The Hungarian language

Why is it hard to learn?

What am I going to speak about?

• I am going to compare the Hungarian language to the English and the French ones

• I am going to do this on several levels, from the sounds and letters to the grammatical structures

• But first, let’s see the :

Different roots

• Both English and French belong to the group of Germanic languages

• Hungarian, however, is a Finno-Ugrian language, with Asian origins

Sounds and letters

• The English alphabet consists of 26 letters, 5 vowels and 21 consonants, and the spoken language has 43 sounds

• The French alphabet contains 26 letters and five diacritics are used in combination with some of the letters and two orthographic ligatures are used, however, none of these constitute distinct letters of the alphabet

Sounds and letters

• The Hungarian alphabet is made up by 44 letters, some of which are double ones (Cs, Dz, Gy, Ly, Ny, Ty, Zs) and there is one triple letter (Dzs)

• It has 14 vowels and 30 consonants from which diacritics create some

Words

• English has approximately 500,000 words• French has about 220,000• Hungarian has an estimated amount of 500,000

words (An average adult understands 200,000 and uses 10,000 actively)

Word formation

• In English, verbs can have several endings, but not many (walk, walks, walked, walking …)

• There are a bit more variations in French• But in Hungarian, verbs can have lots of endings that

create a different, but still sensible meaning (jár, járok, jársz, járunk, jártok, járnak, jártam, járnék, járatok, járatnék, járhatnék…)

Why is this so?

• It can be the consequence of the different logical structure of our languages (English is isolative while Hungarian is agglutinative)

• In English, conditionals are made up by the original verb plus an extra one (the auxiliary verb) walk + conditional would walk

• In Hunagrian, this looks totally different (we change the ending of the original verb) jár + conditional járna

‘Phrasal verbs’

• In English, the meaning of verbs can be changed by making the phrasal verbs (breakbreak down)

• In Hungarian, we change their meaning by changing their beginnings (törikeltörik)

• It is again very interesting, that we have lots of these (moselmos, felmos, lemos, kimos, megmos, átmos…) and sometimes the are not used logically

Word order

• In English there is a basic word order for declarative sentences that does not like being changed (Steven is going upstairs. But not: Going is Steven upstaris.)

• Ih Hungarian, the word order is quite flexible in the case of declarative sentences (István megy fel a lépcsőn, Megy István fel a lépcsőn, A lépcsőn megy fel István, Felmegy István a lépcsőn, Felmegy a lépcsőn István all correct!)

Word order

• In the case of questions :• English is still not open to changes (Does he have a

house? But not: Does he a house have?)• Hungarian is again not strict (Van neki háza?, Van

háza neki?, Neki van háza?, Háza van neki?all correct!)

Negation

• English does it once. ( Nobody has a pencil.)• Hungarian does it twice or sometimes more

(Senkinek nincs ceruzája=Nobody has not a pencil)

Close to the finish line

• I have finished my presentation. However, in case you would like to play a little bit, I have something for you.

• Just try saying : ló (horse), istálló (stable), ház (house), házikó (little house)

• Go on with these : batyu (swathe), tyúk (twist), gyöngy (pearl), betyár (outlaw)

So far…not bad

Last ones

• Not so hard : Gyuri, a gyönyörű gyöngytyúk Tatabányán totyogok

• Maybe difficult : Anyakönyvvezetőhöz• The hardest :

Megszentségteleníthetetlenségeskedéseitekért

Last one

• Impossibile : összetettszóhosszúságvilágrekorddöntéskényszerneurózistünetegyüttes-megnyilvánulásfejleszthetőségvizsgálatszervezésellenőrzésiügyosztály-létszámleépítésellenesakciócsoporttagságiigazolványmegújításikérelem-elutasítóhatározatgyűjteményértékesítőnagyvállalatátalakításutó-finanszírozáspályázatelbírálóalapítványkuratóriumelnökhelyettesellenes-merényletkivizsgálóbizottságiüléselnapolásiindítványbenyújtásiforma-nyomtatványkitöltögetésellenőrizhetőség-próba

Thank you for paying attention.