What People Say

My elderly in-laws are native Hungarians.

Already I am finding I can pick up on words in their conversations, make myself understood with some simple phrases. This site also gives you multiple ways of learning and lessons in vocabulary and grammar. You can download the lessons to review later. Very helpful!

The lessons are so interesting. The guys break down everything so nicely and clearly, that’s the best part. Every word, every phrase is broken down so it makes perfect sense.

This is a bit of a longer review, but I hope helpful.

As a former Reuters and BBC foreign correspondent and with a mother who taught German a very long time ago, I’ve made something of a career learning and enjoying languages.

So I know how languages work, and how they are best taught (not as this is now done in British schools, by the way.)

Forty years after starting, and entering the back end of life, I’m now reengaged with Hungarian (I was once the BBC’s Central Europe radio correspondent responsible for Hungarian coverage), and recently reached the end of the Duolingo course.

Fine as far as it goes, which isn’t very.

I then (re)discovered HungarianPod 101, and am blown away by how good it is.

While though I personally as a professional linguist, if you like, would appreciate more specific detail on grammar, I’ve never seen a better introduction to a real language.

HungarianPod101 has manageable and fun exercises, regular self-tests, monitoring of one’s performance by a teacher (though on that front, I’m afraid mine is as yet much slower to respond than I would like) and space to practice new vocab and pronunciation.

I’m resolved as best I can to reach at least some level of fluency before I peg out, and I now find myself with HungarianPod101 in the best possible hands.

And please note that this enthusiastic review really is the genuine thing, not some AI-generated bot. You can look me up on Google if you want to check!

Thanks to the team, including for your ever-rapid and kind/helpful responses to feedback and questions.

Visited Hungary for 2 weeks this May and the HungarianPod101 lessons I took online were a great help in my communication with friends, family and general navigation around the country.

I learned to speak Hungarian as a child but I have forgotten so much and lost all fluency having been raised in the USA. The course work was a wonderful refresher and so much more. For instance, I did not know how to read Hungarian and now I can make out words and slowly read simple passages (and signs!) for understanding. Also, the lessons helped me so much with polite greetings and phrases and grammar. I am so much more aware of formal and informal speech. Of course I can understand far more than I can speak but my efforts connected me to people and I had many delightful interactions with helpful locals. Thank you, Innovative Language!

I just started learning Hungarian through HungarianPod101.com a little over a week so far. I’ve studied over 12 languages from various methods like Pimsleur, Rosetta stone, on my own through friends, and through books. Having a degree in linguistics, I truly appreciate the flashcard system. Especially that it is based on interval recall and the 2000 core words. I’ve done my own research to find the most common words in some languages and it is a lot of work to go through millions of words. Once there, you don’t have audio or translation like I have now at HungarianPod101! You guys have done all the tedious work for me! While I appreciate the methods that teach grammar without explicit grammar lessons, I’m loving how informative the speakers are about relating grammar in a way that I can use my linguistic background and at the same time, I believe they still explain it very well for those not akin to grammar and syntax. I have some Hungarian friends, and they are shocked at how fast I’m learning even knowing some of the local phrases that are not taught in traditional school. I look forward to learning more, and only hope that there will continue to be lessons before I catch up. If the core words list could be extended to 5000, that would be even better! I also would like to use this for other languages. I believe through this method I get deeper immersion than other methods. There is more focus on comprehension, which after studying 12 languages I’ve found to be the most important. This and vocabulary. Grammar can improve over time.

HungarianPod101 Basic has re-awakened a language that I had nearly lost. From everyday phrases to useful practice sessions with new words and grammar, it is coming back! You make language learning easy!