Learn how to form the definite conjugation of the present tense
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Simone: Hi everyone, welcome back to HungarianPod101.com This is Lower Beginner, season 1, lesson 14, Do You Know That Hungarian Person? I’m Simone. |
| Csaba: And I’m Csaba. |
| Simone: In this lesson we’re going to cover a bit more about definite conjugation. |
| Csaba: The dialogue takes place on the street. |
| Simone: As usual, it’s between Anne and Balázs. |
| Csaba: They use informal language. |
| Simone: Let’s listen to the conversation. |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Simone: So, that's the dialogue for this lesson, and Csaba, I have a feeling you'll have a lot of grammar to explain. |
| Csaba: I will, but only after noticing how much confidence the students have in Anne, always talking to her in Hungarian. |
| Simone: Don't you think it might just be their bad English? |
| Csaba: Well, if not bad, then maybe inexperienced. Most students who studied after 1989 will speak some English, but it is true that not many have chances to try their language abilities on native English speakers. |
| Simone: I see, and what about the older generation? |
| Csaba: Very few of the elderly speak any English. Middle-aged people also had to spend long hours studying Russian and German instead. These two were preferred to English in Hungary for a long time. |
| Simone: So your best bet if you want to speak English is with young people. |
| Csaba: But why would you do that? We gave you enough Hungarian already. |
| Simone: (laughs) Alright, that's our message for the day: Use your Hungarian. Let's take a look at the vocabulary for this lesson. The first word we shall see is |
| Lát |
| See |
| Lát |
| Lát |
| Next |
| Srác |
| Guy |
| Srác |
| Srác |
| Next |
| Kapu |
| Gate |
| Kapu |
| Kapu |
| Next |
| Ismer |
| Know |
| Ismer |
| Ismer |
| Next |
| Suli |
| School |
| Suli |
| Suli |
| Next |
| Megkérdez |
| Ask |
| Megkérdez |
| Megkérdez |
| Next |
| Keres |
| Look for |
| Keres |
| Keres |
| Last is |
| Halihó |
| Hey |
| Halihó |
| Halihó |
| Simone: Let's have a closer look at the usage for some of the words and phrases from this lesson. |
| KEY VOCAB AND PHRASES |
| Simone: What is the first expression we have to learn? |
| Csaba: The first word is srác, meaning "guy" or "dude." |
| Simone: Give us a sentence with that. How would you say: "Hi guys!" |
| Csaba: Sziasztok srácok. |
| Simone: "Hi guys!" |
| Csaba: Sziasztok srácok. Remember, however, that this excludes women. For girls, you can say csaj. |
| Simone: "Girl." Then how do you say "hi girls"? |
| Csaba: Sziasztok csajok. |
| Simone: "Hi girls!" |
| Csaba: Sziasztok csajok. |
| Simone: What's next? |
| Csaba: You can say halihó when you want to draw attention to yourself. |
| Simone: Say it like you're entering the room and you wanted me to pay attention to you. |
| Csaba: Halihó! |
| Simone: This sounds somewhat cutesy. |
| Csaba: And it is. If you're going into the immigration office, you probably don't want to be this cute. |
| Simone: Okay, so what do I say there? |
| Csaba: Just "good afternoon" or Jó napot will do. |
| Simone: I'll remember that. And what else do you want to mention? |
| Csaba: One last word. Anne uses the word suli. |
| Simone: "School." |
| Csaba: Suli. This actually is an informal way of calling your school. Suli. |
| Simone: What is the normal word for "school"? |
| Csaba: Iskola. |
| Simone: But you don't use it? |
| Csaba: Well, unless you're in a very formal situation, you probably use suli instead. |
| Simone: Okay, got it. Now let's go to the grammar. |
| GRAMMAR POINT |
| Simone:In this lesson we’re going to start working on the definite present tense conjugation of verbs. |
| Csaba:Right. Do you remember from our first few lessons of this series that Hungarian has definite and indefinite conjugation? |
| Simone:Of course. We learned indefinite conjugation before. This is used when the object following the verb is indefinite. Just like in "I see a dog." |
| Csaba:Yes. Now we’re going to learn the definite conjugation. When you say something like... |
| Simone:..."I see the dog." |
| Csaba:Right. |
| Simone:So how do we do this? |
| Csaba:I’ll pick a verb from this lesson. Lát. |
| Simone:"See." |
| Csaba:Now, you say the person, I say the Hungarian. |
| Simone:"I see." |
| Csaba:Látom. |
| Simone:"You see." |
| Csaba:Látod. |
| Simone:"He/she sees." |
| Csaba:Látja. |
| Simone:"We see." |
| Csaba:Látjuk. |
| Simone:"You see." Plural. |
| Csaba:Látjátok. |
| Simone:"They see." |
| Csaba:Látják. |
| Simone:As usual, you can read the full conjugation table with all the vowel variants in the lesson notes. |
| Csaba:And we strongly suggest you get into those! |
| Simone:That’s right. Let’s hear a couple of examples now. "I see the guy." |
| Csaba: Látom a srácot. |
| Simone:"I see the guy." |
| Csaba:Látom a srácot. |
| Simone: How do you say: "Do you know Peter?" |
| Csaba: Ismered Pétert? Here, the base word is ismer or "know or be familiar with." |
| Simone:Repeat again, please: |
| Csaba:Ismered Pétert? |
| Simone:Let’s answer now. "I don’t know Peter." |
| Csaba:Nem ismerem Pétert. |
| Simone:Again. |
| Csaba:Nem ismerem Pétert. |
| Simone:All right. So basically we go back to the tables and try our luck with verbs from the dictionary. |
| Csaba:Exactly. You have a good chance of producing grammatically correct conjugated verbs, unless you pick -ik verbs or verbs ending in -s, -sz, -z. |
| Simone: And we’ll cover those later. Anything else? |
| Csaba: There is a strange anomaly in verb conjugation. That is, if the subject is "I" and the object is not just a regular thing but "you," both singular and plural, then there's a special ending for that. |
| Simone:So in sentences like "I see you." |
| Csaba: It is látlak. |
| Simone:The ending is -lak. |
| Csaba:Or -lek. |
| Simone:Wait a minute. So "I love you" will be something similar. |
| Csaba:And I’m guessing some of our listeners know that already. Szeretlek. |
| Simone:Say that again. |
| Csaba:Szeretlek. |
| Simone:Since the ending itself contains the meaning of both "I" and "you," you don’t need anything else in the sentence. |
| Csaba:This is true in all cases. |
Outro |
|---|
| Simone: Okay, that's it for this lesson. Make sure you check the lesson notes and we'll see you next time. |
| Csaba:Sziasztok. |
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