Asking "Why" in Hungarian

Learn how to ask "Why?"

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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 "Who" questions in Hungarian.

This time, we are going to ask "Why" questions.

Imagine your boss is giving you a call because you are not at work... He will certainly ask you ”Why aren’t you at the office today?” In Hungarian, this is Miért nem vagy ma az irodában?

[slowly] Miért nem vagy ma az irodában?

So let’s break down this question.

First we had -

Miért, which is the basic translation of "Why" in Hungarian.

nem vagy is the 2nd person of the verb van in the negative form.

ma is "today"

and finally az irodában which is "at the office".

Altogether it is Miért nem vagy ma az irodában? “Why aren’t you at the office today?”

So in Hungarian, Miért is the exact translation of "Why", used to ask the reason for something.

So for example, if your boss is asking you "Why are you late today?" he will say Miért késtél ma?

In Hungarian, we quite often phrase questions in the negative, like: “Why don’t you...”. Just like in the first example sentence, in this case we use the word nem, meaning “no” in Hungarian, after miért.

For example: Miért nem eszel?

“Why aren’t you eating?”

Miért nem jöttél tegnap?

“Why didn’t you come yesterday?”

Now it’s time for Livia’s Tips.

An expression you can use is Miért ne? which means, like in English, "Why not?"

You can use it to accept an idea if you're not very excited about it.

For example if a friend asks you suddenly "Do you want to go to the movies tonight?"

You can answer Miért ne? meaning "Why not?"

Before ending this lesson, Let’s review all the ways to translate "Why" in Hungarian.

- Miért is the basic translation of "Why," as in Miért késtél? "Why are you late?" or Miért nem vagy ma az irodában? Why aren’t you in the office today?

And, Miért ne? is "Why not?"

This lesson is the last lesson of this Absolute Beginner’s video series.

But it’s hopefully not the last you learn about the Hungarian language! To take your language ability to the next level, check out HungarianPod101.com, the fastest, easiest, and most fun way to learn Hungarian. Thanks for joining me for this series, everyone!

Sziasztok!

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