Lesson 2 – Buying a ticket

January 18, 2008 by Let's Learn Hungarian! in Podcast | 8 Comments

Lesson 2 is available here! It is a bit longer than the first lesson with A LOT of new vocabulary and grammar, so make sure you listen several times, follow along with the script below, and try to memorize as much as you can. Thanks for all your comments on the first lesson, we really appreciate your feedback! We always welcome your questions and opinions, so feel free to leave a comment below. And thanks for listening!

Theme music: Curtis Maranda, “Crystal Night.” Please check out more of his music by going to http://www.curtismaranda.com/ Thanks to Curtis for providing us with the music for this podcast.

Download Lesson 2 here (MP3 audio, 21:40)

Dialogue for Lesson 2 (in formal speech):

Ticket vendor: Jó napot.

Tourist: Egy metrójegyet kérek.

Ticket vendor: Vonaljegyet vagy átszállójegyet?

Tourist: Ööööööö, nem értem.

Ticket vendor: Ajaj! Hová megy?

Tourist: A Deák térre megyek.

Ticket vendor: Jó. Tessék egy vonaljegy. 270 forint lesz.

Tourist: Köszönöm szépen.

Dialogue for Lesson 2 (English translation):

Ticket vendor: Hello.

Tourist: I’d like a subway ticket.

Ticket vendor: (Would you like) a line ticket or a transfer ticket?

Tourist: Uhhhh, I don’t understand.

Ticket vendor: Uh-oh. Where are you going?

Tourist: I’m going to Deák Square.

Ticket vendor: All right. Here’s a line ticket. That’ll be 270 forint.

Tourist: Thank you very much!

Vocabulary for Lesson 2:

angol – English

Angol? – Are you English? (formal)

Angol vagy? – Are you English? (informal)

kanadai – Canadian

Kanadai? – Are you Canadian? (formal)

Kanadai vagy? – Are you Canadian? (informal)

francia – French

Francia? – Are you French? (formal)

Francia vagy? – Are you French? (informal)

egy – one, a (the indefinite article)

kettő – two

három – three

négy – four

öt – five

metrójegy – subway ticket

metró – subway

jegy – ticket

kérek – I would like…

vonaljegy – line ticket (for use on Budapest’s public transportation)

vagy – or

átszállójegy – transfer ticket (to transfer on public transportation lines in Budapest)

Nem értem – I don’t understand.

Ajaj! – Uh-oh!

Hová megy? – Where are you going? (formal)

a – the (definite article)

Deák tér – Deák Square (central square in Budapest)

tér – square, plaza

megyek – I’m going (somewhere)

Tessék egy… – Here’s a… (something)

kettőszázhetven – two hundred-seventy

forint – name of the Hungarian currency

lesz – will be

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Listener question – from Fatima

January 15, 2008 by Let's Learn Hungarian! in Questions | 9 Comments

Hi folks!

The next lesson will be up very soon, like in a day or two. Until then, please have a listen to the first lesson below, and try to memorize as much as you can! Thanks to everybody who left a comment about our first lesson. I hope you’ll keep listening to and enjoying our podcast.

Ok, so we received our first listener question, from Fatima. It’s kind of an intermediate-level grammar-type question, so if you are just a beginning learner, this may not interest you very much.

Fatima wrote:

Sziasztok.
I have a question – something that I cannot figure out and maybe you can help.

If you are stating something in the plural from the singular, example, kedves to kedvesek it has taken the ending ek.

Now from my understanding:

Front vowel words take the ek ending – kedvesek.

Back vowel words take the ok ending – autok (strip on o) and viragok (strip on a).

My question is:
What is the rule for: poharak. (strip on first a)
Where does the ak ending come from and what is the rule is making use of it?

If you know, pray tell, pleeeeeeeeease.

koszonom.
fats

Thanks for the question, Fatima! You’ve hit upon one of the trickiest areas for foreign learners of Hungarian: the correct ending that a conjugated word should take.

First of all, I want to recommend that every serious learner of Hungarian should own a copy of Hungarian Verbs And Essentials of Grammar by Miklós Törkenczy. It’s a bit of a tough read as you might expect of a serious grammar book, but it’s also short, concise, and the conjugated verb tables make it invaluable. He also does a great job of explaining the entire mess that is Hungarian endings. Unfortunately, my copy is not with me at the moment so I can’t look up your question.

And as I mentioned in the podcast, neither Györgyi nor I are Hungarian teachers, so there’s a lot of stuff we don’t know how to explain. That said, I’m going to venture an answer to your question:

I’m tempted to say that all multi-syllable words ending in “-ár” conjugate to “-arak” in the plural. E.g. “mocsár” –> “mocsarak,” “pohár” –> “poharak,” “bogár” –> “bogarak” et al. BUT there’s also “tanár” –> “tanárok” which doesn’t follow this pattern!

Which is the rule? I’m guessing that “-ár” to “arak” is the general rule, with the exception of “tanár” and maybe a few others. You’ll see that there’s a lot of confusing exceptions when it comes to word endings, unfortunately.

But I’d also like to tell you not to worry about it so much. In my opinion, word endings are an area of the language that, with repeated exposure through listening and reading, you CAN pick it up and remember it. And if you get it wrong, usually it’s not such a big deal. People will still be able to understand what you wanted to say for the most part. This is quite different from choosing the correct verb prefix, which I personally think is the hardest aspect of learning Hungarian and something that is far more consequential if you get wrong!

Well, if anybody can offer a better explanation of has an opinion on this, I’d love to hear it, so feel free to leave a comment on this post.

–steve

Lesson 1 – On the train

January 2, 2008 by Let's Learn Hungarian! in Podcast | 20 Comments

Lesson 1 is available for download or listening below! Note that you can also subscribe to our podcast for free through the iTunes link on the left, or through a podcatcher like Juice.

We hope you enjoy the lesson and we’d love to get your feedback, so feel free to leave a comment or write an email.

We owe a big debt of gratitude to the folks over at Japanese Pod101 for providing us with the spiritual inspiration and pattern to make this podcast possible. Those guys are the gold standard in language learning podcasts, and we hope everyone will head over there and check them out as well.

Original music for the podcast was kindly provided by Curtis Maranda. Check out more of his music by going to http://www.curtismaranda.com/

Please see below for the dialogue and vocabulary for Lesson 1, and thanks for listening!

Download Lesson 1 here (MP3 audio, 14:26)

Dialogue for Lesson 1:

Border Guard: Jó napot kívánok.

Tourist: Jó napot.

BG: Az útlevelét, kérem.

T: Tessék.

BG: Köszönöm. Hmmmm, amerikai?

T: Igen.

BG: Turista?

T: Igen.

BG: Jó. Tessék. Jó utat kívánok.

T: Köszönöm szépen. Viszontlátásra.

Dialogue for Lesson 1: (translation)

Border Guard: Hello.

Tourist: Hello.

BG: Passport, please.

T: Here you are.

BG: Thank you. Hmmmm, are you American?

T: Yes.

BG: Are you a tourist?

T: Yes.

BG: Fine. Here you are. Have a nice trip.

T: Thank you very much. Goodbye.

Vocabulary for Lesson 1:

jó napot – hello, good afternoon

jó napot kívánok – hello, good afternoon (more polite)

útlevél – passport

kérem – please

tessék – here you are

köszönöm – thank you

Amerikai? – Are you American?

amerikai – American

Magyar? – Are you Hungarian?

magyar – Hungarian

igen – yes

nem – no

Turista? – Are you a tourist?

turista – tourist

jó – good, fine

Jó utat (kívánok). – Have a nice trip.

Köszönöm szépen. – Thank you very much.

viszontlátásra – goodbye

viszlát! – bye!