Languages Around the World

A

In hungarian you usually leave out the indefinite article unless you're specifying. This is also the word for one and it is egy.

More Plurals

In hungarian the question word has to be pluralized if the subject is plural.

Who? Ki? Kik?
What? Mi? Mik?
this. these. ez. ezek.
that. those. az. azok.

What are those?
Mik azok?

Pronouns

I - én
you (familiar) - te
he/she/it - ő
you (formal) - ön
you (familiar-formal) - maga

we - mi
you (familiar) - ti
they = ők
you (formal) önök
you (familiar-formal) - maguk

Maga and Maguk are somewhere between ön/önök and te/ti and can be offensive if used incorrectly and it is safer to use ön and önök. Also the plural you's are conjugated for the 3rd, not 2nd person.

Be

Present tense of to be

vagyok
vagy
van

vagunk
vagytok
vannak

It is required to use this verb when you are modifying it with an adverb.

The knife is on the left.
Balra van kés.

The knife is ugly.
Kés csúnya.

Negation

While nem does mean no or not, to negate van you replace it with nincs or nincsen and you replace vannak with nincsenek.

There are no pillows here.
Itt nincsenek parnák.

Here is a pillow.
Itt parnák van.

The girl is not at home.
A lány nincs otthon.

The girl is home.
A lány otthon van.

Word Order

Word order can be quite tricky in hungarian. Usually hungarian is SVO but the so-called focus wordss disrupt this. A focus word can be negation, questions, answers to questionss and emphasized words. When there is a focus word it must precede the verb and the kicked out word must come immediately after the verb.

I am a teacher.
Tanár vagyok.

I am not a teacher.
Nem vagyok tanár.

We are there.
Ott vagyunk.

Are we there?
Vagyunk ott?

We am there.
Mi vagyunk ott.

It is us who's there.
Mi vagyunk ott.

In addition questions asking is/are there almost always start with the verb.

Is there an American boy?
Van itt amerikai fiú?

If it is a yes-no question otherwise it has the same word order as a normal sentence.

Are you fat?
Kövérek vagy?