Things you wish more languages had

[Itikar]

No, the teacher's job is to teach you how to speak proper Romanian.

If you're not willing or just very lazy, then your grades will regret it.

And who decided what is proper Romanian?

[Levike]

Well, Bucharest Romanian of course.
Even if they mess it up more than we do.

The differences between dialects lie more in details.
Like the ones I pointed out.

It's like for example if an American had to learn the British was of speaking.
Except the accent which doesn't matter.

[Kenny]

Levente...lol wut. You're out in left field on that one, sorry.

Admittedly differences across Hungarian dialects are certainly not as pronounced as what you'd find with other langues with more speakers, but claiming that they are non-existent is kind of frivolous.
I mean, come on, I somehow happened upon a video you made and uploaded to youtube and if the way you speak there is representative of how you actually speak....It's definitely different from the way I speak, for instance. Your intonation sounds different, your pronunciation sounds different, plus (and this is something I've observed in other speakers from Transylvania) you somehow sound more....formal (an example of this is the use of relative pronouns - I can't see any city dwellers from "mainland Hungary" use "mely" or "amely" in colloquial conversation). Now I don't object to this, variety all the way I say, but don't go around saying silly things like "Hungarian doesn't have dialects".

(Also, remember how you were fully convinced that "megmenni" was a thing in standard Hungarian and you'd heard it on Hungarian TV by someone speaking what you perceived to be "Budapest Hungarian"? And then I told you it wasn't and you were like nope, even though I actually backed it up with an online dictionary entry marking it as a regional word used, among others, by Szeklers? Well yeah, that happens and newsflash to you: that's a dialectal difference.)

On a side note, Csángós, while - sadly - dwindling, are still alive and kicking and based on videos I've seen of them speaking Hungarian, a pain to understand for someone not used to their speech patterns. And the variety of Hungarian they use sounds awesome.

[Levike]

Since when is amely formal?

What do you use instead of it then?

Is there really something strange in my pronunciation or was I just mumbling?
Like always, plus it was pointed out multiple times that I formulate and pronounce Romanian-ishly.

How do you define a dialect?
Can you tell that I'm from Transylvania or from Northern Serbia?

And yes, I still claim that some of you use megmenni. Muhaha

Where would you put these Hungarian "dialect differences", compared to other languages?

[Kenny]

Ami all the way... You see, the very fact that you have to ask refutes your claim that Hungarian is completely "uniform".

As for your pronunciation...not sure, I'll check tomorrow (heading to bed now).

[Levike]

Okay, mate. Even if I doubt it.

[Kenny]

Why is that, exactly?
Because it doesn't conform to the way you perceive the language? That's petty and childish.

Nitey-nite.

[Levike]

By dialect I meant like Quebec-French French, Andalusian-Castillian Spanish,
and British-American English which are huge differences.
That's where I draw the line.

Where do you draw the line between a dialect and minor neglectable differences?

'Cause these minor differences in pronunciation aren't enough to call it a dialect.

[Weerwolf]

Since when is amely formal?

It is in every day speech, at least in Budapest, pretty uncommon. Amely belongs to a higher register both in written as spoken situations.

And yes, I still claim that some of you use megmenni. Muhaha

Megmentél? as a question can be heard frequently meaning the same as megőrültél? or megbuggyantál? other than that I would not use megmenni.

[Levike]

Megmentél? as a question can be heard frequently meaning the same as megőrültél? or megbuggyantál? other than that I would not use megmenni.

Yes, and that's the way we use it most often too?
Was this sentence correct, please verify, anyone?

Szerinted léteznek ezek a Magyar dialektusok vagy inkább csak kis ide-oda különbségek?
Aldialektusok még eisze?

Keresztes Ildikó kiejtésében hallatok valami furát, mert ő is marosvásárhelyi?

[mōdgethanc]

British-American English which are huge differences.

Not really. The morphology and syntax are almost the same and the main differences are phonological (the "minor differences in pronunciation" you were talking about) and a small number of lexical items.

[md0]

What I remember from school in the British-American usage difference is the present perfect use:

[flag=]en[/flag] I have just arrived
[flag=]en-US[/flag] I just arrived

It's something I remember somehow vividly, because the professors would make this comparison between Mainland and Cypriot Greek

[flag=]el[/flag] Έχω φτάσει (present perfect)
[flag=]el-cy[/flag] Έφτασα (aorist)

I'm sure there's a couple of other grammar differences between AmE and BrE, but the fact that we barely notice them does say something. There's no linguistic chasm between AmE and BrE speakers.

[OldBoring]

By dialect I meant like Quebec-French French, Andalusian-Castillian Spanish,
and British-American English which are huge differences.

So you consider dialects only those who have a famous geographical name?

At school we were taught the "3 adverbs rule" for the present perfect in British English: it's mandatory with "just, already, never".

Other differences: the past participle of "to get" is [flag=]en-UK[/flag] got vs [flag=]en-US[/flag] gotten. [flag=]en-UK[/flag] learnt, burnt, spoilt vs [flag=]en-US[/flag] learned, burned, spoiled.

But the British English they taught us at school is fake, not even the Brits speak that way.
We were taught for instance:
- the negative contractions (I'm not, you aren't, it isn't). If somebody wrote "you're not" or "it's not" in a test, it was considered mistake.
- the question tags ("You are late, aren't you?" or "It isn't bad, is it?") that I rarely hear in real life.
- the "short answers" ("Yes, I am", "No, I don't" ecc.) so it was a mistake to answer questions with plain "yes" or "no".
- "have got" for the possession, so it was wrong to use just "have" ("I have got a book". NOT "I have a book") which could be used only for other meanings such as "have lunch", "have a shower" (take a shower for the Murkans), etc.
- times were expressed with 7:00 "seven o'clock" (omitting o'clock is wrong); then 5:30 "half past five", 4:15 "a quarter past four", 3:50 "ten to four", 3:35 "twenty-five to four" etc. We were never taught five thirty, four fifteen, three fifty, three thirty-five...

[md0]

- times were expressed with 7:00 "seven o'clock" (omitting o'clock is wrong); then 5:30 half past five, 4:15 a quarter past four, 3:50 ten to four, etc. We were never taught five thirty, four fifteen, three fifty...

This!
Never understood why they had to make it so complicated when it's very common to say five thirty etc.

[Weerwolf]

Megmentél? as a question can be heard frequently meaning the same as megőrültél? or megbuggyantál? other than that I would not use megmenni.

Yes, and that's the way we use it most often too?
Was this sentence correct, please verify, anyone?

Szerinted léteznek ezek a Magyar dialektusok vagy inkább csak kis ide-oda különbségek?
Aldialektusok még eisze?

Keresztes Ildikó kiejtésében hallatok valami furát, mert ő is marosvásárhelyi?

Természetesen léteznek magyar nyelvjárások, de messze nem olyan nagyok a különbségek, mint a német esetében.
Of course, Hungarian dialects do exist, but the differences are not that big as in German.

Nem hallok semmi furát Keresztes kiejtésében. Ha gonosz akarok lenni, akkor azt is mondhatnám, hogy úgy beszél, mintha budapesti lenne.
I don't hear anything wierd in Keresztes' pronunciation. If I wanted to sound evil, I could have said her accent is pretty Budapestish.

[Levike]

So you consider dialects only those who have a famous geographical name?

No, I was saying that those differences are evident and anyone can spot them, at least the accent
while in Hungarian they are very little.

Not really. The morphology and syntax are almost the same and the main differences are phonological

Yes, but that pronunciation difference is very noticeable, not little or subtle.

Of course, Hungarian dialects do exist, but the differences are not that big as in German.

The problem is that what we call nyelvjárás is a very broad term.

In Hungarian there are subtle pronunciation changes that aren't that easy to notice
then there's English where the pronunciation differs quite a lot
and then there's Spanish where even the grammar gets funny.
And regular and Cypriot Greek where even a beginner sees what's going on.
And there are also dialects which are more like languages.

I would say dialects begin somewhere like in Romanian or English or Spanish
in no way at the tiny ones in Hungarian, that for example I find hard to notice.

Back to the topic:
I wish more languages put the preposition at the end like English does.
It would make things much more interesting.

[Weerwolf]

The problem is that what we call nyelvjárás is a very broad term.

In Hungarian there are subtle pronunciation changes that aren't that easy to notice
then there's English where the pronunciation differs quite a lot
and then there's Spanish where even the grammar gets funny.
And regular and Cypriot Greek where even a beginner sees what's going on.
And there are also dialects which are more like languages.

Fact is that Hungarian dialects have always been quite similar to each other, so no special effort is needed for mutual intelligibility. Hungarian is language island surrounded by other tongues and in order to preserve our identity an somewhat united language policy was needed. Lots of war took place leaving several regions unpopulated which caused high mobilisation inside the country to fill in the gaps. This meant that people took their own varieties with them and dialects were mixed. There were almost no big differences in dialects.

[Levike]

There were almost no big differences in dialects.

Thanks, that was what I was saying all along.

[Karavinka]

Logography. I WANTS MOAR KANJI.

[linguoboy]

- times were expressed with 7:00 "seven o'clock" (omitting o'clock is wrong); then 5:30 half past five, 4:15 a quarter past four, 3:50 ten to four, etc. We were never taught five thirty, four fifteen, three fifty...

Never understood why they had to make it so complicated when it's very common to say five thirty etc.

So I take it you never learned "half five" either? This was confusing for me because in German, half fünf means "four thirty" because the "first hour" starts at 12:00, so by 4:30, the fifth hour is half over. "Half five", on the other hand, is just a colloquial shortening of "half past five". I like the (Southern) German system and was delighted to find that it's in use in Catalan as well (e.g. dos quarts de cinc). I guess you can say this is something I wish more languages had.

Another thing which both varieties share that I wish were more widespread is the personal article. I can't explain why I like it except that it's nice to have some way of differentiating "the Sara which we both know" from "some woman named Sara".