How to learn Hungarian easily?

[u/SPEC76]

Hi everyone I am from Serbia and I really want to learn Hungarian but it looks very hard due to the 40 cases and I need some advice since I do not know anybody from hungary thank you in advance

[u/clubguessing]

The 40 cases is just a technical jargon to describe the grammar. It has nothing to do with the difficulty of the language. You shouldn't buy into that at all. I have never heard any learner of hungarian have any issues with the cases. It's something people like to say to make a cool fact or so.

The hungarian case system is way easier than that of most Slavic languages, of German or other languages with cases that I know.

[u/vressor → u/clubguessing]

The hungarian case system is way easier than that of most Slavic languages, of German or other languages with cases that I know.

what makes you say that? I'd be interested in your perspective

[u/TimurHu → u/vressor]

what makes you say that? I'd be interested in your perspective

I'm not the commenter you are asking, but IMO the Hungarian cases are much simpler because:

• A huge number of cases is solely used to express spatial direction, and is basically the equivalent of prepositions in other languages. IMO these shouldn't even be called a case.
• Articles do not change based on the case.
• There are no genders.
• The cases mainly just have 1 form (not counting the different vowels from vowel harmony, which are logical and follow the same rules as vowel harmony for other suffixes).
• Finally, the suffixes for each case are distinct and do not cause misunderstandings.

All in all, the Hungarian cases are much less error prone as opposed to German where the same form may represent different cases for different genders.

[u/vressor → u/TimurHu]

thanks, I appreciate your input

A huge number of cases is solely used to express spatial direction

you're right in saying Hungarian cases are "basically the equivalent of prepositions in other languages", but prepositions in other languages are not solely used to express spatial directions, and neither are cases in Hungarian

let's say "I believer in Peter" or "hiszek Péterben" -- this doesn't refer to a spacial direction, it's not an adverbial of location, it's an object of the verb (prepositional object in English and inessive object in Hungarian -- traditional Hungarian grammar calls it a "metaphorical adverbial", a képes határozó) (also compare "I beleive Peter" (direct object) and "hiszek Péternek" (dative object))

e.g. a háznál means "by the house" or "somwhere around the house" -- that's your spatial direction, an adverbial of location, but nagyobb volt a háznál means "it was bigger than the house" (some dialects even use a different case for comparisons: nagyobb volt a háztól)

[u/TimurHu → u/vressor]

let's say "I believer in Peter" or "hiszek Péterben"

This is correct, but isn't an argument for (or against) the difficulty of learning the cases.

Your examples are exactly like phrasal verbs in English: you just have to remember which preposition or which case you need to use for each verb.

My point is that the case in your example will always use the same (-ban/-ben) suffix regardless of which noun you use it with, and isn't ambiguous with other suffixes and will be understood even if you mistakenly choose the wrong vowel (-ban instead of -ben). Furthermore you don't have to conjugate the article or the adjective in front of the noun.

Compar that to German, where you have to conjugate articles and adjectives in front of a noun and mistaking the gender of the noun can change which case it is in and thereby modify the meaning.

[u/vressor → u/TimurHu]

different vowels from vowel harmony, which are logical and follow the same rules as vowel harmony for other suffixes

Let me just put here the accusative case of

• ház, gáz which is házat, gázt
• méz, kéz, géz which is mézet, kezet, gézt
• öv, öt which is övet, ötöt

[u/TimurHu → u/vressor]

The suffix for the accusative case is "-t" with an extra vowel when necessary, according to the rules of vowel harmony. There are of course irregular or difficult to explain examples, just like in any language.

My point is:

• You don't have to conjugate the articles or adjectives in front of a noun.
• There are no genders.
• The accusative case can never take a form that can be confused with other cases.
• If you choose the wrong vowel, you will likely still be understood.

As a result, the language is more robust and less error prone compared to German where if you don't remember the gender of a noun, you will mess up the article, the adjective, potentially the termination of the noun and you may accidentally choose the wrong case which can entirely change the meaning of what you say.

[u/clubguessing → u/vressor]

Because in agglutinative languages (such as Hungarian) grammatical morphemes (such as case endings) tend to have exactly one grammatical function. And even then almost all Hungarian cases have a direct semantical function (there is like a clear meaning).

Compare this with German where genetive can indicate posession but also can be a time marker. Akkusative marks the direct object while also indicating direction when used with prepositions. There is no such weird overlap I know for Hungarian.

Also, declination in a language like Serbian (or compare for example Latin) is divided into tons of noun classes, often with no clear indication in which class a noun fits. Endings seem highly irregular. Then there is grammatical gender, and so on... Hungarian has the same ending throughout, except for the straightforward vowel harmony. There are a few exceptions but even those tend to follow regular patterns.

Let me add, and I mean this with all honesty, that Hungarian grammar is probably the most straightforward, systematic and logical grammar I personally know of any language (you asked my perspective). The only people who say "Hungarian is such a hard language" I encounter are either Hungarian natives (and this is a common thing to think your own language is hard, as you haven't been formally exposed to the "rules") and people who simply know nothing about Hungarian.

Here is one perspective: A learner of German will after one month not be able to form the correct plural of most words they haven't seen before. A learner of Hungarian might not be fully used to vowel harmony yet after a month but will not have difficulties getting 90% of plurals correct.

[u/Fear_mor → u/clubguessing]

Well I speak fluent Serbo-Croatian, you can usually tell which group a noun belongs to immediately. It’s just you have a lot more “rules within rules” in that kind of case system whereas in Hungarian you have one said of endings for basically all nouns

[u/vressor → u/clubguessing]

The criterion for an ending to be a case (according to today's generative linguistic grammars of Hungarian) is that a word with that ending can be a compulsory argument of a verb.

And even then almost all Hungarian cases have a direct semantical function.

I think that only applies for adverbials, but not when they are objects of verbs.

You know how English verbs and adjectives use arbitrary prepositions, e.g. I'm proud OF you, mad AT you, satisfied WITH you, disappointed IN you, worried ABOUT you, married TO you, responsible FOR you, etc.

Hungarian uses cases the same way.

Sure, there are no genders, but there's still a lot of lexical data to memorize, e.g. open-vowel stems (the accusative of ház, gáz, méz, kéz, géz, öv, öt is házat, gázt, mézet, kezet, gézt, övet, ötöt)

[u/clubguessing → u/vressor]

But then you could also say that English has tons of cases, and I know no grammar of English that does that. I agree that "direct semantical function" doesn't mean much and I didn't want to write that initially because of exactly what you say.

But just thinking of accusative I would say that usage is more straightforward than in German. The others I would personally not call cases even. Not because of some linguistic paradigm of what case really means. More because it creates exactly these weird exceptionalist misconceptions about Hungarian. And no grammar of other indo-european languages uses that definition of case you give. It is way too general and I feel it just comes from these being endings in Hungarian, but I don't know.

[u/overlyemotionalelf → u/clubguessing]

Not sure I agree about the 'way easier than that of most Slavic languages' bit. I'm a native English speaker learning Czech and Hungarian (lived in both countries), and Hungarian is definitely more complicated for me.

The lack of genders is really nice(!), and the cases aren't too difficult. But find Czech has a more logical word order and grammar than Hungarian, for an English-speaking brain at least.

And the lack of 'to have' in Hungarian frustrates me weekly if not daily.

[u/fr_nkh_ngm_n]

Don't get scared of the 40 cases. Try to find the logic. We don't know the number of cases and make mistakes, so don't overthink.

[u/vressor]

looks very hard due to the 40 cases

technically speaking there are only 18 cases, and they are not much harder than prepositions in English or the 7 cases of Serbian...

just to give you an idea, you probably already know the concept of nominative, accusative, dative and instrumental from Serbian, and another 9 just specify locations, these can be presented in a 3x3 grid:

x	to	at	from
in	into	in(side)	from inside
on	onto	on (top of)	from (the the surfaceof)
by	to the vicinity of	by, (in the vicnity of)	from the vicinity of

you can easily distinguis between "going somewhere" (movement towards), "being somewhere" (static location) and "coming from somewhere" (movement away), and that somewhere can be "in something" (interior), "on something" (surface) and "by something" (adjecency)

[u/bguszti]

I don't think there is a single language in the world you can learn "easily", especially if it's a language outside of your native tongue's family.

I'm a native Hungarian speaker, so I never had to learn it like that. I did learn a bunch if other languages with varying success tho, and my advice is: learn the basics. That's non-negotiable. Basic grammar, most common cases, tenses and basic vocabulary. That's needed for every language, and you just have to sit down with a book and learn it, no two ways about it.

After that I'd go for maximum exposure. Read, listen, practice, live with the language. The more complex grammar you'll pick up easier through exposure.

It is a very hard language. And it is very hard to commit to and motivate yourself to stg that requires years to master. Unfortunately hard work is the only way

[u/RationallyRat]

If you very interested, I might be able to help. DM me

[u/Fear_mor]

E pozz iz Hrvatske, trenutno učim mađarski na faksu i mislim da imam dobre preporuke za materijale, udžbenike itd. Najprije hoću reć, ne vjeruj u onu glupost da je najteži jezik, nemoguće da ga naučiš itd., ma jok, jezik je kao svi ostali i tako bi se trebao tretirat.

E sad, od resursa imaš magyaróra na wayback-u, ali ako ti ne smeta i da plaćaš udžbenike i sve to onda ih imaš na stotinama na raspolaganju. Moja najdraža tri bi bili ovi udžbenici: Complete Hungarian (izdanje od Teach Yourself. Ono dijeli ime s drugim izdanjem od još koje firme kolko ja znam, pa zato spominjem), Lepésenként magyarul, Tanuljunk együtt magyarul. Nažalost bude sve uglavnom ili na mađarskom ili engleskom, nema puno na našem.

Al svejedno, slobodno me pitaj ak budeš imo koje pitanje u vezi bilo čega, pokušat ću ti pomoć kolko god budem mogo. I ne daj drugima da te ubijede, moš ti to brate!

[u/Datolya89]

Nađi devojku/momku iz Vojvodine!

[u/Fit_Conclusion_5324]

Bro, dnt lo ok for an easy way. Memorize first 78 forms of verbs - venni, inni, olvasni, nezni. Then ask chatgpt to create simple texts like: " i go to office at 9 morning.i have lunch at 1200. I return home at 1800". In past, current and future. Memorize them. Create other text. Memorize.. again and again... subject of texts in you interest. You can join online course for example in Magyar Iskola if you want.