STEP ONE STEP

I started learning Hungarian 19 years ago in a small bordertown called Gyula from my friend Laci, or rather from his mother. The day before I arrived to visit Laci, he was called to start his civil service, a full-time job in a hospital. I was stuck for a week in their kitchen with a Berlitz Hungarian for Travellers pocketbook and Laci's mother, who couldn't speak a word of English but insisted on plying me with keksz (a dry round disk that tastes like animal crackers) and black kávé (coffee) of the espresso variety. When Laci came home, we rode these collapsible kemping bicycles out to the local pubs for a round of red-wine-and-cokes. But all the day long, I was on my own.

I decided to kill time by writing and saying the numbers in Hungarian. By the second afternoon, I made it to a million counting by twos and fives and fours and tens. Soon, I could do it without the book. By the third day, on the way to the pubs, I miraculously began to catch bits of conversation around me. Words, mostly numbers, began to pop out of everybody's mouth. I recommend this strategy if you're serious about picking up some language here, as numbers give you a head start in situations requiring both time and money.

GET IN CHARACTER

Before beginning studies, I recommend you get into character to do the pronunciation. In my trials with the language, I learned quickly that Hungarians use all the muscles in their mouths, many more than my loose and lazy american mouth had even known existed. My theory is that Hungarian developed from a thousand years of chatting on horseback in a wide-open windy steppe somewhere in the Crimea. Enunciation, which was functional then has become aesthetically pleasing today. So start by imagining yourself as Bela Lugosi's Dracula or the Count on Sesame Street.

“I vawnt to sawk your blawd” or “Ev-er-i ting iz go-ing tu bee all right.” Roll your 'R's!

Can you feel the precision? The edges of your mouth stretching? Your throat opening in back? That's what it feels like to speak Hungarian.

CONSONANTS

Since numbers are an important part of life and generally helpful for getting around, I'll start you with this example:

Egy = 1 = one.

Egy is tricky - it's only one syllable but there's a lot to learn here. The gy consonant cluster is pronounced like the combination of a 'd' and a soft 'y' at the same time. As in: “D'ya thinkya can handle it?” Egy. It's close to “edge” but with a little more edge to the 'dy'. Egy.

A Hungarian refers to him or herself as a Magyar. (MAW-dyawr) That's also got our sound in it. The language is called Magyarul (MAW-dyaw-rool). The country is called Magyarország (MAW-dyaw-roar-sag).

Other tricky consonant clusters:

sz is the english 's' sound as in busz (say “boose” and it means: bus or coach).

s is the english 'sh' sound so bús (say “boosh” and it means: sad or cheerless.)

ny is also one sound, even at the end of the word,( i.e. fény means light and is one syllable pronounced roughly “fain” closing off with a small 'y' sound at the end.)

Ly as in lyuk (meaning: hole) is also one syllable and can be pronounced like the first syllable of 'ukulele'. Király is a common word with this cluster in it. It means king and refers to one of the coolest streets in town - Király utca.  Say "KEY-rye". Roll your R!

Cs is the same as Ch in english, so csók (kiss) is pronounced “choke”.

Zs is said like the french Gi as in Gillette and used for words of a slippery nature: zsír means lard, zseton is a casino chip, zsé is gangster slang for money. Rezsi is your utility bills.

There's also the triple consonant cluster dzs, one of my favorites, as in dzsem which is pronounced “gem” but means jam. This leaves the J to take up the job of the english 'Y' sound, as in the color jello... I mean, yellow.

There are a couple clusters that occur in family names of the old aristocracy but have been replaced by modern versions during a 'language renewal'. You will only notice them on memorial plaques and street signs.

Most of the consonant sounds are the same as English, although there's "no spit" in the Hungarian pronunciation of t and not as much air in the s sound (they're not aspirated).

Keep in mind that:

Hungarian is phonetic.

There is one letter for every sound and only one sound per letter. The c sound is only spoken hard, like the 'c' in “except”. Same goes for g, only pronounced hard no matter what vowels might follow.

There are a couple things that Hungarian hasn't got, namely, the 'th' sound and the 'w' sound. The 'th' degrades to a 't' in speech. The 'w', however, gets a little flakey. It is called the 'dupla v' when it appears in foreign root words, but most people say it like a single 'v'. The oddest anomaly of Hungarian to me is that the W.C. sign you will see on toilets here is pronounced “vey-tsey”. I sometimes ask the wait staff for the “dupla V.C.” just for yuks.

Situated at the crossroads of north and south Europe, between the Alps and the Carpathians, between the east and the west, Hungarians have seen a lot of peoples come through here (not to mention that most of the last 500 years they spent under foreign rulers of sorts). I can't stress enough how far good pronunciation will get you into the hearts of this nation of ten or so millions, who've been fighting to keep their language alive for millenia.

As you should have noticed by now, there are a lot of Hungarian words that are close to English ones. The language is an evolutionary survivor. It has picked up and fully assimilated many words from German, some Turkish, French and Italian words, many with Slavic roots and some Romani (gypsy) words, too.

I hope these examples can work as rules or mnemonic devices to help you explore the strange signs you'll see and sounds you'll hear while at the conference. Next I'll introduce you to the wonderful world of wowel sounds!