Weird and funny Hungarian expressions
Change language:
Every language has its expressions, phrases, and sayings that might sound funny to foreigners. That is one of the beauties of each and every language. Sometimes, however, these idiomatic expressions cause a laugh even among those who use them naturally as it is a phrase in their mother tongue.
The weather has been quite funny this week in Hungary, with smaller or bigger snowfalls in certain parts of the country.
Restaurants and bars are unfortunately still closed, and so are the borders of the country. We really hope that very soon, you will get the chance to visit our beautiful Hungary (or re-visit it), but until then, we have brought you a list of Hungarian expressions that are either very hard to process or cause a huge laugh when translated to English. Learn one or two of them and impress either your Hungarian friends or people you will meet during your next stay in Budapest.
Hungarian is a beautiful but extremely hard language for foreigners. Truth be told, it can sometimes be tricky even for native speakers, especially when it comes to all our various expressions containing interesting words that simply do not seem to belong in the sentence. In many cases, the reason for the use of a specific word sounding extremely strange or even stupid for someone from the East of Hungary is simply the fact that the expression comes from the other corner of the homeland, where the word in question is used for a specific object. This word can either be another different word used for the same object by our friend coming from the Eastern part, or it simply does not exist in their vocabulary because the object does not exist in their area. Take a look at some of these expressions.
Miért itatod az egereket? – Why are you giving drinks to the mice?
Have you ever given a glass of water to a mouse? I do not think so, we rather fear them and even scream if we see one, let alone give them drinks. Do not think Hungarians are this strange that they do it; the meaning of this sentence is very simple. In Hungary, when asking a crying kid, for instance, for the reason of their sadness, we do not directly ask them the question Why are you crying?, we rather choose this creative way to find the problem and to solve it.