The Hungarian language can be safely called a puzzle, not for nothing that the Rubik's Cube was invented in Hungary. And yet, many Russians decide to storm this complex system: some want to go to university, others want to get citizenship, and still others simply believe that knowing an additional language will be useful to them. Also, Russian citizens often come to Hungary on vacation, in which case the skills of Hungarian will also come in handy - not everyone in the country even speaks English, but only young people, while older people usually communicate only in their native language.
Origin
A word of warning: learning Hungarian is not an easy task. Formally, it belongs to the Finno-Ugric group, but in fact it has little in common with Estonian and Finnish. Until the nineteenth century, the membership of the Hungarian language in this group was questioned. It is closest to the dialect of the Mansi and Khanty: the Hungarians brought their speech from Siberia to Eastern Europe, having managed, despite the influence of the Slavic and Turkic languages, to largely preserve its main features.
Features
Hungarian language for beginner polyglots may seem overwhelmingcomplex - it presents many surprises. Unique phonetics, forty letters in the alphabet, as many as fourteen vowel sounds, each of which is indicated by a separate letter: a [ɒ], á [a:], e [ɛ], é [e:], i , í [i:], o [o], ó [o:], ö [ø], ő [ø:], u [u], ú [u:], ü [y] and ű [y:]. The first letter of the alphabet - a - must be pronounced as a cross between the Russian "o" and "a": the lower part of the jaw drops, the lips are rounded, the tip of the tongue is pulled back. what can I say, even if the suffixal way of forming words is supplemented by as many as twenty-three cases, when in Russian there are only six of them.
Phonetics
Certainly, the shortness and length of the rounded vowels "ü", "ű", "ö", "ő" present a difficulty here. It should be remembered that these are completely different letters, and a mistake with longitude, as in any language, can distort the meaning of the word. It can be quite difficult for foreigners to understand Hungarians at first, and this is noted by the Hungarians themselves, since often the whole remark sounds like an incomprehensible single word, although in fact it is a whole sentence. But the Hungarian language does not have diphthongs.
Grammar
No matter how complex the grammatical system is, it lacks some elements characteristic of other languages, for example, there is no category of grammatical gender, there are only two tenses: the present and the past, and for the future, a present tense verb of the perfect form is used or the construction with the auxiliary verb fog. All this greatly facilitates the lessons of the Hungarian language for foreign students.students.
Articles and conjugations
Articles play a big role in the language: indefinite and definite, and the very category of indefiniteness and certainty in general. It is inextricably linked with the conjugations of verbs, which are entirely dependent on the noun - the object. If this object is mentioned for the first time, then the objectless conjugation of the verb and the indefinite article are used. For example: "Daddy bought a ball (some)". In the sentence “Dad bought a great ball (the same one)”, the object conjugation of the verb and the definite article will already be used.
If there is no object, both conjugations can be used, but it matters here whether the verb has a direct object. So, the words "sit", "walk", "stand", "go" do not have it, so there can only be an objectless conjugation.
Case endings
Everything that in Russian belongs to the category of prepositions, in Hungarian acts as case endings added to the word. With all this, the authors of textbooks cannot agree on how many of them there are: in some manuals it is indicated that twenty-three, in others there is a different figure - nineteen. But the fact is that the endings used to indicate the circumstance of time and place are considered case in the Hungarian language. There are also rare cases, for example, the distribution used to express the repetition of an action in time: "every day", "yearly".
Reading words
Hungarian is richfor long words. For example, megszentségteleníthetetlen (25 letters) translates as "that which cannot be defiled". To read them correctly, they should be divided into roots or syllables. At the same time, in such structural linguistic units, a secondary (collateral) stress necessarily arises, falling on odd syllables. It is worth noting that, for example, the stress on the fifth syllable will be stronger than on the third.
How to learn Hungarian?
Comprehending any language is a difficult task. First of all, you should understand that this is painstaking work, and you need to treat it that way. Now there are many language courses that promise that you will master a new language in just a couple of months of classes, however, as you probably understand, this is just marketing and nothing more. Do not neglect the "old-fashioned" ways of learning a language: comprehend vocabulary, systematically study grammar, memorize elementary constructions, listen to Hungarian songs, watch films with sub titles - this is the basis from which you need to build on.
Tutorials to help
Various textbooks and tutorials can help in learning the language. So, K. Vavra's textbook has good reviews - it is quite old and, of course, not ideal, but conceptually correctly built. It will be great if you also find a language course for this manual. Then you will have a complete set of tools for mastering the Hungarian language. Undoubtedly, it will not be easy to study without a teacher only on textbooks. This is especially true for grammar. Maybe sometimes you have to about somethingguess yourself or look for information in other books, but believe me, such a “research work” will only benefit you. Another good language learning aid is Rubin Aaron's course.
Learning words
Many people who undertake to learn Hungarian very quickly come to the conclusion that this is a useless exercise. Not only can they not remember the words, but even just pronouncing them is beyond their power. However, the main thing in this business is desire and perseverance. Over time, you will learn to speak not only in single words, but also in sentences. Absolutely real effect gives the following method. Read a group of words into a mobile phone recorder, and then listen to the resulting recording at least ten times with headphones. You can do the same with audio recordings recorded by native speakers. Your goal is to achieve an understanding of the meaning of the spoken text without mentally translating it into Russian. Rest assured, this system really works! The main thing is to believe in yourself and keep working. Breaks in this business are simply fatal - it is better to devote half an hour to classes every day than not to study for a week, and then try to master everything completely and immediately.
These basic postulates, of course, apply not only to learning Hungarian, but also to any other language. And do not forget that the approach to learning should be systematic. You should gradually comprehend phonetics, vocabulary, grammar, and so on. Some are limited to cramming individual words. This isnot right. Knowing only that, for example, the word “hello” in Hungarian sounds like “jó nap”, and “thank you” - “kösz”, and so on, is unlikely to give you the opportunity to fully communicate with native speakers and understand them. Good luck!
