The past couple of weeks have been very intense in terms of learning new grammar structures, vocabulary, and new topics. Currently I am working on the last unit from both the MagyarOK grammar book and the MagyarOK language book. This last unit offers new material on topics such as family, home, house (pieces of furniture), expressions used at home, hobbies, and etc. On the other hand, the grammar book covers topics such as present tense vs. future and past tenses, conjugation of personal pronouns, accusative case on complex nouns, continuation of the vowel harmony topics and its complexities, and other new information on possessive endings. Also, both of the books have a lot of audio materials included which seem to be pretty complicated and heavy in terms of vocabulary and all of the materials covered earlier in the book. Even though these couple of weeks have been the most intense and tough so far, I still really enjoyed it.
In this language journal I want to talk about the construction of past tense in Hungarian language - one of the most useful topics I have learnt this week. Past tense (in Hungarian - ‘múlt idő) is pretty straightforward and an easy to understand concept in Hungarian language (very surprising, right?)... Any verb in Hungarian can be transformed from the present tense to the past tense just by adding the suffix -tam or -tem depending on the vowel harmony. For example, ‘néz’ means ‘to see’, therefore, ‘néztem’ means ‘saw’. Another example, ‘hoz’ means ‘to bring’, and ‘hoztam’ means ‘brought’. You can see that the vowel in the past tense suffix depends on the vowel in the root of the initial verb. It is a completely separate and pretty complicated topic, so I will not go into that. However, what I want to highlight is the fact that there are of course some exceptions because no grammar rule in Hungarian can be that simple and straightforward…
The first one is the case when the verb ends with -t. For example, ‘tanít’ means ‘to teach’, and ‘tanítottam’ means ‘taught’. You can see that an extra vowel, the root and the suffix was added, and ‘t’ was doubled. Also, there are certain so-called irregular verbs that have different structure for the past tense. For example, ‘jön’ means ‘to come’, and ‘jöttem’ means ‘came’. I believe that there is no exact explanation on why those verbs are part of the different rule, it just seems that it sounds better like the way they are.
I think past tense is one of the most interesting and pretty straightforward topics in Hungarian, that is why I thought sharing it with you might be interesting.
Comments
I Think that you are evidently building a strong understanding of Hungarian and its variableness. It's interesting when you explain how you how to create tense in the verb with just suffixes. This reminds me of the lesson you did for me when you described how Hungarian sentences can be put together like puzzles. You explain your unqiue perspective of learning Hungarian and I applaud you for learning not having a hungarian to russian or hungarian to english dictionary
Your detailed exploration of the past tense in Hungarian provides valuable insights into the language's grammar intricacies. It's evident that you've been delving into complex topics, and your enthusiasm for learning shines through, even in the face of challenging material.
The straightforward nature of forming the past tense in Hungarian by adding the suffix -tam or -tem to verbs exemplifies the language's unique simplicity in this aspect. The examples you provided, such as 'néztem' for 'saw' and 'hoztam' for 'brought,' illustrate the application of vowel harmony in the past tense, a feature that adds depth to the language.