Leaning Hungarian

Katedra language school has courses for  beginners and more advanced speakers. I took a basic course there in the summer of 2007, it was two evnings a week I think and it was pretty good. I think it costed about 32 000 HUF for 8 weeks (16 lessons) but I know there are several other language schools too and plenty of Hungarians who hold private lessons (which I personally prefer and often is cheaper).

I can strongly recommend this one - it's in Gellert hotel area. It's a small school with good teachers, in my experience.

InterClub Hungarian Language School
1111 Budapest, Bertalan Lajos u. 17.
T: (+36 1) 279-0831; (+36) 20 370 2608
T/Fax: (+36 1) 365-2535
info@interclub.hu

Can anyone suggest a good intensive beginners summer school for Hungarian in BALATON - say a course of 1 or 2 weeks only - in say, June or July? I only saw one on the Internet so far. Suggestions?

How about a coursebook for the grammar and to flash as a conversation peace when mingling on the beach?

We are extremely proud of our language, and how difficult it is to learn, you'll have flocks of people explaining you everything.
Just give it a try sometime, seriously!

Oh, you're not wrong. I've tried all that and I end up just getting distracted by this and that and of course the Mrs and the kids. They already speak Hungarian of course so I'm the lazy odd one out. So I'm thinking I need to go away somewhere without distractions but within easy reach if I'm needed suddenly. The Mrs and kids can do their fun thing down at the lake while I will be a willing captive. I did think about the Debrecen University language courses which have a good reputation but I am not sure I want to spend 2 weeks in Debrecen. I'd rather spend 2 weeks in Balaton (or the Maldives).

Take that holiday on the Szentendre island, and my wife and I will teach you all the Hungarian you can learn!

Fancy hotels if you're into that:

regattahotel.hu/
rosinante.hu/

Campsites on the other end of the spectrum can be found for free, and I'm sure there must be a middle ground in between.

fluffy2560 wrote:

Can anyone suggest a good intensive beginners summer school for Hungarian in BALATON - say a course of 1 or 2 weeks only - in say, June or July? I only saw one on the Internet so far. Suggestions?

As an English teacher here in Hungary I would very much doubt you would learn a great deal of Hungarian in 2 weeks. A lot depends on your age as well. For example, a 45 year old person requires 10 times more revision than a 25 year old person, couple this with one of the most difficult languages in the world and your head will be completely overwhelmed during an intensive course. Basics are relatively easy but you could get those over a longer period using a language cd.
Paul

We can't expect him to exile himself for months, can we? :-)

An "intensive" 2 weeks course might just give enough structural foundation to tip him over to "learn from the environment" mode. But definitely gets him closer.

Is this in line with your experience?

PDIinHungary wrote:

....45 year old person requires 10 times more revision than a 25 year old person

I'm going to have to think about all these things. Instead of 2 weeks, I'll need 20 weeks....I should have started a long time ago it seems.

I was thinking more in a class with other useless language students. More camaraderie and all that. Displaced people united by poor language skills. Basically I need to be able to fight off people at the front door, answer the phone, ask for things in shops and negotiate with trades people. There's also the big one: join in at family activities where I've just been smiling like a moron.

fluffy2560 wrote:

PDIinHungary wrote:

....45 year old person requires 10 times more revision than a 25 year old person

I'm going to have to think about all these things. Instead of 2 weeks, I'll need 20 weeks....I should have started a long time ago it seems.

I was thinking more in a class with other useless language students. More camaraderie and all that. Displaced people united by poor language skills. Basically I need to be able to fight off people at the front door, answer the phone, ask for things in shops and negotiate with trades people. There's also the big one: join in at family activities where I've just been smiling like a moron.

With the greatest respect...you've not got a cat in hell's chance of that in a couple of weeks.
You've also got to consider whether there would be a group as you described near Balaton. I have a Dutch friend here in Sirok who spent 4 years learning Hungarian before moving here. I've been here 2 years now and am still struggling with the language. Granted I've not undertaken a serious study course but rather tried to pick the language up as I've gone along. Learning individual words is no different to learning new words in any language but it's the grammar that is the real pain. Having said that, I'm not far from the the "45 year old bracket" so I can fully appreciate the amount of extra learning required.
It's much easier to teach English than learn Hungarian lol

PDIinHungary wrote:

With the greatest respect...you've not got a cat in hell's chance of that in a couple of weeks.

I did see one course in Keszthely but I thought something a bit further up towards Budapest on the southern side. I've been on several language courses in the past - German and Dutch - and I did French at school. No expert but used to learning. So I thought I'd take it easy and relaxed. It should be fun, not work.

I do know something - phrases really. I'm not an absolute beginner as Mrs Fluffy (who is Hungarian) and I have been together 15 years so I've heard Hungarian every day but we speak English together, not Hungarian (it was more important she improved her English at the time as we spent a lot of time travelling internationally). Thinking back, I should have spent more time on it so I could communicate with relatives and the kids. Would have been useful now we're back here.  Ah well, c'est la vie.

I'm another one of those 10 times more revision kind of people, and counting some, so probably a lifetime student !

I've tried listening to one of those language CDs, but its all Hungarian to me.  Best take everything with a pinch of paprika.  One little piece at a time.  Like adding logs to the woodpile. Then suddenly it all gels, and you start speaking in tongues.

Book I found the best was 1000 Words in Hungarian. It's got some very good and simple descriptions of various important language concepts. I'm no good at grammar and I found this book quite easy to understand.

I find those language CDs and course books almost impossible to follow. The only time I'd get to listen to the CDs would be in the car on the way somewhere.

I've known my wife for over 10 years and Hungarian was her 1st language, although she was born and raised in England. When we bought our first house over here she said she'd teach me to speak Hungarian but it never really took off due to work, stress and daily life in England so I bought numerous cd's, books and tapes but didn't quite get to grips with those either as I have a very short attention span. Once we moved here I thought I'd be able to learn as I go along but it's taking such a long time. Like Fluffy I can speak quite a few phrases and sentences and know a few hundred words but am a million miles away from having proper, lengthy conversations. I find it easier teach Hungarians English than for me to learn Hungarian ;o)

I think you guys need to get over the "appending mutiple stuff at the end of the word to clarify its role in the sentence" thing before you can make sense of anything, really.

Here's the (in)appropriate Hungarian joke:

"Doctor, is there anything encouraging you can say?"
"Go Ms Mari, go, rah-rah-rah!"

"Doktor úr, tud mondani valami bíztatót?"
"Hajrá Mari néni!"

szocske wrote: I think you guys need to get over the "appending mutiple stuff at the end of the word to clarify its role in the sentence" thing before you can make sense of anything, really.

This does make trying to learn Hungarian by dictionary more of a challenge.  I wasn’t expecting to get the doctor joke, but I was surprised how difficult it was translating from the Hungarian.  It’s really weird taking individual words from a sentence, and not being able to find them anywhere in the dictionary.  The first few times this happened, I figured it was just the crappy dictionary I was using, but now that I realize it’s a feature of the language, I’m really beginning to sweat !

Anyone have any good tips for using a Hungarian dictionary more effectively ?  Seeing that bits of grammar get tagged on the back of words, are there any simple rules of thumb for stripping off all this syntactical driftwood, to expose the meaning part of the word ?  In a word, or two or three conjoined, could be thumbs down to anyone who didn’t grow up with the language !

I think we native speakers know all the base words, so it's simple.
It might be possible at least to read by knowing all the "appendages" only, not sure.
It's as if all the words behaved like pronouns do in English, (he, him, his = "ő, őt, övé") albeit in a more systematic way, but also more extensively (for him, with him, to him, etc), up to the extreme (for the ones that are his = "övéiért")

For those on the lucky side of the digital divide, google translate can help up to a point:
http://translate.google.com/#hu|en|Hajr … n%C3%A9ni!

Chokes on "övéiért" though :-)

Yes szocske, for the moment it only makes sense to start reading Hungarian, using my dictionary to translate stuff on the web.

My difficulty is not being able to locate a lot of words in the dictionary. If I could recognize all those little bitty appendages and remove them from the dictionary search, it would be easier to locate the nouns and verbs at the beginning of the word, and hence their meaning in the dictionary, if you see what I mean ?

Fluffy, would this 1000 words in Hungarian book be useful for my current reading project as described, or is it more conversationally oriented ?

There must be Hungarian voice recognition software out there, which uses parsing algorithms to deconstruct any word encountered into its constituent parts.  Surely there are telecom applications doing this kind of thing ?

The book in question is here:

HU Book

and also here:

HU Book Again

The ISBN is 9789631911183.

I found this book quite helpful. It's obviously a text book but it's built for people learning with no reference to any language that they may know already - at least at the early stages. There's a kind of dictionary in multiple languages at the end - Russian, English, French, German and Spanish - which covers the themes of the book. I think this, coupled with: HU Dictionary online dictionary is a good intro. Bit of a shame there's no real sound based pronunciation guide like at German Dictionary which I find excellent for German).