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Lesson Transcript

Sziasztok, Lívia vagyok! Hi everybody! I’m Livia.
Welcome to HungarianPod101.com’s “Magyar nyelvleckék három percben”. The fastest, easiest, and most fun way to learn Hungarian.
In our previous lessons, we learned how to use the verb van.
In this lesson, we’re going to learn how to turn this verb into its negative form in order to say "I'm not" and "I don't have."
So let's take an example. Imagine you are about to go to a party with a Hungarian friend. You ask him if he is ready, and he answers Még nem vagyok kész.
Then, you ask him if he has a car to use to go to the party and he says Nem, nincs autóm.
Let’s look at these two negative sentences.
Még nem vagyok kész.
Nem, nincs autóm.
[slowly] Még nem vagyok kész. / Nem, nincs autóm.
In Hungarian, two words can be used to indicate a negative.
The first, nem, literally means “no”. When you put it in front of a verb, it makes that verb negative.
nem vagyok - “I am not”
nem megyek - “I'm not going"
nem eszem - “I'm not going to eat”
So let's have a look at the way to switch from affirmative to negative.
First with the verb van. If your friend *were* ready, he would say Kész vagyok, “I am ready.” But he actually said Nem vagyok kész.
kész means “ready”.
Nem and the verb can not be separated, so in a negative answer, nem vagyok comes first, followed by kész.
Now let's look at an example with the meaning "to have"-
"I have a car" is Van autóm, and "I don't have a car" is Nincs autóm.
Nincs is the other word you can use to indicate a negative, but while nem is used with verbs, Nincs is used with nouns. Literally it means “there isn’t any... / I don’t have...”
Nincs autóm. “I don’t have a car.”
So now, how would you say "I don't like this restaurant?" For reference, “I like this restaurant.” is “Tetszik ez az étterem.”
Since “like” is a verb, we have to use nem to negate it.
Nem tetszik ez az étterem.
[slowly] Nem tetszik ez az étterem.
Easy, don't you think? So now you can turn many sentences into their negative form just by adding these two little words: nem or nincs.
Now it’s time for Livia’s tips.
If you want to answer negatively but without being too direct, you can add the word igazán after nem. This will mean "I don't really...."
So if you want to say "I don't really like cars," it will be Nem igazán szeretem az autókat.
Do you want to know how to describe things or people? Get ready for the next lesson because we are going to learn about using adjectives.
I'll be waiting for you in the next Magyar nyelvleckék három percben lesson. Sziasztok!

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