És úgy lőn

[pthalogreen]

1. Kezdetben teremté imc jó válaszokat a kategoriámban.
3. És mondám én: Legyen I1 jogok imc-nek: és lőn I1 jogok.
4. Mert látám, hogy jó az imc.

1. In the beginning imc created good answers in my category.
3. And I said, Let there be I1 privs for imc: and there was I1 privs.
4. Because I saw imc, that he was good

Comments

[bridgetester]

Congrats imc!

(Huh. There's a lot more t's in the modern Hungarian version.)

[pthalogreen]

yep, that's because Hungarian used to have 4 past tenses and now it only has one, which is -t, or -[vowel]t, or -[vowel]tt.

teremté was "he created [a long time ago]" now you just say termetett "he created"

same with mondám. "I said a long time ago" now you just say "mondtam" (I said)

lőn is also archaic, something like a future in the psat. "lett" = became

látám is also the same "I saw a long time ago" and "láttam" is "I saw"

in the bible "a föld kietlen és puszta vala" (the earth was without form and void)

vala is another past tense, stating that something was in some sort of state in the past. now you just say "volt" (was)

and there was "ahogy mondottam" (as I have said) and now you say "ahogy már mondtam" (as already I said)

[bridgetester]

Doesn't the lack of tenses get confusing? Although it's better than the various conjugations and declensions in Latin that share the same form...

[pthalogreen]

no, it doesn't really. you can tell from context what people mean. english is confusing because it has too many tenses.

[bridgetester]

English has a lot less than other languages I've studied, namely Spanish and Latin. Plus people don't use all the tenses in English.

[pthalogreen]

English does use all 12 tenses in every day speech:

Past tenses:
Past Perfect Continuous: I had been going to the park every Tuesday for several years by the time I married.
Past perfect: I had read Hamlet years before I studied him in school.
Past simple: I read Hamlet last year.
Past continuous: I was reading when you came in.

Present tenses:
Present perfect continous: I have been reading a book by Faulkner.
Present perfect: I have visited London twice.
Present simple: I see John once a week.
Present continuous: I am playing on the internet right now.

Future tenses:
Future perfect continuous: In January, I will have been doing support for LJ for 2 years.
Future perfect: By the time a person dies, their body will have produced 64 gallons of tears.
Future simple: I will do better tomorrow.
Future continuous: I will be doing a lot of reading this month because of finals.

[bridgetester]

Although those tenses can be used in everyday conversation, I see a lot of people avoiding perfect tenses though by restating and oversimplifying things.

I went to the park a lot by the time I married.

I read Hamlet years before I studied it in school.

January will be my second LJ support anniversary.

A person produces 64 gallons of tears over their lifetime.