Learn start to learn about present tense verb conjugation
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Simone:Hi everyone and welcome to HungarianPod101.com. This is Lower Beginner, Season 1, Lesson 2, An Exciting Day in Hungary. I’m Simone. |
| Csaba: And I am Csaba. Sziasztok. |
| Simone: In this lesson we’re going to lay the foundation for systematic verb conjugation. |
| Csaba: Yes, a very important topic. This dialogue takes place on the phone. |
| Simone: And it is between Anne and Balázs. |
| Csaba: You know them already, they are good friends, so they use informal speech. |
| Simone: Let’s listen to the conversation. |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Simone: So, Hungarian seems easy enough. |
| Csaba: You're probably the first one to say so. Hungarian has a reputation for being difficult. |
| Simone: Well, it definitely sounds somewhat jumbled and alien when you hear native Hungarian speakers talking really fast. |
| Csaba: This is why Hollywood so often finds use of this language in Transylvanian vampire movies, where oddly enough all the locals speak good English, except for the gnomes, goblins and other monsters who scream in Hungarian. I’ve heard this happen. |
| Simone:Whereas in reality? |
| Csaba: In reality, all our monsters speak good English too. But seriously, Hungarian is not more difficult than any other European language. It's just not heard as often, unless you watch the usual suspects, fan housing or Blade Runner. |
| Simone: I'm sure it's not more than a couple of lines though. |
| Csaba: That's true. But they are all there to give an exotic ring to the scene. They almost always do worse in the pronunciation department than any of our listeners after just five lessons. |
| Simone: Alright, alright. This isn't your big shot at Hollywood. Let's take a look at the vocabulary for this lesson. The first word we shall see is |
| Éppen. "Right now, just now." Éppen. Éppen. |
| Next is |
| Tanul. "Study." Tanul. Tanul. |
| Next is |
| Zene. "Music." Zene. Zene. |
| Next is |
| Hallgatni. "Listen to." Hallgatni. Hallgatni. |
| Next is |
| Telefonál. "Make a phone call." Telefonál. Telefonál. |
| Next is |
| Ül. "Sit." Ül. Ül. |
| Next is |
| Mindjárt. "Right away, soon." Mindjárt. Mindjárt. |
| Last is |
| Át-. "Over." Át-. Át-. |
| KEY VOCAB AND PHRASES |
| Simone: Let's have a closer look at the usage for some of the words and phrases from this lesson. |
| Csaba: The first word is éppen. This word means right now, at the moment. |
| Simone: Let's see an example. |
| Csaba: Éppen zuhanyozom. |
| Simone: I'm taking a shower right now. |
| Csaba: Éppen zuhanyozom. |
| Csaba: This word is very handy when you want to express the English continuous tenses in Hungarian. Since there is no such thing in Hungarian, using éppen is the closest to expressing that the action is going on at the moment. |
| Simone: So how do you say Thomas is sleeping right now? |
| Csaba: Tamás éppen alszik. Tamás éppen alszik. |
| Simone: Okay, great. And what's the second word? |
| Csaba:The second one is the beginning of a sentence. Na jó. |
| Simone: Can you say it again? |
| Csaba:Na jó. It's like saying "alright" in English. |
| Simone:An example please. |
| Csaba: Na jó, kezdjük. Na jó, kezdjük. |
| Simone:In English, “all right, let’s begin.” |
| Csaba:Yes. Changing the tone a little bit, you convey reluctant agreement. |
| Simone: Like this? Alright, alright. How would this sound in Hungarian? |
| Csaba:Na jó, na jó. |
| Simone:Let’s hear a full sentence. “All right, all right, I’ll do as you say.” |
| Csaba:Na jó, na jó, hallgatok rád. |
| Simone:Right. One last word for this section. |
| Csaba:We heard the word mindjárt. |
| Simone: “Right away, soon.” |
| Csaba: That's right, you might hear: Mindjárt vége a sulinak. |
| Simone: Meaning school is over soon. How about this one? I'll be going in a minute. |
| Csaba: In Hungarian, that's Mindjárt megyek. 2X |
| Simone:All right, let’s move to our grammar section. |
| GRAMMAR POINT |
| Simone: In this lesson, we're going to talk about verb conjugation. We've done a couple of conjugation tables before, but that was more example-based learning. |
| Csaba: Whereas in this lesson, we're also going to start teaching you the system of conjugation. This will later enable you to conjugate words without having to look them up in tables. |
| Simone: Now, this lesson is less about examples and more about rules. Csaba, why don't you start explaining? |
| Csaba: The first thing is something we have mentioned before. In Hungarian, there is different conjugation for verbs depending on whether the following object is definite or indefinite. This is called definite conjugation and indefinite conjugation. |
| Simone: In practice, this will mean that the verb in the sentence, "I see the dog," will be different from the verb in the sentence, "I see a dog." |
| Csaba: Right. We will start by teaching you the indefinite conjugation. |
| Simone: How do I know if the noun is indefinite or definite? |
| Csaba: There are some clues. Indefinite nouns are often preceded by 'egy' or 'the.' Also, they can be preceded by a numeral or a word referring to quantities like 'sok.' |
| Simone: Or "many." |
| Csaba: And finally, some verbs like "sleep," "come," and "go" can't have objects. These are normally conjugated indefinitely. |
| Simone: Got it. |
| Csaba: We are teaching you to conjugate indefinite present tense verbs. Regular verbs, which is most of them, take the ending -ok, -ek, or -ök in the first person. |
| Simone: So, for example, the word 'tanul'... |
| Csaba: Will be 'tanulok.' "I study." We chose the ending -ok. This is determined by the vowel harmony. |
| Simone: Second person, or "you study?" |
| Csaba: Tanulsz. The ending is -sz. |
| Simone: Third person is always the dictionary form, therefore "he studies" is... |
| Csaba: Tanul. |
| Simone: Let's go like this. I say the full phrase, you translate, but you also say all the possible forms of the ending. "We study." |
| Csaba: Tanulunk. -unk, -ünk. |
| Simone: "You study?" |
| Csaba: Tanultok. -tok, -tek, -tök. |
| Simone: "They study?" |
| Csaba: Tanulnak. -nak, -nek. |
| Simone: All right, what you've just heard is the indefinite conjugation of the word 'study,' in present tense. This is a regular verb. |
| Csaba: Next time, we are going to practice conjugating other regular words in present tense, practice all this, and then learn a bit more. |
Outro |
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| Simone: Okay, that's it for this lesson. Make sure you check the lesson notes, and see you next time. |
| Csaba: Sziasztok. |
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