I was exploring an online Hungarian -> English dictionary and I came across an expression with a translation that stuck out to me:

Huncut, aki rosszra gondol = evil be to those who think of evil

In English I enjoy old-timey proverb-sounding expressions, so I wanted to learn more. I dug a little more and found it was kind of a mistranslation (connected to a skewed Norman French -> English translation, no less). I would interpret the Hungarian myself as more literally like:

Huncut, aki rosszra gondol = Cheeky, whoever thinks of bad thoughts

Though the sense of it is more playful, somewhat like the English expression "Get your mind out of the gutter". I'm imagining like:

A: "Tegnap este Péter nálam aludt." (Peter slept at my place last night.)

B: "Nálad aludt, mi?" (He 'slept', huh~?)

A: "A kanapén! Huncut, aki rosszra gondol." (On the couch! Get your mind out of the gutter.)

Is that correct or am I on the wrong track? Also, is the expression modern, or would someone saying it sound strange?

Thank you for all who dropped by for the free office hours on Monday, I’ll schedule the next one soon.

In the meantime, two mini-courses are starting soon.
Beginner: if you don’t know where to start, this is for you. We speak in full sentences from the get go, and introduce you to the basic sentence structures and question forming. You will have a simple conversation with others before the first session is over. Starts on Sunday, 10/4, 3pm Eastern.

Conversational: if you already have the basics down, or if you want to focus on your speaking skills, this one is for you. We focus on natural conversation, addressing grammar as questions arise. We also practice the formal register, and discuss topics that usually come up during the citizenship interview. Starts on Saturday, 10/3, 3pm Eastern.

Both courses are 4 weeks long, $65 for the full course. Limited availability, 8 people maximum in each group.

https://www.fluentbox.nyc/online-group-courses

Message me to sign up, or if you have any questions!

Sziasztok!

Magyar vagyok de már nagyon rég külföldön élek és sajnos nem olyan jó a magyarom mint akarnám.

Az anyukám szülinapja alkamábol meg akarok hívni egy pár embert magyarországbol is, de nem tudom hogy hogyan kell magyar nyelvű meghívót irni. Ha valaki itt le tudná fordítani a német változatot magyarra, nagyon hálás lennék érte!!

Kedves (név)

ich bin ---, ---'s Sohn. Ich schreibe, weil ich dich herzlich zur *Überraschungsparty zum Anlass von --- 60. Geburtstag einladen moechte!*

📅*Wann*: ---

📍*Wo*: ---

🎉*Motto*: zurück in die 80er: bitte komm in deinem besten 80er Jahre Kostüm!

🍗*Essen*: Es gibt Grillhähnchen und Beilagen satt. Und Cupcakes als Dessert! Solltest du bei der Hauptspeise eine vegetarische Option bevorzugen, sag mir bitte baldmöglichst Bescheid.

*Das Wichtigste*: --- weiß von nichts, ich bitte also um Geheimhaltung!

Bitte sei pünktlich um --- Uhr da, damit alle rechtzeitig versteckt sind, bevor --- um --- Uhr überrascht wird!

RSVP bis 6. Dezember– bitte sag mir Bescheid, ob du kommen kannst, ob du Huhn oder vegetarisch essen möchtest, und ob es bei dir Lebensmittelallergien gibt, auf die wir achten müssen.

Ich hoffe sehr, dass du kommen kannst. Ich wuerde mich freuen, gemeinsam mit euch zu feiern zu koennen!

Liebe Grüße,

----

(A részleteket kihagytam, mert nem szeretném, ha az internetre kerülnének)

Hi everyone! I’m Évi, a native Hungarian tutor from Hungary.

I offer personalised online lessons for all levels, including:

• Conversation practice
• Hungarian citizenship interview preparation
• Grammar and pronunciation support

I’m TEFL-certified and hold two master’s degrees.

Current prices – paid lessons are 50 minutes:

• Free 15-minute introductory call
• Single lesson – $25
• 10 intensive lessons – $200 (use within 5 weeks)
• 10 regular lessons – $230 (use within 8 weeks)
• Citizenship mock interview – 2 sessions $50 or 3 sessions $70 (use within 4 weeks)

Send me a DM if you have any questions or would like to arrange an introductory call. 😊

Sziasztok! Ma 56 napja tanulok magyarul :)

I'm grinding Anki, YouTube, Glossika, a weekly tutoring session, Colloquial Hungary, and whatever else I can. However, I'm having trouble finding good reading comprehensible input. My vocab is maybe 900 words, so it's so easy to run into many words I don't know.

Also, Hungarian doesn't have a _ton_ of resources compared to other languages, so the only graded readers I'm finding are AI generated and they suck.

Does anyone who learned Hungarian have suggestions? Is the Magyarok graded reader worth the money?

I'm so excited about my progress these past two months and don't want to lose momentum.

Köszönöm!

I know this is sort of a weird idea and it is definitely an experiment I'm not sure if it will work but I want to give it a try if someone has some suggestions. They can have any political lean because my Hungarian is extremely limited right now I've just begun learning so even if I disagree with them i won't be able to understand them yet. Some of the sounds of Hungarian are giving me trouble especially the gy letter and I'm hoping hearing it over enunciated many times might help me reproduce it. If anyone has any suggestions it would be greatly appreciated thank you.

I wanna learn Hungarian to surprise my boyfriend and be able to comminicate with his family and I was wondering if somebody would be willing to become my penpal here on Reddit so I can practice conversations. I’m women in mid 20s, I like history, outdoors and cooking. I have almost zero knowledge of Hungarian. I don’t need teacher, I just need somebody to practice. Also realistically, how much do you think I can learn until end of the year? Also I speak Czech, English, Italian and Russian so I can grab on languages rather fast.

This is a postcard from 1906, on the front is a view of Karcag. I can understand "Kedves" and "együtt" and "mindig" but i'm at a loss for the rest. I found this in my grandmother's things after she died along with some other stuff from when our family came to America from Hungary. Thanks for any assistance, the handwriting is really difficult.

I would love to read some favorite books (like Harry Potter, LOTR, sci-fi, fantasy, etc) in Hungarian translations. I’m having the hardest time finding books I can purchase online new or used. I would even settle for some pdfs but actual books would be ideal. Does anyone have a good way of finding Magyar translated novels? I’m in California and getting them shipped from Hungary is not a thing anymore.

Come and join me for my free office hours on Monday, September 14, at 6pm EST. It’s open to all levels. If you have a specific grammar question, if you need help finding level-appropriate material, or just want to practice chatting, feel free to drop by, no sign up needed.
The zoom link is in this Patreon post for safety reasons, but it’s free to access:

https://www.patreon.com/Fluentbox/posts/free-office-on-169333141?utm_medium=clipboard_copy&utm_source=copyLink&utm_campaign=postshare_creator&utm_content=join_link

Besides the office hours, I also opened registration for the two mini-courses starting in October. One is for complete beginners, and one for conversation for intermediate learners. Four weeks with a maximum of 8 people per group, $65 for the course. Check out my website for details: https://www.fluentbox.nyc/online-group-courses

And as always, my growing library of YouTube videos are free: https://youtube.com/@fluentbox_nyc?si=HhWGdZGTdX1-oCKn

Hello, I've taken A1 and A2 level classes before but haven't been actively practicing it and have forgotten mostly. Now I'm thinking how to effectively learn this language to be able to speak and understand it - 1on1 online classes or tutors or materials that you could recommend that have worked for you to reach the level to converse well enough? Thanks very much!

It's been awhile since our last post, so I thought I'd share our latest episode: what Hungarians think about AI. It was a fun episode to shoot with the diverse set of opinions we got on it -- and of course a lot of useful expressions.

We're planning to make some more beginner-friendly content soon - breaking down some of the answers from our previous episodes. If you have any suggestions or things you'd like to see, don't be shy to write some feedback!

For formal correspondence, casual conversations, etc.

ChatGPT? Grok? Gemini? Claude? Something else?

So i feel pretty self conscious abt my hungarian skills. I went to a bakery and in very broken hungarian asked for a sandwich and coffee. The young worker heard my broken hungarian, proceeded with hungarian. When i sat down and was drinking my coffee, she was talking to another customer in english . She knew english all along but went out of her way to talk to me in hungarian 😊.

Vissza a feladónak: nem lakik ezen a címen

Hi! I’m currently learning Hungarian and I’m looking for someone who would be willing to practice with me!

I started not that long ago so I’m still around A1 level but I’m a quick learner. I’m looking for someone who can help me learn the language but also become more comfortable with actually speaking Hungarian. I’m half Hungarian and half Swedish. I’d also be happy to help you with English in return!

Feel free to message me if this sounds interesting to you!🇭🇺✨

I made a video to see how much Hungarian I could learn in 3 days! 😅 let me know how I did!

I'm learning Hungarian myself and got tired of words not sticking. Reading them in a notebook does nothing - I needed to meet the same word in several different ways. So I built the thing I wanted, and it is now out on iPhone as well as Android and in the browser.

It is free: no ads, no subscriptions, no in-app purchases, and no account needed - it works anonymously from the first launch, and signing in (Google or Apple) only syncs progress between devices. To be exact about data, since my first wording was too flattering: there are no third-party analytics or ad SDKs and no tracking across apps, but the app does store your progress and one event per answered question - the word, the game, right or wrong, the time - on my own backend, which is how I find bad questions; plus crash reports on Android. Nothing is sold or shared with anyone. The privacy policy lists all of its.

What's in it:

• 3,893 words across A1, A2 and B1, organised topic -> subtopic
• audio for every word, in two voices (female and male, your choice)
• pictures for 2,602 of them, the concrete ones. Abstract words don't get an illustration, because a stock photo for "however" teaches nothing
• ten exercises over the same vocabulary: pick the word, listen and pick, find the picture, match pairs, type it, type from audio, unscramble the letters, true/false, and a mixed mode
• a separate conjugation tab: 674 verbs, present tense, indefinite and definite, plus the -lak/-lek form. You fill the table and each cell is marked as you go, not at the end
• a review queue that collects the words it is time to see again

Where it is weak, honestly:

• the interface is English or Russian only, there is no Hungarian UI yet
• picture coverage on A2 and B1 is thinner than on A1, I am still filling it in
• conjugation is present tense only so far
• the current iOS build asks for iOS 18.2, which was a project template default I did not catch before submitting. It is already lowered to 16 and ships with the next update
• translations and example sentences are mine, so the mistakes are mine too. Every exercise screen has a "Something off?" button and it comes straight to me

Links:

• iPhone: https://apps.apple.com/app/id6807709146
• Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=app.szokincs
• Browser, nothing to install: https://app.tessek.app

I am the developer and this is a solo project. I would genuinely rather hear what is wrong with it than what is nice about it - a wrong translation, a bad picture, clumsy wording in an exercise. Tell me and I will fix it, usually the same day.

Hey everyone, I'm new to hungarian. My goal is to pass the interview for Hungarian simplified naturalization. I had a free trial of duolingo for like a month so I made it to level 3 but I've gotten bored (mostly because of the ads) and moved to Memrise (community courses) which is a resource I had totally forgotten about. There isn't a "5000 word frequency list" on there like there is for French and Spanish so I'm using several word lists. I also just finished the present tense indefinite and starting definite as well as a course on suffixes and prefixes. What else would you recommend to add? I just found an 10 minute podcast on spotify with automated captions (Apa, meselj!).

Any recommendations? Any free short story resources you know of? I don't want to pay for anything tbh. I've tried language partners in the past with other languages but don't find them very useful.

There are two songs I remember my mother singing to me when I was a child. One started with “Piros Papucs” (red slippers). The other one started with something like “Hup hup hup hup riding…” Does anyone know where I can find the words to these songs, and what the name of the second song is? My mom passed away 8 years ago, so I am unable to ask her now.

My grandma knew Hungarian and she would always say a few different phrases to me and I can't remember what one of them meant. It sounded like, "yo-in-sick-cot" and I'd appreciate any help trying to figure out what it was. Thank you.

Bonjour, je souhaite apprendre le hongrois en prévision de rencontrer la famille de ma copine. Je voudrais juste apprendre à parler, étant français cette langue est très différente. J'aimerai si possible avoir des aides et conseils pour pouvoir lui faire la surprise. Merci d'avance

I’m taking an exam in hungarian for exception for language classes and for nynorsk (second official written language), but i’m not 100% fluent in the language so I was wondering if anyone has any tips for what I could do and what I should study.

edit: the exam is level 1. I mostly struggle with writing and grammar and there will be a seperate exam for oral. Also i’m not very familiar with formal hungarian.

Hi everyone

I'm learning Hungarian and I find it difficult to distinguish between the ő and ö pronunciation . I've searched up the pronunciation from Google and they both sound the same. What's the difference?

Thanks!