Hungarian vs English

For an English speaker, Hungarian is unfamiliar in a very specific way. The sounds are mostly manageable and the spelling is a gift, but the architecture of words and sentences is different: information that English spreads across small separate words, Hungarian packs into suffixes. This page maps those differences point by point, and then lists what turns out to be easier than expected.

Side-by-side overview

Cases instead of prepositions

English says "in the house", "into the house", "out of the house", "with my friend", "for Anna". Hungarian attaches all of these as suffixes (see Hungarian cases):

• a házban / a házba / a házból in / into / out of the house
• a barátommal with my friend
• Annának for / to Anna
• Budapestről from Budapest

The key mental shift is that English "in", "to" and "from" each split into several Hungarian cases, depending on whether you are inside something, on its surface or next to it, and whether you are at rest, arriving or leaving. The local cases page lays out this 3 × 3 grid. Relations that are not simple location often use postpositions, which come after the noun: a ház előtt ("in front of the house").

Because suffixes stack, one Hungarian word can correspond to a whole English phrase. A barátaimmal is "with my friends" (barát-a-i-m-mal: friend, linking vowel, possessed plural, my, with), and házainkból is "out of our houses". English speakers tend to read such words as one opaque block; it helps to read them as the phrase they are, stem first, then each suffix in order. The order is fixed (stem, then plural or possessive, then case), so once you have seen a pattern it repeats everywhere. The suffix builder shows every case form of a noun if you want to see the system at work.

Verbs: fewer tenses, more agreement

Definite conjugation

The single most "foreign" feature for English speakers: the verb ending shows whether the object is definite. Látok egy madarat ("I see a bird") but Látom a madarat ("I see the bird"). There is no English equivalent, so it has to be built as a new habit. See definite and indefinite conjugation.

Simpler tense system

In compensation, Hungarian has only one present, one past and a future that is often replaced by the present. There is no continuous form and no perfect: olvastam covers "I read", "I was reading", "I have read" and "I had read". Aspect is partly carried by verbal prefixes: olvastam a könyvet ("I was reading the book") versus elolvastam a könyvet ("I read the book to the end").

Prefixes: phrasal verbs that move

English phrasal verbs are a useful bridge. Felhív is literally "up-call", like "call up"; kimegy is "out-go". Like English particles, Hungarian prefixes can separate from the verb, but by different rules: they move behind the verb after nem, question words and focused words (Nem hívtam fel. "I didn't call him.").

No "to have"

English "have" becomes "there is" plus a possessive suffix: Van egy testvérem ("I have a sibling", literally "there is a sibling-of-mine"), Nincs időm ("I don't have time"). Idiomatic uses of English "have" are translated by other verbs: "have breakfast" is reggelizik, "have a shower" is zuhanyozik, "have to" is kell. See van and nincs and possession.

Word order signals emphasis, not grammar

In English, "Péter saw Anna" and "Anna saw Péter" differ because of word order. In Hungarian the accusative -t marks the object, so word order is free to do another job: showing what is new or contrasted. The element directly before the verb is the focus.

• Péter látta Annát. Péter saw Anna. (neutral, or "It was Péter who saw Anna")
• Annát látta Péter. It was Anna that Péter saw.
• Tegnap látta Péter Annát. It was yesterday that Péter saw Anna.

English achieves this with stress or cleft sentences ("It was Anna who..."). Hungarian uses position, and the stress follows automatically. See word order and focus.

Pronoun dropping

Because verb endings show the subject, pronouns are normally left out: Tanulok ("I'm studying"). Adding én makes it contrastive: Én tanulok ("I'm the one studying"). English speakers who translate every "I" sound emphatic without meaning to. See personal pronouns.

Small surprises

• Singular after numbers: öt ház, "five house" (see numbers).
• Singular for pairs: Kék a szeme. ("Her eyes are blue", literally "her eye is blue"); Fáj a lábam can mean "my legs hurt".
• Articles with generic nouns: Szeretem a zenét. ("I love music", with "the") (see articles).
• Languages as adverbs: Beszélek magyarul, literally "I speak Hungarian-ly".
• No tense backshift: Azt mondta, hogy beteg. ("He said he was ill", literally "is ill").
• Double negatives are required: Nem láttam semmit, "I didn't see nothing" (see negation).

What English speakers find easier than expected

1. Spelling and reading. Once you know the alphabet (including sz, s, cs, gy, ny, ty, zs), you can read any word aloud correctly, and write any word you hear. Compare English though, through, tough.
2. Stress. Always on the first syllable. No guessing, no stress-shifting pairs like REcord / reCORD.
3. No gender. No der/die/das or le/la, and no gendered adjectives or verb forms.
4. Few tenses. One past tense instead of the English web of simple, continuous and perfect forms.
5. Regularity. Suffixes are predictable once you know vowel harmony; the number of truly irregular verbs is small.
6. Articles that behave like English. A/az and egy map onto "the" and "a/an" more closely than articles in many other languages.
7. International vocabulary. Many modern words are recognisable: telefon, autó, információ, probléma, kávé, tea, busz, taxi.
8. Sounds. Most Hungarian consonants exist in English. The new ones (gy, ty, ny, the vowels ö, ü, a rolled r) are learnable with some practice.

For an honest overall assessment, see is Hungarian hard? and for a study plan, how to learn Hungarian.

Sources and further reading

• Carol H. Rounds, Hungarian: An Essential Grammar (2nd ed., Routledge, 2009)
• Katalin É. Kiss, The Syntax of Hungarian (Cambridge University Press, 2002)
• István Kenesei, Robert M. Vago and Anna Fenyvesi, Hungarian (Descriptive Grammars series, Routledge, 1998)
• US Foreign Service Institute, language difficulty rankings (state.gov)

Frequently asked questions