Want to sound more like a native Hungarian? Here are some tips!
While it is never easy to start learning a new language, Hungarian is considered one of the most difficult languages. For example, foreigners usually find pronunciation the most challenging. However, with a few tips, you can even sound like a native Hungarian!
Hungarian is an agglutinating language
Something that makes the Hungarian language unique is agglutination, writes catchbudapest.com. As the word suggests, agglutination means the process of sticking prefixes and suffixes to the beginnings and endings of the words. English, however, is an analytic language, which uses helper words to give extra meaning to words such as time or place. If you really want to sound like a native Hungarian, you should look out for its agglutinating nature. For example, instead of saying in our house, Hungarians say it with one word, házunkban.
The ‘gy’ sound
Sound such as gy are very tricky and foreigners usually do not know how to pronuance these correctly. Although in English, people would say that g and y are two different letters, in Hungarian, it is one. It might help that the Hungarian gy sounds the same a soft j sound in English. Therefore, you might pronounce the word magyar as moh-jar.
‘s’ or ‘sz’
Again, if we compare the Hungarian language with the English, we can spot a difference in the s sound, too. While in English, s is pronounced in different ways, the Hungarian has two different letters for the two different pronunciations. The Hungarian s is actually a sh sound and it appears in words like Budapest. Meanwhile, you may pronounce the sz sound as ess, such as in the word szia meaning hello.
The Hungarian ‘c’ sound
Another tricky sound is the c in Hungarian, beacuse Hungarians say it completely differently than English people would. As theculturetrip.com writes, the Hungarian c sounds like a ts sound in hats. You should think of it as a subtle t in front of a soft c. If you get the c sound right, you are considered an honorary Hungarian citizen!
- Read also: What languages influenced Hungarian?
The Hungarian word order
If you have mastered the Hungarian pronunciation, new challenges await you with the Hungarian word order. The Hungarian language has a topic-prominent sentence structure, which means that word order is not defined by regular sentence constituents. Instead, it is defined by the speaker’s communicative intentions. In English, you can only say I’m going to the doctor (Subject-Verb-Object), or else the sentence would be incorrect. In Hungarian, you have various possibilites: Én megyek az orvoshoz.” (I’m going to the doctor.); Az orvoshoz megyek én.” (It’s the doctor I’m going to.); Én az orvoshoz megyek.” (I am going to the doctor (… and where are you going?)); ect.
Read alsoThe most beautiful Hungarian words II.
Source: catchbudapest.com, theculturetrip.com
I always tell people to say “mud – yar” for Magyar, and they have no problems after that.