Introduction to Hungarian Nouns for English Speakers

What Are Hungarian Nouns?

Hungarian nouns are words that name people, places, things, or ideas. Unlike English, Hungarian nouns do not have grammatical gender, which means there is no distinction between masculine, feminine, or neuter forms.

No Gender in Hungarian Nouns

One of the first things English speakers notice is that Hungarian nouns do not change based on gender. For example, the word for 'teacher' is tanár regardless of whether the teacher is male or female.

Cases in Hungarian Nouns

Hungarian is an agglutinative language, which means it uses suffixes to express grammatical relationships. Nouns change their form depending on their role in the sentence through various cases. There are 18 cases in Hungarian, but beginners should focus on the most common ones first.

Common Hungarian Cases

• Nominative (subject) – no suffix, e.g., ház (house)
• Accusative (direct object) – suffix -t, e.g., házat (house as object)
• Dative (indirect object) – suffix -nak/-nek, e.g., háznak (to the house)
• Inessive (inside) – suffix -ban/-ben, e.g., házban (in the house)
• Superessive (on top) – suffix -on/-en/-ön, e.g., házon (on the house)

Plural Forms of Hungarian Nouns

To make a noun plural in Hungarian, the suffix -k is added. For example, ház (house) becomes házak (houses). The suffix may change slightly depending on vowel harmony rules.

Vowel Harmony in Plurals

Hungarian vowels are divided into front and back vowels, and suffixes change to harmonize with the vowels in the word. For example, kert (garden) becomes kertek (gardens), while tükör (mirror) becomes tükrök.

Definite and Indefinite Forms

Hungarian nouns can appear with definite or indefinite suffixes when used with verbs, but this mostly affects verb conjugation rather than the noun itself. However, understanding this concept is important for sentence construction.

Summary of Key Points

• Hungarian nouns have no grammatical gender.
• Nouns change form using suffixes to indicate case.
• There are 18 cases; beginners should learn the most common ones first.
• Plural is formed by adding -k, with vowel harmony.
• Definite and indefinite forms affect verb conjugation, not noun form.