Tag Archives: mássalhangzó

Deceiving Consonant Geminations

It is just a quick note. We’ve talked about consonant gemination. What it means is that whenever you see two identical consonants, you double the length of the pronunciation.

However, there are certain words you should pay attention to. Such words look like they go under this category, but they really don‘t.

1. Words beginning with GY preceded by the co-verb MEG:

meg|gyullad (to catch fire)

meg|gyújt (to light)

meg|gyón (to confess)

meg|gyászol (to mourn)

meg|gyúr (to knead)

meg|gyaláz (to outrage, to abuse)

etc.

The G in MEG and the GY in such verbs are pronounced separately, NOT LIKE A DOUBLE GGY!

 

2. The demonstrative pronouns EZ (this), AZ (that) when coupled with the suffix –HEZ, -HOZ:

ez + -hez = ehhez (to this)

az + -hoz = ahhoz (to that)

This is seemingly a consonant gemination, but it is really assimilation in writing. Both would require the consonants to be pronounced double as long, but this is an exception. That double H is pronounced as one consonant: ehez, ahoz.

 

3. Words ending in two consonants followed by -VAL, -VEL:

pénz + -vel = pénzzel (with money)

lánc + -val = lánccal (with chain)

kard + -val = karddal (with sword)

etc.

Due to assimilation in writing the V in -VAL, -VEL becomes the same as the last consonant in the word this suffix is attached to. It would be impossible to say those zz, cc, dd double as long, so we just say them as: pénzel, láncal, kardal.

Hungarian Word Root System

Hungarian has a word root system that has been known for centuries, but for political reasons certain people made sure that the Hungarian people had never really known about it up until now. In the recent years we’ve rediscovered this fundamental aspect of our language.

Linguists say that languages change quickly. That’s only true for young languages like those belonging to the Indo-European branch. Because the story of the settlement of the Magyars in Hungary (Honfoglalás) is a big fat lie and we’ve always known that, some Hungarian linguists and archeologists didn’t rest to prove it wrong. We’ve found houses made of stone in Hungary buried under a considerable amount of soil. Interestingly enough, those houses are 7500 years old. Meaning Hungarians have always lived in the Carpathian Basin and certain groups had migrated to other territories, but the ‘dyed-in-the-wool’ population stayed in Hungary. Forget the Finno-Ugric lie. Nobody capable of critical thinking believes that today.

Nowadays we can clearly prove the Scythian-Hun-Avar-Hungarian continuity. Bad luck for those trying to suppress our history for a thousands years now.

The Hungarian language is the evidence for the fact that we’ve always lived where we live now. To be more precise, its root system is the evidence. Such a complex language can only develope in a closed land protected from foreigners for thousands of years and more.

Honestly, I don’t know if this knowledge helps you understand Hungarian better or confuses you more, but I’ll give it a try.

Our ancestors didn’t write or say anything in vain. The word roots are built up with a vowel + consonant or a consontant + vowel + consonant combination. (VC or CVC)

These roots have their own meaning and the ones that lost their meaning by now (but had it long ago) are shaded with suffixes to create new meanings in the same category the word roots were originally intented to express.

Roots that kept their meaning in themselves are like ég (sky), tér (space)…

Roots that don’t mean anything in themselves are like ker-. This root refers to something circular, enclosed: kerek (round, circular), keret (frame), kert (garden).

          The fundamental meaning of the word is expressed by the consonants, the vowels refer to distance, space, earth-bound or celestial quality. Therefore linguists capitalize the consonants: KeR, éG, TéR…

For example the a-e, á-é word pairs are extremely common. Take a look at this:

tér (space) – tár (to open wide)
>TéR has an é because the sky and the earth is one big space. TáR has an á because you open something wide on the ground.

ég (sky) – ág (branch)

>éG has an é because it refers to the sky itself, áG has an á because it’s on the ground attached to a tree and the branch reaches towards the sky.

It’s clear that we can’t talk about German, French and Slavic loan-words. Our word root system proves that 95% of our words belong to the original Hungarian vocabulary. Foreigners and especially the Vatican want to make us believe that Hungarians were a herd of uneducated people and when (Judeo) Christians arrived and spred their love with iron and fire, suddenly we formed a civilized nation. Apparently the Vatican has really smart people. Hungarians have always been Christians, only Christianity was a positive thing with no blood-shed unlike that blood-thirsty Bible with crucifictions, inquisitions and holy wars. What is so holy about any war? I’m having trouble understanding that part.

Our Hungarian alphabet (runic alphabet if you will) also proves that ordinary people in the ancient Hungary could write and read just our priests, while in the highly developed west only priests could write and the ordinary people were illiterate.

A simple archaeological find proves that our ancestors talked pretty much like we do now 3000 years ago. On a piece of stone, among other words, somebody wrote gyümölcs (fruit) with the Hungarian alphabet. He wrote it with ü and ö just like as we pronounce it now. 3000 years ago! If you read a text from 400 years ago, say, something from Bálint Balassi, there is no need to change one letter in it because it sounds like we speak today. Try to do that with a text from Shakespear. Give it to some English students and ask them if they can understand it without explanation.

Unfortunately, Christians had burnt everything they found, so there’s very little left above the ground. Under the ground archaeologists have found a good number of artifacts with our original Hungarian alphabet. Today a considerable number of Hungarians have rediscovered it (including me) and at least we use it to keep it alive.

The other interesting feature of the Hungarian language that it thinks in images. The word spoken evokes the image of what we talk about. It also heavily relies on dual meanings. Just an example:

ég (sky) – ég (to burn)

What’s the connection between the ég noun and the ég verb? Our ancestors saw that a big fiery ball was up there and it seemed to behave like fire – it burned. And it’s still burning today. So what’s up there? It’s the sky (ég) where the sun burns (ég).

A Nap az égen ég. – The sun burns in the sky.

Other example:

láng (flame) – leng (to swing, to wave)

What does the flame do? It swings, waves as it’s blown by the wind.

A láng leng. – The flame is swinging.

Another aspect of our word roots is the reversal of the root (szófordítás). Our ancestors made up the word mag (seed). They shaded its meaning with different vowels and consonants:

mag – seed > meggy (sour cherry)…

Then they reversed the word root to shade its meaning even further or to reverse the meaning. In this case mag became: MaG <> GaM (no meaning today)>GoM (no meaning today) > GoMb (button) > GoMba (mushroom)> GYüMölcs (fruit). These words refer to an object that has a seed or it reminds us of the shape of a seed.

So much for one breath. If you’re interested in more, here are some links for you:

http://www.szozat.org/images/tudastar/A%20magyar%20nyelv%20gyo%CC%88krendszere%CC%81nek%20alapjai4-1.pdf

http://www.hunsor.se/dosszie/adorjan_amagyarnyelv.pdf
> Things start getting interesting from page 4.

Language and Pronunciation

ABOUT HUNGARIAN

And here some reasons why Hungarian is not a difficult language:

-One letter is one sound (if you know how to pronounce a letter, you say it exactly like that in every word)
-No gender discrimination (much like in English)
-Adjectives are unmarked when preceding nouns (like in English)
-There is only one present tense, one past tense and the future tense is often expressed with present tense
-Only 14(-20) irregular verbs in the entire language!!
-No striking dialect variations (if you can speak Hungarian, you’ll understand people in the whole country)

Here are some reasons why Hungarian is a difficult language:

-Two ways to conjugate verbs (definite and indefinite)
-Some vowels and consonants are not present in English, or they’re said in a slightly different way
-It is an agglutinative language, that is suffixes are attached to the end of the word. Prepositions are quite unknown. There is only one of them ‘mint’.

Vowels – A a

The Hungarian a is different from anything you know in English. Well almost. You don’t say it as the a in cat or the a in access.

The simplest explanation is the interrogative word: WHAT. The a in what is the closest thing I can refer to if I have to explain native English speakers how to say it. Many books, websites and teachers teach nonsense like “The phoneme a is to be pronounced as o in hot”. It is important for you to understand that Hungarian a has no correlation with any kind of o. Yes, it’s between á (sound like u in cup) and o (sound like o in hot with British pronunciation), but still, it’s definitely not similar to o.

Practice saying these Hungarian words by saying WHAT first and then the Hungarian words:

WHAT- ALMA (apple)
WHAT- ABLAK (window)
WHAT- ALAK (figure)
WHAT – ADAT (data)
WHAT – ALAP (base)

Vowels – Difference between Á-O-A

If you’ve downloaded the book, you already know this:

á is to be pronounced like u in cut, but it’s always a long sound! A better example is the word spa.

o is to be pronounced like hot, bot with British pronunciation! It’s a short sound. Its long version is ó.

a is to be pronounced like the a in the English word what.

Practice these words:

alom (litter)
farok (tail)
okos (smart)
óvatos (wary)
gondos (thoughful)
parkoló (car park)
szálloda (hotel)

Vowels – E e, É é

– e is pronounced like e in get
– é is pronounced like a in bay, except that in Hungarian é never becomes y at the end. Try to say bay without the y.

Practice these words:

szél (wind)
szel (to cut)

téli (winter – as adjective)
teli (full)

vér (blood)
ver (to beat, to hit)

Vowels — I i, Í í

The short i is pronounced like i in kit, the long í like ee in deep.

Practice these words:

kis (small)
iskola (school)
kinn (outside)

ír (to write; Irish)
sír (to cry)
nyíl (arrow)

Vowels — O o, Ó ó

The short o is pronounced like o in hot with British pronunciation. The long ó is said like o in role.

Practice these words:

tol (to push)
bokor (bush)
rokon (relative)

jó (good)
pók (spider)
folyó (river)

Vowels – Ö ö, Ő ő

– ö is pronounced like fur, early, curly, certain, curtain, again
– ő is the same, just longer

Practice these words:

tör (to break)
szög (angle)
köd (fog)
köp (to spit)

lő (to shoot)
kő (stone)
nő (woman)
tő (shaft)

and watch the difference between short ö and long ő:

tör (to break)
tőr (dagger)

örök (eternal)
őrök (guards)

töke (his marrow)
tőke (capital)

Vowels — U u, Ú ú

The short u is pronounced like u in put. The long ú is said like oo in shoot.

Practice these words:

un (to be annoyed)
ruha (clothes)
kulcs (key)

út (road)
súly (weight)
búcsú (good-bye)

Vowels – Ü ü, Ű ű

It’s the hardest vowel for a native English speaker. Examples can be given from other foreign languages.

– ü is pronounced like: ü the German word Mütter or u in the French word tu.
– ű is the same, just longer.

Practice these words:

ül (to be sitting)
fül (ear)
szül (to bear a child)
küld (to send)
szünet (pause)
tünet (symptom)
üveg (bottle)

űr (space)
fű (grass)
szűk (narrow)
tű (needle)

Consonants – C c , CS cs

– c is pronounced like ts in tsunami
– cs is pronounced like ch in change, church. You always write c and s together if you want to write that ch sound

C = TS (tsunami)
CS = CH (change)

Practice these words:

cica (kitten)
cukor (sugar)
kelepce (trap)

csend (silence)
kacsa (duck)
csapat (team)

Consonants – DZ dz, DZS dzs

There’s no need to worry about these consonants. They are present in a few words.

– dz is pronounced like ds in Hudson. The letter dz is a digraph, that is two letters give one sound.
– dzs is pronounced like j in jungle. The letter dzs is a trigraph, that is three letters give one sound.

The few words with dz and dzs are:

madzag (string)
edz (to be in training)
bodza (elderberry)
dzsungel (jungle)
dzsem (jam)
maharadzsa (maharaja)

If you want to tarnscribe the word JUDO in Hungarian, it goes like this: DZSÚDÓ

Consonants – G g , GY gy

– g is always pronounced like g in get
– gy is like saying d in duty, duke with British pronunciation

Practice these words:

galamb (pigeon)
gomb (button)
gitár (guitar)
gömb (orb, sphere)
adag (dose)
ország (country)
bagoly (owl)

gyep (lawn)
egy (one)
megy (he goes)
gyenge (weak)
gyufa (match)
agyag (clay)
gyalog (on foot)

Consonants – H h

H is not really a difficult consontant, but needs an explanation. Fundamentally, it is never a mute h! You always say it like in these words: hit, hat, honey. However, there are some exceptions when h is at the end of certain words. These three words are said without that h sound!

méh (bee), rüh (mange), düh (anger)

If they get a suffix, then h is pronounced again: méhek (bees), rühes (mangy), dühös (angry)

Other words ending in h are fully pronounced: doh (fustiness), potroh (abdomen of an insect)

Consonants – J j, LY ly

If you remember, there are two sounds in Hungarian alphabet, which are pronounced as y in yellow. These are

J and LY

And the difference? There is no difference between j and ly. You say both like y in yellow.  The difference occurs in written form. Due to historical reasons, some words are written with j, some with ly. However, there is only one word beginning with ly: lyuk (hole). Let’s see some examples:

gólya (stork)
pólya (swaddle)
gally (twig) DOUBLE CONSONANT!
ilyen, olyan (like this, like that)
ölyv (buzzard)
bagoly (owl)

száj (mouth)
jelen (present)
nyáj (herd)
éj (night)  – Actually, this word is said like the letter A in English!

Consonants – NY ny, TY ty

– ny is pronounced like n in new with British pronunciation
– ty is pronounced like t in stew, tuna with British pronunciation

COMPARE ny and ty to: – gy is pronounced like d in duke, duty with British pronunciation

Practice these words:

nyak (neck)
nyúl (rabbit)
anya (mother)
lány (girl)
nyal (to lick)
aranyos (cute, sweet – referring to animal, person)
nyeremény (prize)

tyúk (hen) > the only word beginning with ty!
atya (father – meaning clerk, not dad!)
latyak (slush)
báty (elder brother)
fátyol (veil)
hattyú (swan) DOUBLE TY = TTY!

Consonants – S s vs. SZ sz

Now listen to this part carefully! These two sounds are quite in the way of driving foreign students crazy. I think you’ve already realized why.

In English, the S sound is to be said like s in see, spoon and sound itself . The SH combination, however, is said like in ship, Ashton.

NOW COMES THE IMPORTANT PART!

The Hungarian S sound is pronounced like the English SH!!!

AND

The Hungarian SZ sound is pronounced like the English S!!! Furthermore, note that this sound is created with S+Z! So if you see a word like ASZTAL (table), you don’t say s and z separately, but you say this digraph as one sound, like the English S.

Difficult? Not really. You just need to practice and memorize them.

Let’s see examples:

seb (wound)
sas (eagle)
só (salt – said like show in English)
has (belly – almost said like HUSH or HAH-SH)
esik (to fall, to rain)
ás (to dig)

kész (ready, finished)
veszély (danger – said like VEH-SAY;  if it helps?)
szesz (spirit, hard drink)
szex (sex)
eszik (to eat)
iszik (to drink)
szem (eye)

Consonants – Q q, W w, X x, Y y

We’ve arrived to the ’odd’ number 13. So now we’ll take a look at these four strange consonants: q, w, x, y.

What’s important about these consonants is that they are present in loan-words as they were adopted from abroad.

Q is actually not quite present in Hungarian words. The explanation is this: foreign words usually have q followed by u, that is qu. QUANTUM, AQUARIUM and so on. Hungarian transcribes these two letters into KV! Examples: quantum – kvantum; aquarium – akvárium, quartz – kvarc, quasar – kvazár

W is pronounced like the simple V! That is: watt is written like watt, but said as vatt. Other example:

English people say “I’m going to the toilet”, while Hungarian people say “WC-re megyek.” We use the abbreviation for water closet and say it like VÉCÉ, that is VA(Y)-TSA(Y) or VE(Y)-TSE(Y). I hope it’s some help at least.

X is said like IKSZ and pronounced like in English: szex (sex), fax (fax), maximum (maximum), expresszionizmus (expressionism), latex (latex), oximoron (oximoron), oxigén (oxygen). There some words where GZ replaces X: egzakt (exact), egzotikus (exotic), egzisztencia (existence), egzaltált (exalted).

Y is NOT PRONOUNCED in any way! The letter itself is called IPSZILON and has one job in Hungarian: to make g, l, n, t unvoiced!

g+y = gy
l+ y = ly
n+ y = ny
t +y = ty

Consonants – Z z vs. ZS zs

Z vs. ZS is much easier than S vs. SZ.

– z is pronounced like z in zero, zap, zest. It’s the same as its English fellow.
– zs is pronounced like s in pleasure, g in genre, or j in the French name Jean. If you see Z and S together in a word like ZSEB (pocket), you don’t say it separately, but like those S, G, J in those words

Examples for zs (because z is the same):

zsák (sack)
zsarnok (despot, oppressor)
zsaru (cop – it’s a word specifically for ‘cop’. Police-officer is rendőr)
Zsuzsanna (female name – Susan)
bézs (beige)
darázs (wasp)
garázs (garage)
pázsit (lawn – synonym is gyep)
rózsa (rose)

Short and Long/High and Deep Vowels

As written in the book you can download in the Download the grammar book/More to Hungarian category, there are short and long vowels, and consonants are to be pronounced long/doubled if written doubled. It’s important since the length of these sounds changes the meaning of a word.

VOWELS: are either front or back vowel words. The Hungarian term is high (magas) and deep (mély) words. From now on I’ll refer to them like that. HIGH AND DEEP.

High vowels are: e, é, i,  í, ö, ő, ü, ű
Deep vowels are: a, á, o, ó, u, ú

Long sounds are: á, é, í, ó, ő, ú, ű
Short sounds are: a, e, i, o, ö, u, ü

Vowels written without accent are: a, e, o, u
Vowels written with one long accent (stroke on the top) are: á, é, í, ó, ú
Vowels written with two long accents are: ő, ű
Vowels written with two dots on the top are: ö, ü
There is only one vowel written with one dot: i

The capitalized versions of these vowels are the same A, Á, E, É, Í, O, Ó, Ö, Ő, U, Ú, Ü, Ű except the capitalized I which has no dot on the top.

Now let’s see how vowels can change the meaning of a word. In English, it should be familiar to some extent: hat, hit – cat, cut – pet, put…

Examples:

Short/Long vowel <> High/Deep vowels
ver (to beat) <> ver (to beat)
vér (blood) <> vár (to wait)

rak (to put) <> szó (word)
rák (cancer) <> sző (to weave)

kor (age) <> kár (damage)
kór (disease) <> kér (to ask)

kerek (round) <> szél (wind)
kerék (wheel) <> szál (strand)
kérek (I’d like) <> szól (to tell)

IMPORTANT! There are no diphthongs in Hungarian. Every vowel is spelled separately! The only diphthongs you can find is in autó (car) and Európa (Europe).

VOWEL HARMONY

All those troubles with vowels (and consonants) have a purpose. The purpose is to understand:

Hungarian words are either HIGH or DEEP VOWEL words.

Let’s see the vowels according to vowel harmony again.

High vowels: e, é, i, í, ö, ő, ü, ű
Deep vowels: a, á, o, ó, u, ú

The Hungarian language is entirely based on VOWEL HARMONY which means that high-vowel words take suffixes containing high vowels, while deep-vowel words take suffixes containing deep vowels. Examples:

Let’s see these two suffixes: –ban, -ben meaning in, inside. -ban is deep-vowel, -ben is high-vowel.

ház (deep word) + deep-vowel suffix -ban = házban (in the house)

kert (high word) + high-vowel suffix -ben = kertben (in the garden)

Well, that’s all about it in a few words. You can read about it much more in the book. And I’ll continue blogging about it soon. I’ll give you more examples and also exercises:

ablak + -on, -en ? = ablakon (on the window)
ágy + -nál, -nél ? = ágynál (next to the bed)
étterem + -ban, -ben ? = étteremben (in the restaurant)
tér + -hoz, -hez ? = térhez (to the square)

And now the exercises after the examples above:

asztal + -on, -en ? =______________ (on the table)
repülő + -tól, -től ? =_______________ (from the airplane)
bank + -ban, -ben? =________________ (in the bank)
egyetem + -on, -en? =_______________ (at the university)
állomás + -on, -en? =_______________(at the station)

NOTE! Accents on vowels are NOT SYLLABLE ACCENTS!

Long and Short Consonants

Important! While long and short vowels are part of the Hungarian alphabet, doubled consonants are NOT!

Examples can be Italian words : pizza, mamma. You say zz and mm doubled, double as long as it were z or m.

Simple consonants are doubled (gemination) by writing the same letter after it: bb, cc, dd, ff, gg, hh, jj, kk, ll, mm, nn, pp, rr, ss, tt, vv, zz

Digraphs and trigraphs are doubled by only writing the first consonant twice: ccs, ddz, ddzs, ggy, lly, nny, ssz, tty, zzs

At the beginning of a sentence or when writing a name, only the first letter is capitalized: Zsuzsanna…Csak moziba megyek.

Like vowels, consonants can change the meaning of a word when doubled. Common examples for this:

megy (he goes)
meggy (sour cherry)

szál (string)
száll (to fly)

hason (prone)
Hasson! (It’d better have an effect / It should be effective)

Other words with doubled consonants:

dinnye (melon)
tonna (ton)
kotta (music sheet)
abba (into that) – NOTE! It’s not the ABBA band
védett (protected)
fattyú (bastard)
függöny (curtain)

NOTE! Hungarian words NEVER BEGIN with double consonants!

The Alphabet

The entire Hungarian alphabet consists of 14 vowels + 30 consonants = 44 letters. Watch the Hungarian pronunciation in the brackets, as well.

And remember! ONE LETTER IS ONE SOUND!

a á b (bé) c (cé) cs (csé) d (dé) dz (dzé) dzs (dzsé) e é f (eff) g (gé) gy (gyé) h (há) i í j (jé) k (ká) l (ell) ly (ejj) m (emm) n (enn) ny (enny) o ó ö ő p (pé) q (kú) r (err) s (ess) sz (essz) t (té) ty (tyé) u ú ü ű v (vé) w (dupla vé) x (iksz) y (ipszilon) z (zé) zs (zsé)

More in detail:

You say the consonant + é with these letters: b c cs d g gy p t ty v w z zs (bé, cé, csé…)
You say e + the consonant with these letters: f l ly m n ny r s sz (eff, ell…)
You say the consonant + á with these letters: h k (há, ká)

Q = kú
W = dupla vé (double v and NOT DOUBLE U like in English)
X = iksz (not EKS)
Y = ipszilon