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.

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  a  a  ɑ or ɒ  á  á  aː  b  bé  b  c  cé  ʦ  cs  csé  ʧ  d  dé  d  dz  dzé  ʣ  dzs  dzsé  ʤ  e  e  ɛ  é  é  eː  f  ef  f  g  gé  g  gy  gyé  ɟ  h  há  h  i  i  i  í  í  iː  j  jé  j  k  ká  k  l  el  l  ly  ely  j  m  em  m  n  en  n

Letter  Name  IPA  ny  eny  ɲ  o  o  o  ó  ó  oː  ö  ö  ø  ő  ő  øː  p  pé  p  q  kú  —  r  er  r  s  es  ʃ  sz  esz  s  t  té  t  ty  tyé  c  u  u  u  ú  ú  uː  ü  ü  y  ű  ű  yː  v  vé  v  w  duplavé  —  x  iksz  —  y  ipszilon  —  z  zé  z  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  b  p  d  t  dz  c  dzs  cs  g  k  gy  ty  v  f  z  sz  zs  s

Voiced  Unvoiced  j  —  l  —  ly  —  m  —  n  —  ny  —  r  —  —  h

Classification of vowels (short-long pairs indicated with dashes)

	Front	Back
Rounded	ö-ő, ü-ű	o-ó, u-ú
Unrounded	e, é, i-í	a, á

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, ddzs etc.

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 and a/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 do 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 pairless and voiced. Some examples (the changed consonants are in bold face):

• unvoiced pairs: ezt [ɛst], dobszó [dopsoː], tölgyfa [tølcfɒ], tévhit [teːfhit], vadkan [vɒtkɒn], fogódzhat [fogoːʦhɒt], egykor [ɛckor]
• voiced pairs: képzel [keːbzɛl], csontgomb [ʧondgomb], cukrászda [ʦukraːzdɒ], 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.

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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:

- Hi!
- Hi! What’s your name?
- Péter. And yours?
- I’m Márta. How are you?
- Thanks, I’m fine today. Where are you from?
- From Debrecen. And you, where do you live?
- I’m from Budapest, I live in the 1st district.
- In the Castle?
- Yes. I’ll show it if you want.
- In fact, I demand!
- Let’s go then!

Literal:

- Hi!
- Hi! How they-call-you?
- Péter(DAT). And you(ACC)?
- I Márta I-am. How you-are?
- Thanks, today fairly well. From-where you-came?
- From-Debrecen. And you where you-dwell?
- Budapest(ADJ) I-am, the 1st in-district I-dwell.
- The in-Palace?
- Yes. If you-want-it, I-will-show-it.
- Nay, I-demand-it!
- Then let-us-go!

Picking It Apart

1. 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 helló and hellósztok, although helló is not strictly singular as szia.

2. Szia! Hogy hívnak?

The simplest way to ask for someone’s name is the question Hogy hívnak?, literally ‘How do they call you?’. The word hogy is the interrogative ‘how’ and also the connective ‘that’. The verb ‘to call’ is hívni in both of its primary meanings ("call by name" and "call to come"). Infinitive forms in Hungarian always end in -ni. However, dictionaries usually list the 3rd person 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 on the object of the sentence, which will be explained later. Let’s see them with the personal pronouns! On 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	they call, call it

* or him or her or them, any 3rd person object

You might notice that even though there is a definite object (you), the indefinite form is used in the question. This is because the definite forms are only used with 3rd person objects. 1st and 2nd person objects are almost always accompanied by an indefinite verb. I’ll tell about the exception later.

3. Péternek. És téged?

When answering the above question, you have to put the name in dative case. I won’t be throwing around names of various cases except for accusative and dative, don’t worry. So, the dative case is formed by adding the ending -nak or -nek following the rules of vowel harmony.

As was mentioned in lesson 1, vowels are divided in four groups depending on the place of the tongue (front or back) and the shape of the lips (rounded or unrounded) at the time they are formed. There are 14 vowels, 10 of which are short-long pairs, which gives 9 unique sounds altogether:

front rounded: ö-ő, ü-ű
front unrounded: e, é, i-í
back rounded: o-ó, u-ú
back unrounded: a, á

I indicated the short-long pairs with dashes. The basic idea of vowel harmony is that words having many vowels from one group take endings with vowels from the same or a close group. Mostly this means front-back correspondence, roundedness comes up much less frequently.

The forms an ending can take are fixed. As I said, the dative case (and also the 3rd plural indefinite form of a verb, as you can see above) is formed by adding -nak or -nek, but never -nák or -nök or anything else. Just keep that in mind every time you learn a new ending.

All in all, Péter contains two front vowels, therefore it takes the front version of the dative case ending, -nek. Hence Péternek. However, if you were attentive, you could notice that something wrong is going on with hívni: it doesn’t get the front ending it deserves. I have very bad news for you if you have skipped the details in the first lesson... The vowel i-í is a black sheep in this vocal system, because it can behave as a back vowel when it comes to conjugation. The reason is historical, I won’t go into it. The only solution is to learn the stance of every word containing i or í by heart. There are no clear rules to separate them. There’s a nice rule of thumb though: most unisyllabic verbs with an i-í vowel get back (!) endings.

Okay, let’s go on. És means ‘and’, there’s no catch here. Téged is the accusative case of te, i.e. informal singular ‘you’. The object of the sentence is always in accusative, except for parts of speech that can’t take cases (e.g. the infinitive). Nominals (nouns, adjectives, numerals, pronouns) ‘can’ and ‘do’. And while we’re at it, let’s see the accusative of the six personal pronouns in one line:

engem, téged, őt, minket, titeket, őket

Just to illustrate how special personal pronouns are, I present them in dative case as well:

nekem, neked, neki, nekünk, nektek, nekik

This is the general way to conjugate them: take the case ending as a stem (how absurd!) and add an ending that looks quite familiar after checking back on verb conjugation, mostly the definite column. This is not just a coincidence. It doesn’t always work though and it’s full of exceptions, so you’ll end up memorising end forms anyway, but it’s still good to be aware of the basic idea.

4. Én Márta vagyok. Hogy vagy?

Let’s introduce the substantive, ‘to be’. This is a very special verb, so it is sometimes considered to form a different part of speech by itself. It can’t take objects, which means only 6 forms instead of 13 to learn. That’s a nice thing, because otherwise it’s highly irregular. We’ll have two other verbs like that in this text, so 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 Márta sort of stresses that Péter has already introduced himself, so it’s her turn.

You should note that the verb is at the end. Actually, the expression Márta vagyok is indivisible. Any time you use the substantive as ‘X is Y’, Y will come before the verb in Hungarian, and they can only move together as far as the word order allows. The subject of the sentence is én, and the predicate is Márta vagyok as a whole. Switching the order in this case isn’t a good idea, unless you want to sound funny. But it’s definitely not ungrammatical to do so.

I think the question Hogy vagy? is quite clear in the light of the above, literally ‘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 is mának. This is completely regular: words ending in -a or -e have their last vowels changed to -á- and -é- when an ending is attached—at least there are only a few endings that don’t cause such a change as opposed to the countless ones that do.

Egész primarily means ‘whole’ as an adjective, but as an adverb it’s something like ‘fairly’. The proper adverbial form of egész is egészen (-n is the affix to turn most adjectives into the corresponding adverb, and an -a- or an -e- is added as a link vowel for words that don’t end in a vowel), but in the case of this specific word it can be dropped when it is used with the meaning ‘fairly’. Of course it can mean ‘wholly’ or ‘completely’ as well.

Jól is ‘well’, i.e. the adverbial form of jó, ‘good’. Its -l ending isn’t typical at all, so learn it as an exception. The same applies to ‘bad’ and ‘badly’: rossz, rosszul.

Honnan means simply ‘from where’ generally. 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 to use different cases depending on whether you mean ‘from inside’, ‘from the vicinity’, ‘from the top’, ‘from above’ etc. Now you probably start to see where the huge number of cases comes from. The ‘from inside’ case is denoted by -ból/-ből. With place names you either associate ‘inside’ or ‘top’, mostly the former (again something to learn by heart). When you’re talking about an ‘inside’ place, you need to use cases that denote ‘to inside’, ‘inside’ and ‘from inside’. For the sake of completeness, ‘inside’ is -ban/-ben and ‘to inside’ is -ba/-be. Since Debrecen takes ‘inside’ endings, the expressions ‘to/in/from Debrecen’ translate as Debrecenbe, Debrecenben, and Debrecenből, respectively.

The word for ‘where’ is hol. And since we already know ‘from where’, honnan, let’s also learn ‘to where’, hová (or hova, as you please) while we’re at it. As these have nothing to do with any case endings, they must be learnt as they are.

The verb ‘to be resident at’ is lakni:

lakni - to be resident at
én lakom, lakom, laklak	I reside
te laksz, lakod	you (singular informal) reside
ő lakik, lakja	he/she/it resides
mi lakunk, lakjuk	We reside
ti laktok, lakjátok	You (plural informal) reside
ők laknak, lakják	They reside

Let’s not go into how it can take an object, rather look at the endings. This is a so-called -ik verb, which refers to its 3rd singular ending. These verbs conjugate almost the same way as those without the -ik ending (whose presence cannot be seen from the infinitive form by the way), except in 1st singular indefinite they mostly have -m instead of -k, and in the presence of a 1st or 2nd person object the -ik ending is dropped (which can be considered a distinct 14th, definite form); that’s the exception I was hinting at above. The 1st singular -m ending is often substituted with the ordinary -k in spoken language, but in writing it is considered to be an orthographical error, except for some -ik verbs that must be conjugated with -k in all situations.

7. Budapesti vagyok, az I. kerületben lakom.

Budapesti is an adjective formed from Budapest. In the middle of the sentence it would be written with a lowercase b, since it’s not a proper name any more. The -i affix is used to turn place names into adjectives in general, and it is an excellent way to torture pupils at school for reasons not to be discussed here.

By the way, Budapest is a ‘top’ place, so use the top cases with it. These are: ‘to the top’ - -ra/-re, ‘on the top’ - -on/-en/-ön/-n and ‘from the top’ -ról/-ről. To, in and from: Budapestre, Budapesten, Budapestről. The ‘on the top’ case is one where roundedness makes a difference, but only for front vowels. This means that words whose last vowel is ö-ő or ü-ű get -ön, while those with e, é or i-í get -en. Budapest is a mixed word, since it has both front and back vowels, but in this case we are talking about a composite word: Buda+pest, and only the last component counts when it comes to conjugation. Mixed words in general tend to take the back ending, although the last vowel is usually more important than the others.

Az is the definite article used before words starting with a vowel. Before a consonant it’s simply a. There is an indefinite article as well, egy. Incidentally, it’s also the name of the number ‘one’, and it must be pronounced with a long gy.

Budapest districts are denoted with Roman numerals. The important part is the dot following it: that’s how we indicate ordinal numerals in general. Instead of ‘1st’ we write 1. and so on. ‘First’ is első when written with letters or read out loud.

Kerület means district, but you might have figured that out already. Első is in adjective position, which always precedes the thing whose meaning it elaborates, or to put it in a not so contrived way: it comes first.

8. A Várban?

Vár means ‘castle’ 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. ‘If’ and ‘then’ are ha and akkor. They have all fixed forms, and undergo no conjugation. Actually, as a side note, it can be said that in Hungarian any word can behave as a noun, so you can conjugate them in reality. You can say things like ‘in a yes’ with ease (egy igenben). However, this is not exactly the same ‘yes’, all this happens on some meta-level.

Confusing philosophical babbling away, we have two new verbs:

akarni - to want
én akarok, akarom, akarlak	I reside
te akarsz, akarod	you (singular informal) want
ő akar, akarja	he/she/it wants
mi akarunk, akarjuk	We want
ti akartok, akarjátok	You (plural informal) want
ők akarnak, akarják	They want

In this case ‘want’ has a definite form, because it has an implied object: a hidden clause (no pun intended), which would sound like ‘that I show you’ when written out.

megmutatni - to show someone something
én megmutatok, megmutatom, megmutatlak	I show
te megmutatsz, megmutatod	you (singular informal) show
ő megmutat, megmutatja	he/she/it show
mi megmutatunk, megmutatjuk	We show
ti megmutattok, megmutatjátok	You (plural informal) show
ők megmutatnak, megmutatják	They show

This is a so-called prefixed verb, the prefix being meg-. The verb mutatni translates ‘to point’ or ‘to show’, it’s sort of the continous version of megmutatni . Hungarian doesn’t make a distinction between ongoing and completed actions in a way like e.g. Slavic languages do, but these differences are explicitly distributed into separate words, which are normally separate dictionary entries. Prefixes are usually directional, e.g. le- means ‘down’ or fel- means ‘up’: lejönni - ‘come down’ (on the stairs, in general physically), feljönni - ‘come up’ (physically, or gaining a better position in a competition etc.) The prefix meg- is a special one, because it doesn’t really have separate semantics, but as a rule of thumb you can assume that it makes an action described by the base verb complete: megjönni - ‘to arrive (at last)’. Not all verbs are turned into a completed action using meg-, unfortunately.

So far you have only seen back endings in the verb conjugation tables, except for the obscure jönni. As you can see, the endings are generally well-behaving, so even in spite of its bad reputation, Hungarian language can show some consistency at times.

10. Sőt, követelem!

Sőt roughly translates as ‘in fact’, and it’s another fixed word. It can only appear this way: at the beginning and followed by a comma (or a little pause in speech).

And now, ladies and gentlemen, a front verb:

követelni - to demand, to require
én követelek, követelem, követellek	I demand
te követelsz, követeled	you (singular informal) demand
ő követel, követeli	he/she/it demands
mi követelünk, követeljük	We demand
ti követeltek, követelitek	You (plural informal) demand
ők követelnek, követelik	They demand

Most of the endings are quite predictable from the back ones. The most exotic front-back pair is seen here: -i- vs. -ja/-já-. The special thing about it is that the front version has i as its vowel; i doesn’t usually participate in vowel harmony games.

11. Akkor menjünk!

And finally, to keep my 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 probably absolutelly thrill you to know that even infinitive can be conjugated). Imperative is indicated by a -j-, but you could as well forget about this for now.

Overview

Vocabulary

The words mentioned in this lesson in order of appearance:

Some Expressions

Hogy hívnak?	What’s your name?
X vagyok.	I’m X.
X-nek hívnak.	My name is X.
Hogy vagy?	How are you?
Honnan jöttél?	Where are you (did you come) from?
Hol laksz?	Where do you live?
X-ben/X-en lakom.	I live in X.
Menjünk!	Let’s go!

Grammar Items

• verb conjugation in present indicative
• vowel harmony
• some cases:

• dative: -nak/-nek
• ‘to inside’: -ba/-be
• ‘inside’: -ban/-ben
• ‘from inside’: -ból/-ből
• ‘onto’: -ra/-re
• ‘on’: -on/-en/-ön/-n
• ‘from the top’: -ról/-ről

• ordinals in writing are denoted by a dot

 

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Lesson 3: Plural & Accusative Case, Vocabulary, Morphology, Subject-Verb-Complement, Using the Substantive, Using Demonstrative Pronouns

Some Basics

Plural & Accusative Case

Let’s leave Péter and Márta alone now, we know what will happen to them anyway. Instead, I’ll try to introduce some basic features and ways to form simple sentences. The very first thing we’ll go through is the plural and the accusative case.

When you have a nominal (noun, adjective, numeral, various pronouns), its plural is formed by adding -k. When the stem ends in a consonant, a link vowel is inserted. In some cases the last vowel of the stem (which isn’t necessarily the last letter) is also dropped, but this is rare. The link vowel can be a, o, e or ö, from which o and e are the most prevalent. Roundedness doesn’t count much here despite the four possible forms. Because of the lack of regularity, it’s best to learn the plurals as if they were separate words.

The accusative case is needed when something takes the role of the direct object in a sentence. It is formed by adding -t, and the comments above apply to it too, except that many stems ending in a consonant don’t need a link vowel. Fortunately the other cases are attached much more regularly, but the accusative forms should also be memorised separately. To help you in this, I’ll always give the plural and accusative forms of nominals in word lists.

Vocabulary

The rule of -a and -e at the end of stems becoming -á- and -é- is applied consistently. Here are some nominals to start with (-- denotes the unchanged stem):

this	ez	--ek, --t
that	az	--ok, --t
man (strictly an adult male)	férfi	--ak, --t
woman	nő	--k, --t
boy	fiú	--k, --t
girl	lány	--ok, --t
shop	bolt	--ok, --ot
house	ház	--ak, --at
room	szoba	szobák, szobát
table	asztal	--ok, --t
chair	szék	--ek, --et
car	kocsi	--k, --t
bus	busz	--ok, --t
big	nagy	--ok, --ot
small	kicsi	--k, --t
nice (referring to looks)	szép	--ek, --et
ugly	csúnya	csúnyák, csúnyát
healthy	egészséges	--ek, --et
sick	beteg	--ek, --et
fast	gyors	--ak, --at
slow	lassú	--ak, --t
what?	mi?	mik? mit? miket?
who?	ki?	kik? kit? kiket?

Ez and az have a special behaviour: the ending -z is assimilated to the first consonant of the case ending: ‘into this’ - ez+be - ebbe, ‘from that’ - az+ból - abból etc. As you can see in the list, this doesn’t apply to the -t of accusative. And what about the plural of the accusative case? It’s very simple: take the plain plural form and add -at/-et, now following vowel harmony: férfiakat, kocsikat, székeket, azokat, betegeket etc.

Two important words:

here - itt
there - ott

I’ll also add some verbs to the collection, for the time being with explicit conjugation (always the 6 indefinite forms first and the -lak/-lek one last):

look at	nézni	nézek, nézel, néz, nézünk, néztek, néznek;  nézem, nézed, nézi, nézzük, nézitek, nézik;  nézlek
see	látni	látok, látsz, lát, látunk, láttok, látnak;  látom, látod, látja, látjuk, látjátok, látják;  látlak
ask (a question)	kérdezni	kérdezek, kérdezel, kérdez, kérdezünk, kérdeztek, kérdeznek;  kérdezem, kérdezed, kérdezi, kérdezzük, kérdezitek, kérdezik;  kérdezlek
love	szeretni	szeretek, szeretsz, szeret, szeretünk, szerettek, szeretnek;  szeretem, szereted, szereti, szeretjük, szeretitek, szeretik;  szeretlek (I love you)
hate	utálni	utálok, utálsz, utál, utálunk, utáltok, utálnak;  utálom, utálod, utálja, utáljuk, utáljátok, utálják;  utállak
sit	ülni	ülök, ülsz, ül, ülünk, ültök, ülnek;  ülöm, ülöd, üli, üljük, ülitek, ülik;  üllek
stand	állni	állok, állsz, áll, állunk, álltok, állnak;  állom, állod, állja, álljuk, álljátok, állják;  állak
live	élni	élek, élsz, él, élünk, éltek, élnek;  élem, éled, éli, éljük, élitek, élik;  éllek

If you look at the rows of néz and kérdez, you should notice two new things: the 2nd person singular ending is -l with a link vowel and the definite forms have -z- instead of -j- in the ending. That’s because of a phonetic rule: if a verb stem ends in an s or z character (i.e. the last consonant is s, sz, z, zs, dz or dzs), the 2nd person singular -sz is changed to an -l, and the -j- of the definite endings disappears and lengthens the last consonant: néz+jük - nézzük.

Morphology

There is some terminology I need to establish before going on. Hungarian words are formed by taking a stem and adding various suffixes at the end. These suffixes can be classified in three groups, which I will call ‘affixes’, ‘attributes’ and ‘endings’ from now on. I just made up these terms, so don’t look for them out in the wild.

An affix is a suffix that changes the essential meaning of the word, creating a new dictionary entry; it’s usually referred to as ‘derivational suffix’. One example is -ság/-ség, which is analogous to English ‘-ness’: ‘sick’ - beteg, ‘sickness’ - betegség. There are countless affixes in Hungarian, that’s why the borderline between different parts of speech is rather faint.

An attribute is a property of the concept described by the word, which doesn’t affect the essential meaning but refines it. Plurality (the -k above) is such an attribute. The owner is another one (‘my table’ is still a table, but it’s special in some way), which I’ll cover later. In the case of verbs the most important attributes are those of past tense and imperativeness, which are mutually exclusive, as you’ll see later.

Finally, the ending is a momentary property which has more to do with the role of a word in the sentence than its actual meaning. In the case of nominals these are case endings (e.g. -ban/-ben), and for verbs it’s the ending that determines person, number and definiteness (-ok, -sz etc.). Just think about it, in the expression ‘in my house’ the preposition doesn’t change the fact that we are talking about ‘my house’.

Why the distinction? I think it is much easier to get the hang of Hungarian morphology if you are aware of the basic idea: the components come in an order of decreasing importance, where importance means the extent to which they determine the meaning of the word. So the general form of words is base+affix(es)+attribute(s)+ending (the base+affixes part is what we usually refer to as stem). As you can see, there can only be one ending, and it is always at the very end, without ambiguity. This also explains why plural accusative has the -t at the very end: because plurality is a permanent attribute, while accusativity is ‘just’ a case.

Simple Subject- Verb- Complement Sentences

With that cleared up, and having got rid of the less determined students, we can try to create some short sentences.

Budapestre megyek.	I’m going to Budapest.
Jön a busz.	The bus is coming.
A szobában ülök.	I’m sitting in the room.
Egy széken ülök.	I’m sitting on a chair.
Nagy házban élek.	I live in a big house.
A boltból jövök.	I come from the shop.
Látok egy lányt.	I see a girl.
Látom a lányt.	I see the girl.
Látok egy szép lányt.	I see a pretty girl.

As you can see, the subject is generally implied. Adding én explicitly would mean emphasising it; we’ll get to that later. It might be apparent that expressions are extended leftwards: ház - nagy ház, lány - szép lány. This is an essential rule concerning word order, basically the opposite of what we see in morphology: the most important things come later. An adjective never follows its ‘subject’. Also, these expressions cannot be exploded, they will move around unchanged. More on that later, when we discuss word order in depth.

The other interesting phenomenon is the choice between definite 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 much about that at this point, this is fortunately something that won’t hinder understanding. However, such an error will give away your foreign identity even if you happen to have a perfect pronunciation and get everything else right.

Using the Substantive

Many language courses start with sentences like ‘This is X,’ ‘X is Y.’ etc. I started with other verbs for a reason: substantive is always a special case with its own little quirks. Let’s see two sentences multiplied by six:

Beteg vagyok.	I’m sick.
Beteg vagy.	You’re sick. (informal sg.)
(Ő) beteg.	He/she/it is sick.
Betegek vagyunk.	We are sick.
Betegek vagytok.	You are sick. (informal pl.)
(Ők) betegek.	They are sick.

A szobában vagyok.	I’m in the room.
A szobában vagy.	You’re in the room. (informal sg.)
A szobában van.	He/she/it is in the room.
A szobában vagyunk.	We’re in the room.
A szobában vagytok.	You’re in the room. (informal pl.)
A szobában vannak.	They are in the room.

As you can see, the 3rd person forms are left out in the first run. The rule is the following: when you describe a property, the 3rd person substantive (van, vannak) must be omitted. In this case the substantive only plays a secondary role, and it’s closely related to the property it assigns to the subject; this is also apparent through the fact that the number of the word describing the property matches that of the subject. On the other hand, in the second run the substantive is used with its primary meaning, i.e. describing a situation (of existence, sort of)—‘in the room’ is not a property of the subject, but that of the situation the sentence tells about. In that case the substantive is always explicit.

The property doesn’t have to be something described with an adjective:

Férfi vagyok.	I’m a man.
Férfi vagy.	You’re a man. (informal sg.)
(Ő) férfi.	He’s a man.
Férfiak vagyunk.	We are men.
Férfiak vagytok.	You are men. (informal pl.)
(Ők) férfiak.	They are men.

So the rule is not to worry when the substantive is connected to the situation. On the other hand, when it is used to describe the subject in some way, you have to a) make sure the subject and the property are in the same number and b) there is no verb at all when the subject is 3rd person.

Using Demonstrative Pronouns

Turning back to ez and az, i.e. the demonstrative pronouns, there are two things to keep in mind. By Hungarian logic they make their object definite, therefore you need to add a definite article right after them. Examples:

ez a ház	this house
az az asztal	that table
ez a férfi	this man
az a nő	that woman
ez a Péter	this Péter (e.g. if there are more Péters in a group we’re talking about), or ‘this Péter guy’
az a szép lány	that pretty girl
ez a gyors kocsi	this fast car

The second important rule is that they are in the same case and number as the nominal they are referring to. The previous list in plural:

ezek a házak, azok az asztalok, ezek a férfiak, azok a nők, ezek a Péterek, azok a szép lányok, ezek a gyors kocsik

Or accusative:

ezt a házat, azt az asztalt, ezt a férfit, azt a nőt, ezt a Pétert, azt a szép lányt, ezt a gyors kocsit

Or with -ban/-ben:

ebben a házban, abban az asztalban, ebben a férfiban, abban a nőben, ebben a Péterben, abban a szép lányban, ebben a gyors kocsiban

No matter how many extra complements (adjectives, adverbs etc.) you add to the expression, they will always go between ez/az (the beginning) and the main word (the end), and they never take the the case of the whole expression, e.g.:

Hungarian: ebben a sokak által évek óta hevesen támadott könyvben
English: in this book, which has been fiercely attacked by many for years
Literal: in-this the manies by years since fiercely attacked in-book

This is an illustration of what I wrote in the introduction about English clauses slipping into adjective position in Hungarian. It could be phrased as a clause, but it wouldn't sound as natural as this one. You can see the definite article immediately following ebben, and also the -ben ending at both ends of the expression. Által and óta, which I translated as by and since, respectively, are so-called postpositions. These are basically case endings which are ‘attached’ to the word with a space. Apart from being a separate word, they absolutely behave like case endings in every other respect.

Even if having to remember to add the same case in such distant places seems redundant, it makes sense to distinguish between them occasionally:

Ez a házban van.	This is in the house.
Ebben a házban van.	He/she/it is in this house.

In the first sentence ez is the subject, while in the second the subject is only implied. When we have an explicit subject, forgetting the case from ez/az doesn’t create such ambiguity, just sounds incorrect.

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Lesson 4: Introduction, Riding through it

The world is mine

Introduction

This lesson will mainly focus on expressing possession in Hungarian, but some other features might creep in accidentally in the process. Let’s create a little context to relate to: a short introduction.

Hungarian:

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 at-me. Is a three-year-old our-little-girl too: Ildikó. Our-domestic-animal still is-not, but definitely we-would-like a dog(ACC). The my-parents the in-capital they-live, and still all-two-‘ly’ they-work. My-father journalist, my-mother gardener. A my-younger-sister too is. Her(ACC) Katalin(DAT) they-call-it, and for-the-time-being the at-our-parents she-resides. Onto-university she-is-going, and lately the on-her-undergraduate-thesis she-works.

Riding Through It

1. 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 6 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.

2. 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).

3. 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.

4. Van egy hároméves kislányunk is: Ildikó.

The word for ‘three’ is három. To form the adjective meaning ‘X-year-old’ just take the number and append éves 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.

5. 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 and nincsenek, 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’ and szeretnénk 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).

6. 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). Szüleim means ‘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 do 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’ is dolgozik:

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

7. 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.

8. 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.

9. 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/-nél means ‘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 called diplomamunka in Hungarian, and we ‘work on’ it.

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End Of Part One

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