Alphabet and Pronunciation

Consonants
Vowels
Stress

Consonants

Notes:

g is always hard as in 'gun', never soft as in 'gem'
r is rolled off the tongue, though not really trilled
t is pronounced with the tongue touching the back of the teeth (dental)

c is pronounced like the ts in 'bats'

cs is the English ch as in 'check'

gy is one sound pronounced like dy, or the d in 'adulation'

j, ly are both pronounced as y like 'yes'

ny is pronounced like the Spanish ñ and like the ni in the English word 'onion'

s Be careful! This is always pronounced like sh as in 'shun' and 'ship'

sz like a regular English s as in 'sell', never pronounced as a z like 'rose'

ty a soft t sound, pronounced much as it looks; say 'at your' fast

zs like the s in 'pleasure'

The letters q, w, x, y are not Hungarian and appear only in foreign words or in some family names. The English sound /j/ as in 'jet' appears in foreign words and is spelled dzs in Hungarian.

Note: Double consonants are pronounced long, like the final and initial /k/ sound in 'book-case'. When a double consonant occurs at the end of a word, try to linger on the sound slightly. With consonants like gy, ny, ty, sz etc. only the first letter of the cluster is doubled (ssz, ggy, etc.)

Vowels

a hard to describe, but rather like the sound in 'awe' and the British 'hot'

á a very open sound, between the a in 'matter' and the a in (American) 'father'

e the sound in 'set' and 'bed'

é Like the sound in 'way' but with the back of the tongue higher in the mouth

i not quite as short as the sound in 'sit', more like the short ee in 'feet' and 'meet'

í a long ee as in 'feed' and 'bleed'

o like the sound in 'stole' and 'sold'

ó a long o, as in 'rogue' and 'rode'

u a short oo as in 'boot'

ú a long oo as in 'food' and 'cool'

ö as in German ö, say French 'peu' and 'le'

o" a longer version of ö, like German 'schön' (Note: o" really looks like an o with a quotation mark or double acute accent on top, but is represented here with a quote next to it)

ü like German ü and French u as in 'début'. English speakers, round lips as if to say o but say ee

u" a longer version of ü (Note: like o", written with double accent on top, but represented here with a quote next to it)

Note: There are no diphthongs in Hungarian, so always pronounce each vowel separately.

Stress

Stress in Hungarian falls on the first syllable of the word. The accent marks over the various vowels DO NOT alter stress, but rather the quality of the vowel. And although stress is on the first syllable, every syllable is pronounced distinctly (unlike English, where many unstressed vowels become schwa and the ends of words are often swallowed).

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