Heeeeey pentatonikk (and any other interested parties, I know you're out there)
I was googling the phrase "temetni tudunk" for science, and I found this and it's awesome. Well, okay, it's just an explanation of the differences between English and Hungarian as told by a native Hungarian speaker who's been translating for ages, but--it's awesome.
The Hungarian language is not related to any of the Indo-European languages. It is a Ural-Altaic language. The grammar and structure of Hungarian differs basically from almost all other European languages. In Europe only the Finn (Estonian, Lapp) language(s) is related to the Hungarian language (so say the linguists).
The following presents some of the major differences:
- To start with, the Hungarian language does not have the verb "to have." One can say in Hungarian "it is mine", "it is my property", "it belongs to me", but the concept "to have" does not exist. (Try to speak for five minutes without using the verb "have.") By the way, it takes a long time to make a Hungarian fully comprehend the concept of "to have" when he/she first learns an Indo-European language.
- Hungarian makes compound words galore. E.g. "file name," a word used extensively today, is "fájlnév" in Hungarian.
- The Hungarian language uses prefixes and suffixes. For example, "I love you" is one word in Hungarian: "szeretlek" which includes "love", "I", and "you" and expresses the relation between the three. Or the eight words "they may have let him/her play the role" is only one in Hungarian: "szerepeltetthetnék."
- By using compound words, prefixes and suffixes the number of words is less in Hungarian (usually between 20 to 30 percent less) than for the same text in English. For the same reason, the average word length is longer in Hungarian by approx. 35% (7.5 character per word in Hungarian versus 4.5 in English). The combination of the two results in a Hungarian text which is usually longer (has more lines/pages by about 5 to 10 percent) than its English equivalent, but its number of words is less (by approx. 20 to 30%).
- Hungarian has only one present, one past, and one future tense. Phrases like "has been", "have been", etc. do not exist. Or "I am eating" can be translated only as "I eat". If this is not sufficient, it has to be circumscribed e.g. "I still eat." Furthermore Hungarian uses present tense for future tense most of the time and uses future tense only when it wants to emphasize that the event will occur in the future.
- There is no passive structure in Hungarian. "I was told..." can be said only as "They told me..." (another feature of Indo-European languages that Hungarians have to struggle with when learning a foreign language).
- The verb "to be" is omitted in many Hungarian sentences which means that there are sentences without predicates (verbs). E.g. "She/he is beautiful" in Hungarian is "szép" ("he/she beautiful"). Explanation given in grade school: it is obvious that she/he is beautiful, why say it then.
- Consider a sentence which includes a numeral, or any term which indicates amount, like "many," in conjunction with a noun e.g. "six eggs." In this case singular is used in Hungarian: "hat tojás" i.e. "six egg." Grade school explanation: if it says it's more than one, why repeat the plurality. (Languages have their own rules which many times defy common logic.)
- If the letter "t" is attached to a noun it indicates that the word is a direct object. Consequently, the direct object can always be identified in the sentence and, therefore, the order of words (which in English is: subject, predicate, direct object, modifiers) do not have to follow any pattern.
- As a consequence of the preceding, the order of words plays a significant role in the Hungarian language. The same words put into a different order can mean something considerably different. E.g. "Tudunk temetni" means "We know how to bury (the dead)" but in reverse order "Temetni tudunk" means something different "How to bury people - that is one thing we really know."
- There is one feature which makes the Hungarian language easier to use: it has no gender. In third person it distinguishes only between a person (ő) and not a person (az). Again, it is difficult to learn for a Hungarian that, particularly in German and French, and to some extent even in English, objects have a gender (country and ships are "she" in English).
The above is by no means a complete listing.
All these indicate why it is by several levels more difficult to translate from/into English into/from Hungarian than it is with German-English, French-English, Spanish-English, etc. language pairs.
In closing, for the fun of it, an R rated example is presented:
To do (something) is "csinálni." However, with prefixes the word will have considerably different meanings.
"Megcsinálni" = to do and complete it, also to repair (that's not too far from the original meaning).
"Becsinálni" (verbatim: "do into") = to wet your pants.
"Összecsinálni" (verbatim: "do together") = not just wet your pants but No.2 also.
"Lecsinálni (verbatim: "do down") = shit onto someone (Sorry, I warned you...).
"Felcsinálni" (verbatim: "do up") = to make a woman pregnant.
The Hungarian language is not related to any of the Indo-European languages. It is a Ural-Altaic language. The grammar and structure of Hungarian differs basically from almost all other European languages. In Europe only the Finn (Estonian, Lapp) language(s) is related to the Hungarian language (so say the linguists).
The following presents some of the major differences:
- To start with, the Hungarian language does not have the verb "to have." One can say in Hungarian "it is mine", "it is my property", "it belongs to me", but the concept "to have" does not exist. (Try to speak for five minutes without using the verb "have.") By the way, it takes a long time to make a Hungarian fully comprehend the concept of "to have" when he/she first learns an Indo-European language.
- Hungarian makes compound words galore. E.g. "file name," a word used extensively today, is "fájlnév" in Hungarian.
- The Hungarian language uses prefixes and suffixes. For example, "I love you" is one word in Hungarian: "szeretlek" which includes "love", "I", and "you" and expresses the relation between the three. Or the eight words "they may have let him/her play the role" is only one in Hungarian: "szerepeltetthetnék."
- By using compound words, prefixes and suffixes the number of words is less in Hungarian (usually between 20 to 30 percent less) than for the same text in English. For the same reason, the average word length is longer in Hungarian by approx. 35% (7.5 character per word in Hungarian versus 4.5 in English). The combination of the two results in a Hungarian text which is usually longer (has more lines/pages by about 5 to 10 percent) than its English equivalent, but its number of words is less (by approx. 20 to 30%).
- Hungarian has only one present, one past, and one future tense. Phrases like "has been", "have been", etc. do not exist. Or "I am eating" can be translated only as "I eat". If this is not sufficient, it has to be circumscribed e.g. "I still eat." Furthermore Hungarian uses present tense for future tense most of the time and uses future tense only when it wants to emphasize that the event will occur in the future.
- There is no passive structure in Hungarian. "I was told..." can be said only as "They told me..." (another feature of Indo-European languages that Hungarians have to struggle with when learning a foreign language).
- The verb "to be" is omitted in many Hungarian sentences which means that there are sentences without predicates (verbs). E.g. "She/he is beautiful" in Hungarian is "szép" ("he/she beautiful"). Explanation given in grade school: it is obvious that she/he is beautiful, why say it then.
- Consider a sentence which includes a numeral, or any term which indicates amount, like "many," in conjunction with a noun e.g. "six eggs." In this case singular is used in Hungarian: "hat tojás" i.e. "six egg." Grade school explanation: if it says it's more than one, why repeat the plurality. (Languages have their own rules which many times defy common logic.)
- If the letter "t" is attached to a noun it indicates that the word is a direct object. Consequently, the direct object can always be identified in the sentence and, therefore, the order of words (which in English is: subject, predicate, direct object, modifiers) do not have to follow any pattern.
- As a consequence of the preceding, the order of words plays a significant role in the Hungarian language. The same words put into a different order can mean something considerably different. E.g. "Tudunk temetni" means "We know how to bury (the dead)" but in reverse order "Temetni tudunk" means something different "How to bury people - that is one thing we really know."
- There is one feature which makes the Hungarian language easier to use: it has no gender. In third person it distinguishes only between a person (ő) and not a person (az). Again, it is difficult to learn for a Hungarian that, particularly in German and French, and to some extent even in English, objects have a gender (country and ships are "she" in English).
The above is by no means a complete listing.
All these indicate why it is by several levels more difficult to translate from/into English into/from Hungarian than it is with German-English, French-English, Spanish-English, etc. language pairs.
In closing, for the fun of it, an R rated example is presented:
To do (something) is "csinálni." However, with prefixes the word will have considerably different meanings.
"Megcsinálni" = to do and complete it, also to repair (that's not too far from the original meaning).
"Becsinálni" (verbatim: "do into") = to wet your pants.
"Összecsinálni" (verbatim: "do together") = not just wet your pants but No.2 also.
"Lecsinálni (verbatim: "do down") = shit onto someone (Sorry, I warned you...).
"Felcsinálni" (verbatim: "do up") = to make a woman pregnant.