I am a 2nd Generation American.
My grandfather came to the US from Hungary as a little boy in 1906 (we're not sure how old he was; poor immigrant's records aren't as important).
Sadly, within a generation, our family completely integrated into US culture and our native tongue was lost to us.
My Dad doesn't speak a word of it.
Now, in my 50's, thanks to the internet, I'm learning to speak Hungarian (or Beszélek magyarul).
Hungarian, for those of you who didn't know, is an ABSOLUTE BITCH of a language to learn.
Hungarian is almost totally unrelated to most modern languages, with the exception of Finnish and Estonian.
It does, however use the modern Roman alphabet, the same as most western languages.
But it has some different pronunciations, "s" by itself is pronounced like the "sh" in shout, "sz" sounds like the "s" in "bliss", "gy" sounds like the "d" in the word "endure", "c" sounds like "ts" in "cats" and "cs" sounds like "ch" in "church".
My surname is Szilagyi, imagine my surprise when I found out how it's actually supposed to be pronounced.
In 2015, after a three year process, my children and I were granted Hungarian citizenship.
I'll write about this in later posts.
We were lucky, since my grandfather had immigrated from Hungary, the language requirement was waived and we were granted citizenship without needing to be able to speak it.
One more generation removed and I'd have had to know it as a part of the application process.
I don't know if it's because I'm supposed to learn it or out of some yearning for a connection to my past, but I feel compelled to make the effort.
I sometimes make foolish decisions like that.
I started off by purchasing the Pimsleur Hungarian course from Amazon and set about trying to grind my way through the CD's.
I never managed to push past Lesson 11, no matter how many times I tried going through them.
There's a link to the Amazon product page below, because, some people may learn better that way.
Recently however, in fact 56 days ago, someone mentioned Duolingo.com and I took a look at it, registered and haven't missed completing at least 3 lessons each and every day.
That may sound impressive but the lessons only take from 5-10 minutes to complete.
There are both free and paid versions, I've been using the free version (the one with the occasional ad).
I also downloaded the duolingo app on my Android phone and have done language lessons while travelling.
Duolingo has 28 different language courses available (including, I shit you not, a Klingon language course under construction that appears to be about 55% completed).
I also discovered both the PC and Android versions of Tinycards, flashcards to help you expand your vocabulary.
My daily routine now includes both Duolingo and Steemit.
I'm not sure if my commitment to them is somehow related, but I feel like both learning a new/old language and making the effort to make Steemit work have given me some new purpose or direction.
I'm grateful for both.
Here are links to the posts of some pictures from our trip to Budapest (pronounced Buda-pesht) in 2015:
Budapest and St. Stephen's Basilica
Now for the Shameless Plug and disclaimer
Clicking on the link below will take you to the product page on Amazon.
By making a purchase from Amazon through this link, Amazon rewards me with a commission.
This does not cost you anything extra; Amazon includes the affiliate commissions in their advertised prices.
Your purchase from Amazon through this link helps me cover the costs of research and development.
While you’re there, feel free to purchase other items, Amazon will reward me for those too.
Heck, why not bookmark this link so that anytime you need/want to make a purchase from Amazon, you can help me?
Otherwise Amazon keeps everything, and let’s face it, Amazon doesn’t need any more money. They’ve got a lot of money already. Me, I NEED money, and following this link to make purchases STICKS IT TO THE MAN!
So go ahead, follow this link to Amazon and STRIKE A BLOW FOR FREEDOM.
Thank you
Pimsleur Hungarian: Learn to Speak and Understand Hungarian (Comprehensive)
gratulálok :)
Koszonom szepen!
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Thanks for this interesting post - one of my friends who learnt German told me that the trick to learning a language was to speak it with native speakers. That way brain gets tricked into converting all the embarrassing moments as learnings; the only way to really learn for adults :)
For me, it's the grammatical rules that are the most difficult.
Memorizing root words is simple repetition.
Hungarian words can get very long when getting into things like "third-person-plural-accusative case".
Sadly, grammar is not an important subject in the American educational system anymore. As evidenced by many of the posts here on Steemit.
But there are some absolute gems to be found.
Thanks for your post.
az én magyar kaland-OM; kaland is adventure, kalandom, is my adveture.
i allways use an interesting example:
kocsi is the car
kocsi-m (-m possesion) means my car
kocsik is plural, more than one car
kocsijaim there is a plural, so that mean my cars
but there you can make it even longer. because you can use casus suffixes, like a location suffix in something.
kocsijaimban, that means in my cars (or out of your cars -ból, ba into it... and so on)
so this is very important, because the title you have chosen is wrong. you need to use to possesion suffix.
Koszonom
It is difficult to learn when there is no one nearby to practice.
And most Americans have only a loose grasp of the English language.
you´re welcome. if you have question about the hungarian language, you can ask me. if you want
I would much rather come to Hungary and learn by immersing myself in the language and culture for a few years. ;-)