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Hungarian struck me as a damn hard language to slip into efortlessly. Many said as much but I waited to see for myself and found that it truly seems totally unrelated to any language I had seen before including Turkish and Mandarin Chinese. It is in the Finno-ugaric language family but I am told that this family association is only of interest to linguists since Finnish, Latvian and the isolated regional languages that are also in this family have little in common with Hungarian other than false cognates.
To my untrained ear the pronounciation involves several sounds produced by letting the tounge kind of relax in the front of the mouth in the middle of a word (a great example beaing the word in Hungarian for Hungarian "magyar"). In any case there are lots of people around in Budapest who speak some English and it is very interesting to listen to two people speak Hungarian, even if I did not understand anything but "yol yol" "good, good."
Beseas Angolul? Do you speak English?
Choke ej kitchik Just a little
Hole vaan a....? - Where is ...?
Bank Bank
Varosh kuspond city center
Ej olchu hotel a cheap hotel
Zold shigesh a fruit and vegitable market
Pek shig - a bakery
Men yi beh kerul? how much? (they will always write down or show the answer on a calculator)
Mioz aro? How much?
Ennek / onnok this / that
Kirak sipan ejyet give me one
Ej one
Katu two
Haro three
Nij four
Ut five
Hot six
Hate seven
Nyolt eight
Kilenz nine
Tiz ten
Saz 100
Saz utven 150
Sar hetven ut 175
Ket saz 200
Formalities
Ciya hello/goodbye (to young people)
Ciyasto hello/goodbye (addressing more than one person)
Kerlak please
Egeshigadre bless you (when someone sneezes)
Tahayk? Pardon? Or can I help you?
Yol good or OK
Egan yes
Naam - no
Getting to know people
Menyi oz edoo? Could you tell me what is the time?
Magyarul akarok tanuwani I want to learn Hungarian
In meg tudlak tunny tunny Angolul I can teach you English
Ked verlak tiget I like you
Valk ej fajira meg he come have an ice cream with me
Mikor esh hole tudnang tolal kosni? When and where can we meet each other?
Es yol esheik that feels good
More Survival Hungarian From An Outside Source With Sound
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