How are Hungarian sentences structured?

Published: July 31 2023

Hungarian, spoken by around 13 million people worldwide, is the official language of Hungary and is known for its unique structure and rich vocabulary. This post will walk you through the fundamental aspects of Hungarian sentence structure, helping you navigate the intricacies of this fascinating language.

Hungarian is an agglutinative language, which means words are often "glued" together with various attachments indicating tense, number, and other grammatical features. The most common sentence structure is Subject-Verb-Object (SVO), similar to English. However, in Hungarian, the word order is flexible, often used to stress certain words or aspects of the sentence. It's not out of place to encounter structures like Object-Subject-Verb (OSV) or Subject-Object-Verb (SOV) depending on what the speaker wants to emphasize.

Hungarian verb conjugation is known for its complexity due to a multiplicity of tenses and moods. Each verb is conjugated according to the person and number of its subject. More importantly, where the verb is placed in the sentence depends on what the speaker wishes to emphasize. Typically, the most important information comes earlier in the sentence.

In Hungarian, there are 18 cases, each with a distinct ending that is added to nouns, determining their function in the sentence. The order of the words can change, but the case endings give away the role of the word in the sentence. This allows for a high degree of flexibility in sentence structure.

Hungarian uses definite and indefinite articles in a similar way to English. The definite article 'a' or 'az' is used similarly to 'the' in English, while indefinite articles 'egy' mean 'a' or 'an'. Be aware that Hungarian also differentiates between definite and indefinite conjugations, which could influence sentence construction.

Creating negative sentences or formulating questions in Hungarian can significantly change the sentence structure. Negation in Hungarian is usually indicated by the word ‘nem’ that always precedes the verb. In question formations, the sentence structure usually remains the same, but an upward inflection at the end indicates a question.

While Hungarian sentence structure may seem complex, understanding its flexibility and the role of cases can make it more approachable. The placement of words can change to convey different emphasis, and the function of words within a sentence is clarified by case endings. Knowledge of these basic principles will help you start understanding and creating Hungarian sentences, opening the door to further exploration of this unique language.