A Hungarian Language Course
Introduction
Contents of the Course
Hungarian Cultural Links
Now with over 400,000 Hits!
In Lesson Nine some samples and exercises are still missing, but the material is all there. No new lessons will be added.
This page was awarded the "Net Hero Award", March '96.
Last updated April 20, 2000 (lessons); October 23, 2006 (links). Though I rarely modify the content, the site is still maintained.
Interesting Hungarian Linguistic Facts
Introduction
Magyar (pronounced /Mawdyar/), as the
Hungarians call their language, is spoken by the approximately 11 million
inhabitants of Hungary, as well as another 4 million people in neighboring
countries and a million others scattered around the world. It belongs to the
Finno-Ugric language family, which includes Finnish and Estonian, but its
closest relatives are several obscure languages spoken in Siberia. Hungarian is
not at all related to the Indo-European languages which surround it, and is
very different both in vocabulary and in grammar. Hungarian is an agglutinative
language, meaning that it relies heavily on suffixes and prefixes. The grammar
is seemingly complex, yet there is no gender, a feature that most English
speakers grapple with when learning other European languages. Hungarian does
use the Roman alphabet however, and after learning a few simple rules one can
easily read Hungarian. Pronunciation is also very easy, especially compared to
other neighbouring languages like Czech, German, and Russian.
This course was designed for beginners and no previous knowledge
of Hungarian is assumed. However, the lessons may also be helpful for those
people who have had previous experience and would like to improve their grammar
or just simply brush up.
Contents
Alphabet and Pronunciation
Lesson One: Some Basics
Lesson Two: More Basics
Lesson Three: Intro to Verbs & More
Lesson Four: Using Verbs
Review: Lessons One to Four (includes some new grammar)
Lesson Five: Motion
Lesson Six: Location and Numbers 1-10
Lesson Seven: Plurals and Numbers 10 to 100
Lesson 8: Possession
Review: Lessons Five to Eight
Lesson 9: Past Tense
Other Hungarian-Related Links
(all are unaffiliated with this site)
Pannonia Bookstore Canada also has a large
selection of books, CDs, and more.
The Hungarian Homepage
is an extensive list of sites in Hungary.
Magyar
Marketing has a nice selection of of books and gifts.
A Hungarian-English/ English-Hungarian Online
Dictionary
Otto's Hungarian Import Store and Deli
mail order food, books, music, gifts, computer software, and more.
Magyaróra offers newspaper
articles and teaching materials.
Hungarian Prime Minister's Office
Hungarian Parliament
Hungarian National Museum
Balkanarama: Hungary
Yahoo Index of
Hungarian Sites
For Hungarian
slang, go to the the Alternative
Dictionaries' Hungarian section.
Another really
great site is the Travlang Hungarian for
Travelers Pages, which include sound. Click below to go there.
To download a PC font supporting special Hungarian characters click here.
Also check out my Online Swedish Course
This page was created 1/27/96 by Aaron
Rubin and has been accessed times since 9/2004.
© 1996, 2006 Aaron Rubin. No part of this page may be reproduced without permission
from the author.
E-mail me