AI Hol van az altlP.rik.ai k.övetség?
SPOKEN HUNGARIAN OFF ICER
Gustoms inspection: What's in the suitcase?
Vámvizsgálat~ Mi van a bőröndben?
clothes, suit, dress ruha
JOHNSON
There are only clothes in the suitcase.
lucky trip
Csak ruha van a bőröndben.
szerencses,
út
OFFICER
Thank you. Have a nice trip. Köszönöm. Szerencsés utat.
Notes to the Basic Sentences
~ Just as titles follow the surname, likewise when a Christian name is used with the family name, the Christian name comes after the family name: Rózsa János ('John Rose'), Johnson Péter ('Peter Johnson'). As a rule, titles are used only with the surname except in addressing letters, where the full name may be written, followed by the title.
2 Used loosely to designate any Foreign Service officer abroad.
3 Polite way of greeting a lady.
Notes on Pronunciation A. Long and Short vowels
It is extremely important for you to make the distinction in Hungarian between long and short vowels because the length of vowel sounds is one import-ant way Hungarians distinguish meaning.
Practice 1.
faj - fáj kar kár agy - á~y part - part vagy - vágy
el - él fel - fél szel - szél kel kél vesz - vész
kor koros oda ont orra
- kór - kóros - óda - ónt, - ora - űzet
- bűntett
- csűrje
- fűzet
- tűző
üzlet büntet csülke füzet
tüdő
- őt
- tőr fől őröktőröm
öt tör föl örök töröm -B. Double Consonants
Most of the consonants in Hungarian are pronounced about as in English.
However, a feature of Hungarian pronunciation that requires special attention is double consonants. A Hungarian double consonant coming before a vowel sound must always be pronounced twice as long as a single consonant, except at the end of a breath group. This characteristic of Hungarian pronunciation is especially difficult for American students to master because we do not use this feature of pronunciation in English to convey differences in mean ing. We pronounce conso-nants double in English only in some compound words or in link ing two words that
HUszommT 27
have similar or identical consonant sounds coming together, as in the examples in parentheses below.
Practice 2. A.
reggelt (as in big game)
lassabban (ss as in hor~e ~hoe; bb as in He~urn)
állomás (asin Al !!ewis]
cigaretta (as in ho~ ~ime)
abban jobban lábbal ebben biccen moccan icce uccu eddig kedden
meddő
röffen gróffal
szaggat tollal csuppan késsel
függő füllel cseppen mossa
ahhoz ·val.lás csippent tettel
ehhez kellett nappal héttel
éjjel zümmög erre ketten
bajjal cammog arra hittel
vaj j al... ímmel merre szivvel
ámmal orra hévvel
J OJJon
ekkor enni korral. evvel
akkor inni frissen avval
zökken ennek siessen izzad
csökken unnep tessék túzzel
csekket benne vassal húzza
Practice 2. B.
halott kelet tolat fülel telet lábal agyal ara varja
hallott szemel szemmel
kellett hitel hittel
tollat mese messe
füllel vasal vassal
tellett késel késsel
lábbal szível szívvel
aggyal zúza zúzza
arra tüzel túzzel
varrja házal házzal
C. Hungarian !:.
Hungarian
E.
(identified as a "dentaI flap" or "trill") is usually pro-nounced like the English ' r ' in a telephone operator's pronunciation of the number 'thr-r-ree', or like the Midwestern sound represented by the spelling ' t t ' in such words as 'butter', 'Betty', 'lettuce', 'better' , 'fatter', or 'hotter' spoken fast. It is formed by vibrating the tip of the tongue against the roof of the mouth right behind the upper front teeth. In the speech of some Hungarians this sound is weakened when it appears at the end of a breath group or when i t precedes another consonant within the same syllable.As is true of alI double consonants in Hungarian, the double E is pronounced twice as long as the single.
Practice
3.
rab bőrönd drága tréfa borda
rak derék drapp Tátra torta
régen
.
, dörög drót prém portaörül brekeg próba kert
rl.go
repül árva bravúr trakta bort
bútor merre
cukor orra
címer porrá
kör erre
kár térre
Répa. retek, mogyoró; korán reggel ritkán rikkant a rigó.
28 HUSZONNYOLC
D. vowel Harmony
Hungarian words are generally divided into front-vowel words and back-vowel words, depending on the type of vowel the contain and the type of suffi~ they consequently take. Those which do not fit into either of these categories are neutral-vowel words.
Front-vowel Words Debrecenben beszélek tervük
bőrcndben
ülnek örülnek E. Linking (Liaison)
Back-Vowel Words lapban
azután urak akarnak vacsorázunk olvasok
Neutral-Vowel Words isznak
hisznek fiatalnak célja
szívnak
októberben (or októberban1
Hol van az állomás? (Hol va-na-zállomás?1 cig~ret7át is kérek. (cigarettá-tis-kérek.\
Kovacs ur. (Ková-csúr.1
szeretnék enni. (Szeretné-kenni.)
Csak ülök és olvasok. (Csa-külö-ké-solvasok.)
The above examples illustrate the principle that in Hungarian when a word ending in a consonant is followed immediately in the same breath group by a word beginning with a vowel, the consonant is pronounced in the same syllable as the
following vowel.
F· syllabication
Milyen szépek ezek a virágok~ (Mi-lyen-szé-pe-ke-ze-ka-vi-rá-gok~)
Johnsonék amerikaiak. (John-so-né-ka-me-ri-ka-i-ak.) Nem akar ebédelni? (Ne-ma-ka-re-bé-del-ni?)
Csak ülök és olvasok. (csa-kü-lö-ké-sol-va-sok.) zsazsát ismeri? (zsa-zsá-tis-me-ri?)
Össze tösz-sze) Mennyi (meny-nyi)
The list above contains examples of how words or groups of words are divided into syllables (minimum units of word structure). Note the following:
(1)
In Hungarian a syllable begins with a consonant and ends with a vowel whenever possible.(2;
Two adjacent vowel sounds always form separate syllables.(A
word therefore always has as many syllables as it has vowel sounds.I (31 The digraphs ~, gy,lY,
~,.sz, !y and ~ represent separatephonemes in.the language, and as such are never separated in syllabication.
(41 The combinations ~, ~, ~, sgy,
!lY,
nny and tty. which repre-sent double sounds in Hungarian, are divided in syllabication intú~, ~, ~, 9Y=SY,
!Y=lY,
~ and!y=!y, respectively.HUSZONKILENC
A. The Present Tense
Notes on Grammar (For Home study)
The concept of person exists in English pronouns. but has very limited application to English verbs. Most verbs in English occur with an ending in what might be called the third personal singular form: ' r hit - he hits, r dig -he digs, r miss - he misses' • The Hungarian verb, on the other hand, regularly has six different endings, since it must change to agree with its subject for singular (one) and plural (more than one), for the first person (r - wel, second person (you), and third person (he, she, i t - they). The second person is
further distinguished for familiar or formal. The familiar.te (singular 'you') or t i (plural 'you') is used only in intimate conversation, that is, when you address a person (or persons) whom you know very well (e.g., a ·member of the family or a close friend). The form that you will use most for 'you' is maga (in address ing one person) or maguk (in addressing more than one person).
Immediately after maga and maguk, in the chart below, you will find ön and önök in parentheses to indicate that although ön and önök also mean 'you'-,-they
ar;-not used very much in conversation any more, except perhaps by the older genera-tion. The main distinction between maga and ön is that maga is less forrnal than ön: maga is the form employed in general conversati~n. The use of ön is limited to official and very forrnal speech. Both maga and on (and their plurals)
require the third person form of the verb.
From the chart of the Present Tense it will be seen that the third person singular has a 'zero' end ing. (that is, no ending) and that all the other persons have this third person 'stem' in common. We can thus consider the third person singular of the present tense as the base or 'root' of the Hungarian verb, to
which are added suffixes which show differences in person, and as we shall see later, in time and mood.
(rn the verbs below note that the vowels of the endinoQ in the three groups vary according to the rules of vowel harmony.)
Pronoun (Front)
Subject Back-vowel verb Front-vowel verb Rounded-vowel verb
, akarok beszélek ülök
en
te akarsz beszélsz ülsz
maga(ön) akar beszél ül
ó
akar beszél ülmi akarunk beszélünk ulünk
t i akartok beszéltek ültök
maguk akarnak beszélnek ülnek
(önök)
ők akarnak beszélnek ülnek
Note: The familiar form of the second person singular of verbs whose root ends in s, sz or z terminates in ol, el or öl. Examples: olvasol, nézel, főzol,halc{szol.
30 HARMINC
SPOKEN