Lesson Five: Motion

Vocabulary
Grammar
Exercises

Vocabulary

barát (-ot) - friend
most - now
sok (-at) - a lot (of) (noun or adj.)
nagy - big
posta ('-t) - post office
egyetem (-et) - university
kórház (-at) - hospital
Magyarország (-ot) - Hungary (literally 'Hungarian country')
szálloda ('-t) - hotel
hová - to where
vagy - or
orvos (-t) - doctor

New suffixes appear in the grammar section.

Grammar

There Is/There Are

Expressing 'there is/are' in Hungarian is easy. They just use Van and Vannak, which you recognize as the 3rd person singular and plural forms of the verb lenni 'to be'. Look at these sentences and pay attention to word order:

Van egyetem Philadelphiában?
Is there a university in Philadelphia?

Egy nagy posta van a városban.
There is a big post office in the city.

Az étteremben sok asztal van.
There are a lot of tables in the restaurant.
Note: following sok the noun appears in singular always.

I can't give any sentences with vannak because you don't know any plurals yet, but it is used the same way obviously.
When you want to negate and say 'there is not', use the word nincs. 'Nem van' is incorrect. The negation of 'nem vannak' is nincsenek, but there will be examples in Lesson Seven when the plural is covered.

Nincs ott kórház.
There is not a hospital there (There is no hospital there).

Nincs asztal?
Isn't there a table?

The Irregular Verb Menni 'to go'

Here is the conjugation of the verb menni with the irregular forms in bold. Example sentences will follow the next grammar section.

én megyek	mi megyünk
te mész	ti mentek
o" megy	o"k mennek

Note: Menni is an intransitive verb, so there is no definite conjugation.

Prepositions of Motion

While English has the preposition 'to' to express motion, Hungarian uses a suffix to express the same idea. This is the same idea of the ban/ben suffix which you learned in Lesson Three.
The basic suffix for 'to' or 'into' is ba/be (obviously one for back and one for front words). Look at the following sentences:

Az orvos a kórházba megy.
The doctor is going to/into the hospital.

Mész Londonba?
Are you going to London?

However, there are two other suffixes which mean 'to', but have slightly different meanings.
The ra/re suffix means 'on to'. You see above that ba/be is used with place names. Well, for Hungarian places names the ra/re suffix is used:

Megyünk Magyarországra. Nem megyünk Amerikába.
We are going to Hungary. We are not going to America.

Most mentek Budapestre?
Are you going to Budapest now?

Mennek az egyetemre. (see note below)
They are going to the university.

Note: Some Hungarian cities do take ba/be, most notably Gyo"r and Debrecen. At one time these cities lay outside Hungary which is the reason they take the suffix used with foreign place names. Some nouns also take ra/re, such as posta and egyetem.

The final suffix meaning 'to (a point in space, as opposed to an enclosed space)' is hoz/hez/höz. English examples where this would be used are: 'to my friend's', 'to John's'. Similar to French 'chez' and German 'bei'. Look at the following:

Évához megyünk.
We are going to Eva's.

Egy baráthoz megyek.
I am going to a friend's.

So you can now see the three categories of motion: to an enclosed place, on to, and to a point in space. These three distinctions are important and they also apply to the suffixes meaning 'at', 'in', 'on', and 'from' which will be covered next lesson. So for now memorize these three suffixes, ba/be, ra/re, hoz/hez/höz and remember how they are used.

Hol vs. Hová

Hová is the question word that corresponds to the above suffixes. It is used when followed by a verb of motion. Look at the following sentences:

Hol vagy? -Itt vagyok, a szállodában.
Where are you? -I am here, in the hotel.

BUT:
Hová megy? -A postára megyek. VAGY Londonba VAGY Pestre
Where are you going? -I'm going to the post office OR to London OR to Pest.

Hová akar menni? -Péterhez akarok menni.
Where do you want to go? -I want to go to Peter's.

Exercises

Translate the following sentences into English:

1. Az orvos a kórházban van.
2. Van egy asztal? -Igen, sok asztal van.
3. Éva az egyetemre megy.
4. Az étterembe mentek.
5. Nincs itt nagy szálloda.

Translate the following into Hungarian:

6. Peter is in the restaurant.
7. I am going to the hotel now.
8. Where are they going?
9. There is no car in the house!
10. Are you going to London or to Budapest?

Conjugate the verb 'menni' with the personal pronouns.

Click here for the answers.

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