Tori-kun Wrote:A lot of forums say it is a language that is very difficult to learn as it has no connections to Latin, English or German ("isolated" language)..

BrianG Wrote:Hungarian cases have almost nothing to do (apart from the name) with the cases in IE languages.

vonPeterhof Wrote:Just to be clear, you are using the word "isolated" to suggest that it is unrelated to the languages surrounding it and to the major languages of Western Europe, and not to imply that it is what is referred to in linguistics as a language isolate? Because, as far as historical linguistics is concerned, it certainly isn't the latter, even if Hungarian nationalists object to mainstream linguists' classification (and even they usually try to connect it to other languages and language families, like Turkic or Sumerian, rather than insist on its isolate status). There are even theories linking it to Japanese, e.g. the Ural-Altaic proposal, but I don't think they are taken seriously these days. Either way, wrapping your head around Hungarian grammar shouldn't be too hard after Japanese.

BrianG Wrote:Based on my experience with learning Hungarian I can say the following:

Hungarian has tons of loanwords and direct translations from German (e.g. vekker = Wecker, feladni = aufgeben), and on top of that a lot of Slavic loanwords (which did help me a bit).

Achieving fluency (or near-fluency) takes roughly the same amount of effort and time as in case of English or German. Yes, it is very different from IE languages, but there again the IE languages are so different from each other that it doesn't make too much of a difference. And of course it's much, much easier than Japanese. I would also argue that English pronunciation is harder to master than Hungarian, though not by much.

On the other hand, the difficulty curve is pretty much inverted in comparison with English, which is quite easy and friendly for the beginner, but an leprechaun to an advanced learner - around the intermediate level it starts throwing at you loads of sesquipedalian words of obscure Latin or Greek or Old French origin that have to be memorized due to their relatively widespread usage in literature and more sophisticated magazines, and there are some 3-5 synonyms for every concept. You either learn all that crap or never become fluent.

Hungarian is very unwelcoming at first. The grammar system is moderately complicated (much less complicated and exception-ridden than that of the Slavic languages), yet it sort of requires you to assume a completely different way of thinking about how a language works... not sure if I'm making myself clear, I mean it's harder to get used to the grammar than to learn it, and it's off-putting to many. E.g. Hungarian cases have almost nothing to do (apart from the name) with the cases in IE languages. Secondly, the lack of similarity to any language you know does create a severe burden on memory in the first stage (6-12 months). That's the time in which a great deal of learners give up and spend the rest of their lives telling everyone how unlearnable the language is (which is quite the opposite of the reaction to fail Japanese learners have - even if they managed to learn no more than watashi and neko - yep, in romaji - many of them will brag about their Japanese skills whenever possible). But when you get past this first and worst phase, you'll see how logically structured Hungarian is. Words for more complicated concepts are made up of words for less complicated concepts - not an original invention, but Hungarian makes use of it much, much more often than IE languages. This makes the vocab more and more easy to remember with every stage.

I guess it's all bad news if you just want to learn the basics... those are the hardest. But cheer up - when those are learned thoroughly, the jump to reading original literature and conversing about non-trivial topics is by orders of magnitude easier than e.g. in English.

Oh, did I forget to mention how beautiful it is? Maybe next time.

Quote:@Stansfield123: Are you a native Hungarian or how did you get to learn Hungarian? Just asking out of curiosity

Stansfield123 Wrote:

vonPeterhof Wrote:Just to be clear, you are using the word "isolated" to suggest that it is unrelated to the languages surrounding it and to the major languages of Western Europe, and not to imply that it is what is referred to in linguistics as a language isolate? Because, as far as historical linguistics is concerned, it certainly isn't the latter, even if Hungarian nationalists object to mainstream linguists' classification (and even they usually try to connect it to other languages and language families, like Turkic or Sumerian, rather than insist on its isolate status). There are even theories linking it to Japanese, e.g. the Ural-Altaic proposal, but I don't think they are taken seriously these days. Either way, wrapping your head around Hungarian grammar shouldn't be too hard after Japanese.

I wasn't aware that there was any controversy about the Hungarian language. I certainly know of no "Hungarian extremists" who are denying that Hungarian is a Finno-Ugric (Uralic) language. It's been an established fact since 100+ years. The previous (early 19th century) theory was that it was related to German. No one believes that anymore. I know of no other claims.

However, except maybe for Finnish and Estonian, I don't think anyone on this forum has ever heard any other Uralic language spoken, let alone is able to speak it.

vonPeterhof Wrote:It also seems to me that even if most Hungarians aren't outright denying the connection, they seem to be less enthusiastic about it than, say, Finns and Estonians. From intergovernmental efforts to revitalize dying Uralic languages here in Russia to trivial things like Eurovision votes, it appears that Finns and Estonians are at least paying lip-service to the whole "Finno-Ugric kinship" thing, whereas Hungarians are just sort of "meh" about it.

Stansfield123 Wrote:Well, the fact is it doesn't matter, it's entirely incidental what language Hungarian is loosely related to. So the right attitude would be to go "meh". Ethnically/genetically, Finns and Hungarians are probably more related to the French, Germans, Slavs etc., than some old tribe in Asia. Not that that makes a difference either.

If you're right, and Hungary isn't wasting money on an incidental association with some tribe in Asia, good for them. But I fear that you're wrong. Knowing a little about European politics, they never let an opportunity to aimlessly spend money go to waste. I'm sure Hungary is pouring taxpayer money down the drain, just like Finland and Estonia, on this. Just less of it, since they have less to begin with.