There are a lot of Hungarian proverbs, some of which are still used today, and there are some that are no longer part of the living language.

We put together a 20-item list before, and we will continue with that now.

1. The pitcher goes so long to the well, until it breaks. – Addig jár a korsó a kútra, amíg el nem törik.
   For example, Hungarians say that if someone does something wrong more than once, they will be punished sooner or later.
2. Stretch yourself as far as your cover reaches. – Addig nyújtózz, ameddig a takaród ér.
   You should only want as much as you can deal with, such as eating as much as you can eat.
3. Do not look at the tooth of a gift horse. – Ajándék lónak ne nézd a fogát!
   If you get a gift, be happy with it, and do not look for its faults. This is also true in a figurative sense if you get a chance in life.
4. Anyone looking for a flawless horse can walk. – Aki hibátlan lovat keres, járhat gyalog.
   Another Hungarian saying about horses, which means nothing is perfect in the world, so you often have to set the standard lower.
5. One fool makes a hundred. – Egy bolond százat csinál.
   People easily imitate someone’s stupidity en masse.
6. One swallow does not make a summer. – Egy fecske nem csinál nyarat.
   Without help, a person cannot achieve great results. Teamwork is needed. An exception, of course, is the fool, of whom one is more than enough. 
7. A liar is caught sooner than a lame dog. – Hazug embert hamarabb utolérik, mint a sánta kutyát.
   The lie will sooner or later become apparent.
8. If you had kept your silence, you would have remained wise. – Ha hallgattál volna, bölcs maradtál volna.
   In addition, Hungarians say “to be silent is golden” as well. If we are not sure about something, we would rather not say anything. If someone is constantly talking back and forth, sooner or later they will lose their credibility in the eyes of people.
9. Tastes and slaps are different. – Ízlések és pofonok különbözők.
   If there is no agreement, we can end disputes with this saying.
10. For good work time is needed. – Jó munkához idő kell.
    You have to give your time to everything you do, so you should not rush because then the end result will not be good. We can add to this proverb that bad work needs even more time because it needs to be fixed.
11. Even of a good thing too much is harmful. – Jóból is megárt a sok.
    Less is more is the same saying in English.
12. Better a sparrow today than a bustard tomorrow. – Jobb ma egy veréb, mint holnap egy túzok.
    Use the options available to you today instead of expecting it to be even better tomorrow.
13. A bird is recognised by her feathers, a man by his friend. – Madarat tolláról, embert barátjáról.
    Our environment shows what kind of people we really are.
14. Its smoke is bigger than the flame. – Nagyobb a füstje, mint a lángja.
    It is not so serious.
15. Only the ox drinks alone. – Ökör iszik magában.
    Hungarians often drink alcohol, but most of the time, they do so in company.
16. He looks for a needle in a haystack. – Tűt keres a szénakazalban.
    He/she is undertaking a hopeless or enormous task.
17. It hit a nail into his head. – Szöget ütött a fejébe.
    We use this if someone remembered something and did not let the thought go. It set someone thinking.
18. There is something behind someone’s ears. – Valami van a füle mögött.
    This suggests that someone is hiding something.
19. Someone’s mind cuts like a razor. – Vág az esze, mint a borotva.
    That is, someone is very smart. We can say that someone’s mind is as sharp as a razor.
20. Someone is taking the card. – Veszi a lapot.
    We use this when people understand a hidden message, a reference, and even act on it.

Every country, every city, and every village, back in the old days as well, had their own smart people whose intelligent sayings became well-known by their village, then the county, and finally, by the whole country, and even proceeded to be commonly used. In those days, when there were no phones to text our friends and families or internet and Instagram to upload what is currently happening to us, everything was said but not written down. Sayings and proverbs passed from generation to generation, so in most cases, it is impossible to say where and when they were first used.

Last week, we brought you a brief list of Hungarian sayings and proverbs, with the help of @hungariandictionary, to broaden your knowledge of the Hungarian language and its very commonly used expressions that, in many cases, sound strange and quite far from their literal meaning. We are now adding to this little list of sayings, but this time, solely concentrating on bears.

So to start off, let us talk about bears a bit. Probably every one of you has seen a bear before, if not in a zoo then in a picture or a movie, and hopefully, you have not had the chance to encounter one in person. Why hopefully? Well,

the scientific name of the brown bear, which is called grizzly bear in North America, is the following: ursus arctos horribilis. Ursus means bear in Latin while arctos means bear in Greek. And horribilis? I don’t think it requires any further explanation.

Then why do Hungarians have so many expressions with this huge and feared animal? The answer is quite easy. When these sayings and proverbs were born, Hungary had quite a lot of bears living on its territory, but fear not, since the 1850s and 1860s, only a few were spotted wandering near the borders without respect for the countries’ frontiers.
Without further ado, let us see Hungary’s old connections to bears.

Lássuk a medvét! – Let’s see the bear!

This saying practically means let’s see the truth or let’s see the outcome. It dates back to the times when in circuses, the biggest attraction was a dancing bear, and the peak was the ringmaster introducing the bear as the most awaited and popular performance. Today, we use it, for instance, when we have just finished cooking something new we have not prepared before, and we are waiting for the experience and the taste.

Előre iszik a medve bőrére. – He drinks to the bear’s skin in advance.

This saying is used in the context of when someone is being happy or cheerful about something that is not yet decided or sure, the outcome of which is not secure – when someone takes something for granted even before that thing would happen and become a reality.
Some versions of this expression exist in almost all European languages. There is no unilateral acceptance of the origin, but many say that it is a little story written down in the 15th century about 3 friends wanting to capture a bear. Before leaving for the forest, they had a huge feast in a tavern and promised the owner to pay the bill from the money they would get for selling the skin of the bear. When they actually encountered the animal, one of them ran away, another one climbed up a tree, and the third one got on the ground pretending to be dead. After the bear sniffed him and walked away uninterested, the man on the tree asked his friend what the bear had whispered in his ears, and he said: “Next time, we should not drink to his skin in advance, before capturing him.”

Kevés vagy, mint mackósajtban a brummogás. – You are as little as the growl in the bear cheese.

This is actually quite a recent saying and requires a little background of a cheese brand to understand. The brand Medve was founded by a Swiss family at the beginning of the 20th century on the then-territory of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy. After the deprivatisation of the company in 1948, it became a Hungarian business. It has always been very popular among Hungarians since the very beginning, so naturally, everyone knew the name Medve. It has no hidden or old original meaning; we use it when we want to tell someone that they are not good enough for a task or they do not have what it takes. Just like the bear cheese, which does not growl.

Bedől, mint maci a málnásba. – He falls like a bear into the raspberry bush.

This saying originates from the fact that bears like raspberries very much, so any time they find a bush of this fruit, they would naturally hurry there and jump or fall into it, to eat as fast and as much as possible. The Hungarian expression, though, has very little to do either with the animal or the berry. It means to believe something, to fall for something quickly, even when it is not true, without first examining the circumstances and being precautious. Just like the bear who throws itself into a big bush of little branches and thorns.

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We have previously written about English words that have Hungarian origins. Now you can read about how the English language has affected the Hungarian language. What words do we use that come from English, and how did English affect particular areas where new words were needed.

To some, it might be surprising, but the English language has been influencing Hungarian from as early as the 17th century and not necessarily on just the word-level. American English has influenced Hungarian in speed. This means that earlier, Hungarian speech was slower, and by a lot. According to some people, the Hungarian language was spoken at about 11-12 phonemes per second. Today it has increased to 14-15 phonemes per second. This is a non-negligible, 25-30% increase in the speed of speech. In some cases, mainly in advertisements, speakers can say 25 phonemes a second. Formerly Hungarian was a slower language with clear articulation, but as the speed increases, it leads to the “swallowing” of syllables.

According to Monostory, the relationship with English has resulted in many exciting phenomena. Usually, proper foreign nouns would have become part of the Hungarian language assimilating to the Hungarian rules of pronunciation and writing, but in many cases, due to the increased language learning and probably the influence of foreign media, the pronunciation of many proper nouns and acronyms follow that of the English pronunciation. This has led to an ambiguity: some are used according to English rules, e.g., HBO, BBC, FBI and others follow the Hungarian rules: NATO, WHO, USA [nɑːto:, ve:hɑːo:, uʃʌ]. The English influenced many other things, even spelling, but that might be the topic of another time.

Now let us move on to how the English have influenced the words we use and what some of the most common terms are used by Hungarian speakers that come from the English language. From the 17^th century to 1970, about 1,000 English words have become part of Hungarian. It is mainly in specialist areas where English has the most influence on language, as adopting existing terminology is much easier and faster than creating new ones. The best example of such an area would be IT. Although some of the older expressions have become “Hungarianised”, since it is evolving fast, some are kept as it is, but not everyone may know these terms. Some of the most common examples in the field of IT are:

computer – komputer [kɒmpjuː.tər]

The pronunciation is very similar, but the spelling becomes more identical to Hungarian words. The entirely “Hungarianised” word for it would be számítógép.

mouse – egér [ɛgeːr]

Although this one was completely localised, it comes from English.

monitor – monitor [mɒnɪtɒr]

The Hungarian language is exactly the same, and the pronunciation is a bit different as Hungarians use a much more voluble ‘r’.

icon – ikon [ɪkɒn]

Many words that are taken up from English are transported back to a so-called more Latin form. It is a form of pig Latin, not necessarily proper Latin, but it makes it more acceptable to Hungarian ears somehow.

document – dokumentum [dɒkʊmɛntʊm]

to install – installál [ɪnʃtʌllɑːl]

combination – kombináció [kɒmbɪnɑːt͡sioː]

format – formátum [fɒrmɑːtʊm]

Two examples that were taken from English around the ‘60s are:

teenager – tinédzser [tɪneːd͡ʒɛr]

The proper word would be tizenéves, but the former is a bit more widespread, at least among the younger generations.

hippie – hippi [hɪppɪ]

Now let us move to some words that might be used more frequently in the Hungarian language. One example of this would be ‘star’ and ‘celebrity’ which have transformed into everyday Hungarian public language quite fast.

star – sztár [stɑːr]

Although there is an equivalent, csillag and sometimes we use that to describe famous people, but in the public language, sztár is more often used.

celebrity – celeb [t͡sɛlɛb]

It is a shortened form of the English word with Hungarian pronunciation. It is used to describe people who are public figures with a sizeable fan-base.

influencer – influenszer [inflʊɛnsɛr]

This is an excellent example of how a new word in a specific area in English is transported into Hungarian and used as a term, rather than creating a new one. There are some similar words where there might be a Hungarian equivalent, yet we use the word we transported from the foreign language.

HR – HR [hɑːɛr]

Same writing, but different pronunciation. The proper Hungarian word would be személyzeti osztály.

popcorn – popcorn

The Hungarian equivalent of this would be pattogatott kukorica which describes that the corn is popped open.

If you found this interesting and would like to learn more words or phenomena that were influenced by the English language, please share this article with your friends or anyone who might be interested.

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