Learn the basics of how to accent Hungarian words
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Simone: Pronunciation Lesson 4. Learning about stress is the stress free way to speak Hungarian. |
| Csaba: In this lesson, we will talk about stress in Hungarian. |
| Simone: Alright, so we’re starting with a bit of stress then. |
| Csaba: Shall I make a pun here? |
| Simone: Please don’t. |
| Csaba: Alright. Let’s just take a look at what stress really is. |
Lesson focus |
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| Simone: Stress is basically giving relative emphasis to a syllable in a word. |
| Csaba: This is what is called word stress. |
| Simone: OK, So how does this work in Hungarian? |
| Csaba: In Hungarian it is actually a lot simpler than in English where you’re never quite sure which part of the word to stress or you just have a vague idea. |
| Simone: Whereas here… |
| Csaba: Hungarian has what is called ‘fixed stress’ which means that stress falls on the same syllable in every word. |
| Simone: Which, in our case, is the first syllable. |
| Csaba: Exactly. Once you know this fact and of course the alphabet… |
| Simone: About which, by the way, we have another lesson. Just saying. |
| Csaba: Knowing the alphabet plus this rule is going to help you a lot. |
| Simone: Alright. So please say a few words and point out what to pay attention to. |
| Csaba: I chose a sentence instead. A kutya elment a macskáért. |
| Simone: The dog went to get the cat. |
| Csaba: I’ll say it again slowly, word by word. A kutya elment a macskáért. |
| Simone: The first part was… |
| Csaba: A kutya , “the dog”. I will ignore the definite article now and just say kutya. |
| Simone: kutya |
| Csaba: See, the first syllable is stressed. Kutya. |
| Simone: Then we had “went”. |
| Csaba: elment |
| Simone: Again, first syllable. |
| Csaba: elment |
| Simone: And finally we had “after the cat” or “to get the cat”. |
| Csaba: A macskáért. Like before, there is a definite article a. Ignore that and pay attention to macskáért. |
| Simone: Again, stress on the first syllable. |
| Csaba: I’ll say this sentence again. A kutya elment a macskáért. |
| Simone: This doesn’t mean that you have to go overboard and say it like… |
| Csaba: A kutya elment a macskáért. |
| Simone: No. instead it means that while studying Hungarian, you’ll get used to this kind of pattern and how to pronounce it. |
| Csaba: Yes, it really isn’t too hard. |
| Simone: Right. So what else do you have for this lesson? |
| Csaba: I was thinking we could give the listeners a few sentences to show them how stressing different words sounds in a sentence. |
| Simone: Ok, let’s do that. |
| Csaba: Let’s see how the stress on different words can change the meaning of a question. |
| Simone: Is this sample sentence going to be canine related? |
| Csaba: You know me very well. A kutya kergeti a macskát. |
| Simone: I'm sure by now they know the word kutya. |
| Csaba: Kergeti is “chasing”. |
| Simone: And the last word is “the cat”. |
| Csaba: A macskát. The whole sentence again. A kutya kergeti a macskát. A kutya kergeti a macskát. |
| Simone: So now let’s make a question. |
| Csaba: A kutya kergeti a macskát? A kutya kergeti a macskát? |
| Simone: Is the dog chasing the cat? |
| Csaba: But I can also change the stress better in a bit by saying A kutya kergeti a macskát? A kutya kergeti a macskát? |
| Simone: This is very similar to saying “Is the dog chasing the cat” in English. |
| Csaba: Very good. And finally I can also say A kutya kergeti a macskát? A kutya kergeti a macskát? |
| Simone: Which would be “Is it the dog chasing the cat?” |
| Csaba: Yes. We have scratched the surface of intonation and stress, but there’s a lot more for you to keep your ears open for. |
Outro |
| Simone: Of course. But we will wrap it up here for this lesson. |
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