American gets to know Hungarian culture – VIDEO

YouTuber Fiona Bones – who lived in Hungary for most of her childhood – has released a series of videos, introducing her friend, Gabby, to the Hungarian language, attempting to teach her a few phrases, and to Hungarian food.

In her first video “Teaching American How To Speak HUNGARIAN,” Fiona says she lived in Hungary when she was a child and that she thinks she speaks Hungarian pretty well but admitted to having trouble sometimes with spelling.

Fiona asks her friend if she knows where Hungary is located, to which the answer is “somewhere in Europe.” She then takes out her phone for the list of words and phrases she is going to teach Gabby. These include simple words, tongue twisters and Hungarian sayings. Gabby has some trouble with the tongue twister “görbe bögre” (“crooked mug” in English), but then they proceed to curse words and keep laughing about how much quicker she got it right than regular words.

They go on to Hungarian sayings, and Fiona translates the meanings, Gabby finds them funny and even asks in what scenario the phrase “majd ha piros hó esik” (“if red snow falls”) would even be used. She is also shocked by the phrase “a kerítés nem kolbászból van,” which translates to “the fence is not made of sausage,” but means something along the lines of “money doesn’t grow on trees.” The difference between the phrases really showcases the difference between the American and the Hungarian cultures.

Gabby asks what the Hungarian language is made up of, the way in Brazil it is a mix of Spanish and French and Fiona says that Hungarian is its own thing and tries to explain a bit of grammar and how there are 18 more letters in the Hungarian alphabet than in the English one, which pretty much shocks Gabby. All in all, Gabby did really well with the pronunciation of the words, and the video received a lot of positive feedback, both in English and in Hungarian.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JPQ7GihnhQw

In the next video, “American Guessing Weird Hungarian Word Meaning,” Fiona makes Gabby guess the meaning to Hungarian words. Fiona starts off by clarifying that she has very small Hungarian ancestry, she is mostly Italian; however, she went to school from 1st to 8th grade in Pest, Hungary.