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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 the last lesson, we learned how to ask "When" questions in Hungarian.
This time, we are going to ask "Who" questions.
Imagine you want to ask your friend who the girl just behind him is.
Here, the question you can ask is Ki az a lány mögötted?
[slowly] Ki az a lány mögötted?
So let’s break down this question.
First we had:
Ki, which is the basic translation of "Who" in Hungarian.
az a lány means "that girl."
And finally mögötted which is "behind you."
Altogether, it is Ki az a lány mögötted?
So in Hungarian, "Who" is mainly translated as Ki .
However, if you want to ask "Who are these people?" you will have to use the plural kik and say Kik ezek az emberek?
As in English, the question word “Who” is placed in the 1st position here.
Ki only works for people, so you can't use it to ask information about animals, things or places. As a question word, Ki can also be used to ask who did something, for example.
If you are in a museum for instance, you can ask Ki festette ezt a képet? This means "Who painted this painting?"
Another question formula with Ki that is used a lot is Kié? In this case, the meaning is "Whose."
So if you want to ask "Whose pencil is this?" you will have to say Kié ez a ceruza?
If we break down this question, it is-
Kié, which is "whose",
and ez a ceruza, which means "this pencil."
If you want to ask "with whom" in Hungarian, we use the word Kivel?
So if you want to ask "Whom are you going to the party with?" it will be Kivel mész a buliba?
Before ending this lesson, let’s go back and look at all the ways to translate "Who" in Hungarian:
- Ki is the basic "Who" as in "Who is that that girl?" Ki az a lány?
- Kié is referring the ownership; it is the equivalent of "Whose", as in "Whose pencil is this?" Kié ez a ceruza?
- Kivel, is the literal translation of “with whom”. As in “Whom are you going to the party with?" Kivel mész a buliba?
Now it’s time for Livia’s Tips.
If someone that you didn't expect is knocking at your door in Hungary, the common question you can ask is Ki az? before opening the door.
This literally means "Who is it?" It’s the most common way to ask, so don’t worry about not sounding polite.
In this lesson, we learned how to correctly use the word for "Who", which is Ki in Hungarian, and also its variations.
The next lesson will be our last of this absolute beginner series.
We will deal with the last but not least common question word Miért, which means “why.”
Do you know how to inquire about reasons in Hungarian? We’ll be talking about it in the next Magyar nyelvleckék három percben lesson. Sziasztok!

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