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Hungarian grammar A1: beginner

The complete guide from A1 to B1: the rules, examples to listen to, the usual mistakes.

Level A1 covers the grammar of first exchanges in Hungarian: saying who and where one is, naming, counting and describing things, saying what one does, where one goes and where one comes from, what one asks for, has, wants and can do, and a first look at the past and the future. Almost all of it is expressed by endings added to a noun or a verb stem.

What A1 holds

  • the present of van (“to be”) and the sentence with no verb in the third person: Diák vagyok (“I’m a student”), Anna tanár (“Anna is a teacher”);
  • the articles, the plural, the numbers and the adjective: a ház, házak, két ház, a nagy ház;
  • the endings of place (in, on, into, onto, out of, off), of the object (-t), of company and means (-val, -vel) and of time (-kor), and the possessive endings of one owner;
  • the present in the indefinite conjugation, the first forms of the definite conjugation, the infinitive, the past and the future of van, the first person of the past, and the verbal prefixes of direction.

What is new for an English speaker

  • endings where English has prepositions: Londonban (“in London”), busszal (“by bus”), hatkor (“at six”);
  • vowel harmony: the vowel of an ending changes with the vowels of the word, so “in” is -ban in házban and -ben in kertben;
  • no verb is in the third person when a noun or an adjective describes the subject: A ház nagy (“The house is big”);
  • two conjugations for one English verb form: Látok egy filmet (“I see a film”), Látom a filmet (“I see the film”);
  • no verb to have: Van autóm (“I have a car”) is said with van and a possessive ending;
  • no grammatical gender: ő is “he” and “she”;
  • a word order set by the focus, the stressed word standing right before the verb: Győrben lakom (“I live in Győr”).

The usual difficulties

  • the long vowels, written with an accent and counted as separate letters: sör (“beer”) and sor (“row”);
  • the two sets of place endings, learnt with each word: iskolában, iskolába, iskolából, but egyetemen, egyetemre, egyetemről;
  • the linking vowel before an ending: házak, könyvek, sajtot, házat;
  • nincs for “is not there” and “there is no”, and the double negative of senki and semmi.

  1. The verb van

    The verb van (“to be”) is the first verb of Hungarian and the most irregular one.

  2. Place

    Hungarian says where something is, where it goes and where it comes from with endings added to the noun, where English has prepositions such as in, on, at, to and from.

  3. Nouns

    Hungarian nouns have no gender.

  4. The present

    A Hungarian verb has a personal ending for each person in the present, so the subject pronoun is usually left out.

  5. Questions and negation

    A question or a negative sentence has the words of the statement, and only their order around the verb changes: the stressed word, which may be a question word, the new information of an answer or nem, stands right before the verb.

  6. The object

    The object of a verb, the person or thing that the action reaches, takes the ending -t.

  7. The definite conjugation

    A Hungarian verb has two sets of personal endings.

  8. Possession

    Hungarian has no separate words for my, your, his and her: the owner is shown by an ending on the thing owned, and to have is expressed with van and that ending.

  9. With and by

    Hungarian has no separate word for with or by: the ending -val, -vel, added to the noun, names a companion, a means of travel or a tool.

  10. Time

    Hungarian says when with endings and short time words rather than prepositions: -kor gives the hour, -n the day, -ban, -ben the month, -tól, -től … -ig the span, and the frequency words stand before the verb.

  11. The infinitive

    The infinitive is the form of the verb that English writes with to: Hungarian adds -ni to the stem.

  12. The past and the future of van

    The verb van has a past built on volt- and a future built on lesz-, and both are needed in the third person, where the present has no verb before a noun or an adjective.

  13. Verbal prefixes

    A verbal prefix is a short word written in front of a verb to give its movement a direction: megy (go) becomes bemegy (go in) or kimegy (go out).

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