles would like it, never read as "k"! For example, "utca" is not the closest "utzo", but not "duck" at all (I recently read this from one boobie).
- The letter "a" (without an accent) is not "a", if you read it like that, you just might not be understood, it looks more like the first vowel in the Russian word "cow". Therefore, "Budapest" is read as "Budapest".
- a common mistake for Russian-speaking people is the reduction of vowels. Remember that both under stress and without stress, "o" will never turn into "a", and "e" will never become "and".
- a clear distinction must be made between short and long vowels, it is better to pronounce long vowels exaggeratedly long
Instead of cases, the Magyars use affixes - a directional particle is glued to the end of the word. There are a lot of affixes, there is no need to study them, even a rare Hungarian knows them all. It is useful for you to know just three of the following:
"located in": -n (Moszkvan - in Moscow, Budapesten - in Budapest)
"movement to": -ra, -re (Moszkvara - to Moscow, to Moscow; Budapestre)
"movement from": -rol (Moszkvarol - from Moscow, Budapestrol)
Because of these affixes, you may not know at all how verbs are conjugated, and speak infinitives with the appropriate (interrogative, affirmative) intonation, similar to Russian:
"Go border-to?", "Go to Budapest-to?" etc. (referring to the driver, conductor)
"I go Russia-from Italy-to!" (an element of small talk, so as not to be completely silent)
May 2012 Alex
First time in Hungary, on a business trip. As described by other travelers, Hungarians are very friendly, with many willing to help. At the bank, the girl switched to Russian when she saw my passport :) Don't even try to learn their language. Well, at least it's hard for me to understand out of habit. English saved. By the way, the inhabitants of Budapest are very poorly oriented in the city itself. I asked the girls where the famous metro station is, but they don't know. They sent me to the wrong subway line. Although I know all the stations in Moscow (and there are many more around them). So be careful with advice.
Hungarians and their language
August 2010 Anna
I did my internship at the lake. Heviz learned a lot of interesting things within a month! First of all, I want to say that I really liked the Hungarians, they treat Russians positively, openly, hospitably. I personally made sure that these are very responsive people, always ready to help: we ended up in Budapest in the evening, missed our bus, could not get back to Heviz. Everyone who met us helped, one young man even took us to his house to look at the schedule on the Internet, and one girl talked to the cashier and went to the head of the station, because they didn’t want to sell us tickets. For this, we are very grateful to them! As for the language, I would not say that the Hungarians know English so well, many speak German well (maybe because there are a lot of Germans and Austrians in Heviz - I don’t know), half of the people I met boasted of their knowledge of Russian, it was funny and, of course, nice, attention to their culture. The Hungarian language is difficult, but when you hear it around for weeks, Hungarian words cease to seem unpronounceable. It sounds interesting to the ear, I heard from many that it does not look like anything, and this is true. For example, "mama", it would seem an international word, but among the Hungarians it sounds like "anyo". On the other hand, some words are very reminiscent of Russian, for example, "Thursday" will be "chetertok", "plum" - "silva". There are many sounds "h", "sh", and others in Hungarian, including those that we do not have, for example, not iotized "yo", "yu". Thank God, I learned German, and this is not a problem for me. And yet, maybe it's naive, but it amazes me how quickly they pronounce these difficult words, some really are full of "h", "r", "sh" through a vowel and the size of half a line. It's all about training, I guess! I am proud that I know a little, but a few words in this language. It was an interesting experience!
Thank you in Hungarian - "kosonom", hello-bye - "siasto", bon appetit - "ergeshegedre", street - "utsa", pedicure - "pedicure". The language is a mixture of Turkish, Polish and German. Many Hungarians speak English, but more at the "you right and again and again" level. Many Hungarians do not know their own city: one very tired girl sent us to the city center to take the metro three stops from there to the Gödör club. The club was quietly standing a five-minute walk from the place where the route was explained.
The Hungarian language can be safely called a puzzle, and it is not for nothing that the Rubik's Cube was invented in Hungary. And yet, many Russians decide to storm this complex system: some want to go to university, others want to get citizenship, and still others simply believe that knowing an additional language will be useful to them. Also, Russian citizens often come to Hungary on vacation, in which case Hungarian skills will also come in handy - not everyone in the country even speaks English, but only young people, while older people communicate, as a rule, only in their native language.
About the origin
I must warn you right away: learning the Hungarian language is not an easy task. Formally, it belongs to the Finno-Ugric group, but in fact it has little in common with Estonian and Finnish. Until the nineteenth century, the membership of the Hungarian language in this group was questioned. It is closest to the dialect of the Mansi and Khanty: the Hungarians brought their speech from Siberia to Eastern Europe, having managed, despite the influence of the Slavic and Turkic languages, to largely preserve its main features.
Peculiarities
The Hungarian language for beginning polyglots may seem overwhelmingly difficult - it presents many surprises. Unique phonetics, forty letters in the alphabet, as many as fourteen vowel sounds, each of which is indicated by a separate letter: a [ɒ], á, e [ɛ], é, i [i], í, o [o], ó, ö [ ø], ő [ø:], u [u], ú , ü [y] and ű . The first letter of the alphabet - a - must be pronounced as a cross between the Russian "o" and "a": the lower part of the jaw drops, the lips round, the tip of the tongue is pulled back. what can I say, even if word formations add as many as twenty-three cases, when in Russian there are only six of them.
Phonetics
Of course, the shortness and longitude of the rounded vowels "ü", "ű", "ö", "ő" present a difficulty here. It should be remembered that these are completely different letters, and a mistake with longitude, as in any language, can distort the meaning of the word. It can be quite difficult for foreigners to understand Hungarians at first, and this is noted by the Hungarians themselves, since often the whole remark sounds like an incomprehensible single word, although in fact it is a whole sentence. But the Hungarian language does not have diphthongs.
Grammar
No matter how complex the grammatical system is, it lacks some elements that are characteristic of other languages, for example, there is no category of grammatical gender, there are only two tenses: present and past, and for the future, a perfective present tense verb or a construction involving fog is used. All this greatly facilitates the lessons of the Hungarian language for foreign students.
Articles and conjugations
The definite, and indeed the category of uncertainty and certainty in general, play an important role in the language. It is inextricably linked with the conjugations of verbs, which are entirely dependent on the noun - the object. If this object is mentioned for the first time, then the objectless conjugation of the verb and the indefinite article are used. For example: "Daddy bought a ball (some)". In the sentence “Dad bought a great ball (the same one)”, the object conjugation of the verb and the definite article will already be used.
If the object is absent, both conjugations can be used, but it matters here whether the verb has one. So, the words “sit”, “walk”, “stand”, “go” do not have it, so there can only be an objectless conjugation.
Case endings
Everything that in Russian belongs to the category of prepositions, in Hungarian acts as case endings added to the word. With all this, the authors of textbooks cannot agree on how many of them there are: in some manuals it is indicated that twenty-three, in others there is a different figure - nineteen. And the fact is that the endings used to indicate the circumstance of time and place are considered case in the Hungarian language. There are also rare cases, for example, the distribution used to express the repetition of an action in time: "every day", "yearly".
Word reading
The Hungarian language is rich in words. For example, megszentségteleníthetetlen (25 letters) translates as "that which cannot be defiled". To read them correctly, they should be divided into roots or syllables. At the same time, in such structural linguistic units, a secondary (collateral) stress necessarily arises, falling on odd syllables. It is worth noting that, for example, the stress on the fifth syllable will be stronger than on the third.
How to learn Hungarian?
Learning any language is a difficult task. First of all, you should understand that this is painstaking work, and you need to treat it that way. Now there are many language courses that promise that you will master a new language in just a couple of months of classes, however, as you probably understand, this is just marketing and nothing more. Do not neglect the "grandfather" ways of mastering the language: comprehend vocabulary, systematically study grammar, memorize elementary constructions, listen to Hungarian songs, watch films with subtitles - this is the basis from which you need to build on.
Tutorials to help
Various textbooks and tutorials can help in learning the language. So, K. Vavra's textbook has good reviews - it is quite old and, of course, not ideal, but conceptually correctly built. It will be great if you also find a language course for this manual. Then you will have a complete set of tools for mastering the Hungarian language. Undoubtedly, it will not be easy to study without a teacher only on textbooks. This is especially true for grammar. You may sometimes have to guess something yourself or look for information in other books, but believe me, such a “research work” will only benefit you. Another good assistant in learning the language is Rubin Aaron's training course.
Word memorization
Many people who undertake to learn Hungarian very quickly come to the conclusion that this is a useless exercise. Not only can they not remember the words, but even just pronouncing them is beyond their power. However, the main thing in this business is desire and perseverance. Over time, you will learn to speak not only in single words, but also in sentences. Absolutely real effect gives the following method. Read a group of words into a mobile phone recorder, and then listen to the resulting recording at least ten times with headphones. You can do the same with audio recordings recorded by native speakers. Your goal is to achieve an understanding of the meaning of the spoken text without mentally translating it into Russian. Rest assured, this system really works! The main thing is to believe in yourself and keep working. Breaks in this matter are simply fatal - it is better to devote half an hour to classes every day than not to study for a week, and then try to master everything completely and immediately.
These basic postulates, of course, apply not only to the study of Hungarian, but also to any other language. And do not forget that the approach to learning should be systematic. You should gradually comprehend phonetics, vocabulary, grammar, and so on. Some are limited to cramming individual words. It is not right. Knowing only that, for example, the word “hello” in Hungarian sounds like “jó nap”, and “thank you” - “kösz”, and so on, is unlikely to give you the opportunity to fully communicate with native speakers and understand them. Good luck!
