Table Of ContentSAY IT IN
HUNGARIAN
by Juliette Victor-Rood, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor o f German
The Pennsylvania State University
DOVER PUBLICATIONS, INC.
New York
Copyright © 1983 by Dover Publications, Inc.
All rights reserved under Pan American and International Copyright Conventions.
Published in Canada by General Publishing Company, Ltd., 30 Lesmill Road, Don Mills, Toronto, Ontario.
Published in the United Kingdom by Constable and Company, Ltd., 10 Orange Street, London WC2H 7EG.
Say It in Hungarian is a new work, first published by Dover Publications, Inc., in 1983.
Manufactured in the United States of America
Dover Publications, Inc.
180 Varick Street
New York, N.Y. 10014
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Victor-Rood, Juliette.
Say it in Hungarian.
(Dover “say it” series)
Includes index.
1. Hungarian language—Conversation and phrase books—
English. I. Title.
PH2121.V5 1983 494´.51183421 82-12947
eISBN 13: 978-0-486-14830-4
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction
Pronunciation
Everyday Phrases
Social Phrases
Basic Questions
Talking about Yourself
Making Yourself Understood
Difficulties and Misunderstandings
Customs
Baggage
Travel Directions
Boat
Airplane
Train
Bus, Subway, Streetcar
Taxi
Renting Autos and Other Vehicles
Auto: Directions
Auto: Help on the Road
Auto: Gas Station and Auto Repair Shop
Parts of the Car (and Auto Equipment)
Mail
Telegram
Telephone
Hotel
Chambermaid
Renting an Apartment
Apartment: Useful Words
Café and Bar
Restaurant
Food: Seasonings
Beverages and Breakfast Foods
Soups
Salads
Meats and Meat Dishes
Poultry
Fish and Seafood
Sauces
Vegetables, Starches, and Side Dishes
Fruits
Desserts
Sightseeing
Worship
Entertainments
Nightclub and Dancing
Sports and Games
Hiking and Camping
Bank and Money
Shopping
Clothing and Accessories
Colors
Materials
Bookshop, Stationer, Newsdealer
Pharmacy
Drugstore Items
Camera Shop and Photography
Gift and Souvenir List
Cigar Store
Laundry and Dry Cleaning
Repairs and Adjustments
Barber Shop
Beauty Parlor
Stores and Services
Baby Care
Health and Illness
Ailments
Dentist
Accidents
Parts of the Body
Time
Weather
Days of the Week
Holidays
Dates, Months and Seasons
Numbers: Cardinals
Numbers: Ordinals
Quantities
Family
Common Signs & Public Notices
Index
Appendix: Common Road Signs
INTRODUCTION
Hungarian is spoken by about 13 million people, mainly in the central Danube
Valley. Aside from being the national language of Hungary, Hungarian is spoken by
substantial communities in Czechoslovakia, Romania and Yugoslavia. Other Hungarian
speakers are scattered throughout the world, including about half a million of them in
the United States. There is little difference between dialects in Hungarian, and the
phrases in this book will be understood by Hungarian speakers everywhere.
Hungarian is a member of the Finno-Ugric branch of the Uralic family of languages,
and is therefore unrelated to the familiar languages of Europe. Its closest relatives are
the Vogul and Ostyak languages of Siberia, and it is more distantly related to Finnish
and Estonian. As you might expect, then, Hungarian grammar is quite different from that
of English and other Indo-European languages, and Hungarian has always been
considered a difficult language to learn. Say It in Hungarian will enable you to
communicate in a part of Eastern Europe where few people speak English.
NOTES ON THE USE OF THIS BOOK
The words, phrases and sentences in this book have been selected to provide for the
communications needs of the traveler or foreign resident in Hungary, and they have
been divided into sections corresponding to the situations likely to be encountered in
travel and in daily life. The entries which consist of vocabulary lists have been
alphabetized according to their English headings, with the exception of the sections on
food and public notices, which have been alphabetized according to the Hungarian
entries to facilitate reference to menus and signs. The index at the back of the book
serves as a handy English-Hungarian glossary, and helps you to locate quickly a
specific word or phrase. With the aid of the index or a bilingual dictionary, many
sentence patterns included here will answer innumerable needs. For example, the place
occupied by “six” in the sentence
I shall wait for your call until [six] o’clock.
may be filled with another number in accordance with your needs. In other sentences,
the words in square brackets can be replaced with words immediately following (in the
same sentence or in the indented entries below it). Thus, the entry
These things [to the left] [to the right] belong to me.
provides two sentences: “These things to the left belong to me” and “These things to
the right belong to me.” Three sentences are provided by the following entries:
How much does it cost [per hour]?
—per kilometer.
—per day.
The substitutions taken from the same entry or the indented entries following a sentence
will always be in the correct grammatical form. Since Hungarian nouns and verbs take
a variety of endings depending on their context, those substitutions you supply yourself
from the index or a bilingual dictionary will not always be in the correct form.
However, Hungarians should have no trouble understanding what you mean.
Please note that while brackets always indicate the possibility of substitution,
parentheses have been used to provide additional information. They are used to
indicate synonyms or alternative usage for an entry:
Please have a seat. (OR: Won’t you sit down?)
Parentheses may also be used to explain the nuances of a word or phrase. The
abbreviation LIT. is used whenever a parenthetical literal translation of a Hungarian
sentence is provided. When a word has different forms according to sex (like English
“actor” and “actress”), the abbreviations M. and F. will be used to indicate masculine
and feminine forms, respectively.
You will notice that the word “please” has been omitted from many of the sentences
in this book. This was done for reasons of space and clarity. To be polite, you should
add the word kérem (KAY-rehm) whenever you would normally say “please” in
English.
The extensive index at the back of the book is especially useful. Capitalized items in
the index refer to section headings and give the number of the page on which the section
begins. All other numbers refer to entry numbers (individual entries are numbered
consecutively throughout the book).
PRONUNCIATION
Although Hungarian has some sounds with which you are probably unfamiliar, you
should be able to produce them with a little practice, especially when you hear spoken
Hungarian and try to imitate it. To aid you in pronouncing Hungarian properly, we have
provided a convenient transcription system and the explanatory chart which follows.
Look over the chart carefully; the transcription should be read like English except for
the special rules noted in the chart. With care, you will be able to make yourself
understood in Hungarian before you have heard a word of it spoken.
CONSONANTS
HungarianTranscription Remarks
Spelling
b b Like the b in bear.
c ts Like the ts in cats or tsetse.
cs ch Like the ch in much.
d d Like the d in dog.
dz dz Like the ds in heads.
dzs j Like the j in jam.
f f Like the ƒ in ƒire.
g g Like the g in get.
gy dy Like the d-y sound in and you or the di sound in French
“adieu.”
h h Like the h in have.
j y, hy Usually like the y in yet, never like the j in jam. At the end
of a word after p, t, k, or r, j sounds like the ch in German
“ich,” which is similar to an exaggerated pronunciation of
the h in huge; this sound is transcribed hy.
k k Like the k in skin. (k, p, and t are not aspirated [followed by
a puff of air] in Hungarian, as they are at the beginning of a
word in English).
l l Like the l in law.
ly y Same as the Hungarian j (like y in yet).
m m Like the m in many.
