Hollywood stars try to speak Hungarian – VIDEOS

You might have experienced that trying to speak Hungarian, or just saying a few words in our language, can be quite a challenge as a foreigner. However, we truly appreciate every effort and love watching videos with people trying to pick up a bit of Hungarian. We especially enjoy when celebrities take on the challenge, so we collected some of the best videos of famous people speaking Hungarian.

This article is based on the selections made by szeretlekmagyarorszag.hu and starity.hu from a few years ago. Our compilation is quite versatile, we tried to highlight the best videos. There are plenty of videos of musicians greeting the audience in Hungarian at their concerts, but we tried to go with a bit more interesting, funny examples.

Don’t expect full on sentences, the videos mostly include a few Hungarian words, but they are still heart-warming. It’s quite funny how Hungarian is sometimes used in movies as a “secret code” or “mysterious language”. Our list includes movie scenes, spontaneous moments, interviews and other interesting situations. Of course, it’s not surprising that Tony Curtis or Gene Simmons – both of Hungarian origins – remember a few sentences. But what’s up with Sylvester Stallone, Anthony Hopkins, Selena Gomez or Robert Pattinson?

Selena Gomez and “Szeretlek”

Gene Simmons – The famous KISS member is of Hungarian-Jewish origins, and he can still speak Hungarian quite fluently and articulately. Watch the beginning of the following video and the part coming after 3:15.

Jennifer Garner – In television series Alias, the actress claims that reading Hungarian will be no problem.

Anthony Hopkins – The actor repeats three Hungarian words in The Rite when a demon possesses his body. He says “szerelmem” (my love), “virágom” (my flower) and “gyönyörűségem” (my beauty) a few times.

Sylvester Stallone – The actor switches to Hungarian in his movie F.I.S.T. to ask the guy if he speaks Hungarian. The guy answers: ‘better than English’.

Robert Pattinson – The actor shot a movie in Hungary in 2009. A few vigilant fans were able to make a video of him thanking them for being quiet, which was followed by a big applause.

Katy Perry – In 2010, the singer shot her music video for Firework in Budapest, for which she asked for the help of her fans.

Ke$ha – Sticking with singers, Ke$ha performed in Hungary in 2011, and told at a press conference that one her grandparents is of Hungarian origin, so she used to eat “chicken paprikás” and “rétes” when she was little. Watch from 1:00.

Sebastian Vettel – The Formula-1 pilot advertised Red Bull’s mobile in several commercials, out of which one included him saying “Welcome to my world, welcome to Red Bull’s world” in Hungarian. He said that he had to learn the sentence in several languages, but he found Hungarian the hardest.