Hungarian verbs

A slight variation to the standard pattern is with certain verbs which have third person singular indefinite present ending with -ik, e.g. dolgozik ("s/he works"), and 1st singular indefinite present usually with -om/-em/-öm. The stem for this is reached by removing -ik. These verbs are one of the reasons why this form is the citation form.

The -ik verbs were originally middle voice, reflexive or passive in meaning, which can still be seen e.g. about the pair tör ("s/he breaks something") vs törik ("something breaks" / "something gets broken"). However, most of them have lost this connection (they can have active meanings) so historically speaking they are like deponent verbs. Some verb pairs only differ in the presence or absence of the -ik ending, while they are unrelated in meaning, such as ér ('be worth something' or 'arrive') and érik ('ripen').

With these verbs, the third person singular (present indefinite indicative) form (i.e., the lemma) consistently uses the -ik form. What is more, new -ik words continue to be created (e.g. netezik "use the Internet").

However, the first person singular (present indefinite indicative) suffix is often assimilated to the "normal" conjugation (as it has happened to the other -ik-specific forms), so most verbs usually take the regular form for this person (e.g. hazudok; *hazudom would be taken as hypercorrect or incorrect). Nevertheless, with some basic -ik verbs, the assimilated variant is stigmatized (e.g. eszem is expected in educated speech, rather than *eszek), so with these verbs, the traditional form is advised. At any rate, such non-traditional, assimilated variants are not rare in colloquial spoken language.

Since this (3rd person singular indefinite) -ik ending coincides with the -ik ending of the 3rd person plural definite form, only the type of the object makes it possible to identify the subject:

• eszik egy almát: egy almát "an apple" is indefinite, so the verb must be a singular form, i.e. "s/he is eating an apple;"
• eszik az almát: az almát "the apple" is definite, so the verb must be a plural form, i.e. "they are eating the apple."

In fact, most -ik verbs are intransitive, and the context may clarify the question even if the subject is not made explicit.

Some important "traditional" -ik verbs are the following. A person may appear uneducated if s/he uses the -k ending with them for the 1st person singular form:

aggódik "worry", álmodik "dream", alszik "sleep", bízik "trust", dicsekszik "brag", dohányzik "smoke", dolgozik "work", emlékszik "remember", érdeklődik "be interested or inquire", érkezik "arrive", esküszik "swear", eszik "eat", fázik "be cold", fekszik "lie" ("recline"), foglalkozik "deal with", gondolkodik or gondolkozik "be thinking", gondoskodik "look after", gyanakszik "suspect", gyönyörködik "delight in", hallatszik "be audible", haragszik "be angry", hiányzik "be missing", igyekszik "strive, hurry", iszik "drink", játszik "play", jelentkezik "apply", költözik "move (residence)", következik "follow", különbözik "differ", lakik "live" (inhabit), látszik "be visible", működik "function", növekszik "grow", nyugszik "rest", öregszik "grow old", panaszkodik "complain", származik "originate from", találkozik "meet", tartozik "owe" or "belong", tartózkodik "stay" ("reside"), törődik "care about", unatkozik "be bored", vágyik "desire", változik "change" (refl.), verekszik "fight" (e.g. at school), veszekszik "quarrel", vetkőzik "take off clothes", viselkedik "behave" and vitatkozik "argue".[1]

For most other verbs, the -k ending is common in the indefinite meaning, especially in casual speech. Verbs ending in -zik, which refer to using some tool, almost exclusively take the -k, such as biciklizik "ride the bicycle", gitározik "play the guitar" or mobilozik "use the mobile phone".

There are a few non-traditional -ik verbs where the -m ending is impossible and ungrammatical (except in the definite conjugation, if meaningful). These are called "pseudo ik verbs" (álikes igék) in Hungarian. Examples:

bomlik "dissolve", (el)bújik "hide", egerészik "catch mice", érik "ripen", folyik "flow", gyűlik "assemble" (refl.), hazudik "tell a lie", hullik "fall", illik "suit", kopik "wear off", megjelenik "appear", múlik "pass", nyílik "open" (refl.), ömlik "pour" (refl.), születik "be born", (meg)szűnik "discontinue", telik "fill up", tojik "lay (eggs)", törik "get broken", tűnik "seem", válik "become" or "divorce", züllik "become depraved".[2]

The regular non -ik verb könyörög "beg" has a hypercorrect first-person singular indefinite present form könyörgöm "I am begging" (used especially as an emphatic interjection to support an argument in spoken language), which conjugation mimics that of -ik verbs. The correct form would be könyörgök. However, it is argued by some[3][4] that the form könyörgöm is not unacceptable, either, and it reflects an idiomatic expression könyörgöm (magát/az Istent) "I am begging (you/God)", which has eventually lost its object and in which the form könyörgöm actually (correctly) follows definite conjugation.

When an infinitive is used with an impersonal verb, the personal suffixes may be added to the infinitive to indicate the person, as in Portuguese. Except in the 3rd person singular and plural, the -i of the infinitive is dropped, e.g. Mennem kell. ("I have to go."). The person can also be indicated using -nak/-nek, e.g. Nekem kell mennem. ("I have to go.), Jánosnak mennie kell ("János has to go.")

These forms use the o/e/ö set of suffixes (Type II, like possessive suffixes do), see Personal suffixes and link vowels.

In the present tense, only sibilant-ending verbs differ from the rest, such as verbs ending in -s, -sz, -z and -dz. The chart below compares the conjugation of the regular kér 'ask' ("have a request") and vár 'wait' (as examples for front and back vowels) with the sibilant-ending keres 'look for' and mászik 'climb.' Example of verbs ending in the other two possible sonorants, -z and -dz, are húz 'pull' and edz 'train', which similarly double their stem consonants where -s and -sz are doubled (e.g. húzzuk, eddzük in the first person plural).

*: mászik being an -ik verb, its indefinite 1st person singular form can be mászom instead of mászok in literary style. The ik ending in its indefinite 3rd person singular form naturally doesn't apply to verbs without this ending.

The forms marked in bold are those where the suffix of sibilant-ending verbs differ from the suffix of other verbs: either because of the alternative 2nd person ending l (to avoid two sibilants getting next to each other), or because of the assimilation of j. Incidentally, the latter forms (with doubled stem consonants) coincide with the subjunctive (or imperative) forms.

Futurity can be expressed in a variety of ways:

1. By the auxiliary verb fog for any verb except van, expressing a strong intention or a necessity of events brought about by circumstances (fog menni = "will go", fog beszélni = "will speak")
2. The verb van, uniquely, has an inflected future tense (leszek, leszel etc.). (See van (to be).)
3. By the present tense, when this is clearly a reference to a future time (e.g. the presence of explicit temporal adverbs, e.g. majd = soon) or in the case of verbs with perfective aspect). (Compare, eg "We're visiting Disneyland" in English: normally this indicates present tense, but adding "next July" makes it unambiguously future tense).

The past tense is expressed with the suffix -t or -ott/-ett/-ött and inflects for person and number. As in the present tense, there are special indefinite forms for transitive verbs with direct objects that are 1st or 2nd person or indefinite, while definite forms are used for intransitive verbs and transitive verbs with definite, 3rd person direct objects, and there is a special form used just for instances where there is a 1st person subject and 2nd person direct object.

As far as the two phonetic variants are concerned, there are three types:

• Type I never uses link vowel (mostly those with "soft" ending consonants, i.e. sonorants)
• Type II only uses link vowel in the 3rd person singular indefinite (those that could be regarded as "middle-hard" consonants)
• Type III uses link vowel in every form (mostly those ending in the "hard" consonant t or a consonant cluster).

Note: Strike-through Roman numbers in the last row refer to the types which would apply if the verbs concerned were regular.

If the above phonetic guidelines don't help, it may be useful as a rule of thumb to learn the rules and exceptions only for Type I and Type III and use Type II otherwise, because this latter type comprises the broadest range of verbs.

Front-vowel unrounded verbs that end in consonant + -t may have ambiguous (coinciding, homophonous) forms between plain and causative forms. Approximately a hundred verbs are concerned that end in one of the following endings: -jt, -lt, -mt, -nt, -rt, -st, -szt.

The past tenses of sejt ("suspect", Type III) and sejtet ("make them suspect something", Type II) are identical, except for the third person indefinite form where it is sejt|ett for sejt, but sejtet|ett for sejtet. However, it usually turns out from the argument structure and the context which meaning is intended.

This ambiguity doesn't occur with back-vowel verbs because the linking vowel is different for the normal past tense and the causative, e.g. bontotta "s/he demolished it" (bont- + -otta) vs. bontatta "s/he had it demolished" (bont- + -at- + -ta). The linking vowel can only be o for back-vowel verbs (as stated above: -ott/-ett/-ött) and the causative can only have a with back vowels (-at/-et). Similarly, it doesn't occur with front-vowel verbs with a rounded vowel, either: e.g. gyűjtötte ("s/he collected them") vs gyűjtette (s/he had them collected").

Below is a chart to review the conjugation differences between coinciding forms of the same verb. Ambiguous forms in the same person are marked in bold.

Another kind of ambiguity can arise with type I verbs between the second person plural plain form and the first person singular causative form, e.g. beszéltetek (only indefinite forms involved):

• "you [pl] spoke": beszél ("speak") + -t- (past) + -etek ("you [pl]")
• "I make somebody speak": beszél + -tet- (causative) + -ek ("I").

It can also occur with similar back-vowel verbs, e.g. csináltatok "you [pl] did something" or "I have something done".

beszéltek can also have two interpretations (only indefinite forms involved, again):

• "you [pl] speak": beszél + -tek ("you [pl]")
• "they spoke": beszél + -t- (past) + -ek ("they")

This latter case is not possible with back-vowel verbs, due to the difference of the linking vowel: csináltok "you [pl] do something" vs. csináltak "they did something".

Below is a chart to review the conjugation differences between coinciding forms of the same verb (again). Ambiguous forms in different persons are marked with asterisks.

Front-vowel verbs in type III that end in -t may cause ambiguity, like between the past tense of a verb and the present tense of another. For example:

Below is a chart to review the conjugation differences between coinciding forms of unrelated verbs. Ambiguous forms in the same person are marked in bold; ambiguous forms in different persons are marked with asterisks.

Use of the conditional:

In a sentence with "if", unlike in English, the appropriate conditional tense is used in both the "if" clause and the main clause. The present conditional is used to talk about unlikely or impossible events in the present or future, e.g. Ha találkoznál a királynővel, mit mondanál? ("If you met [lit.: would meet] the Queen, what would you say?"). The past conditional is used for past events which did not happen, e.g. Ha nem találkoztunk volna a királynővel, órákkal ezelőtt megérkeztünk volna. ("If we hadn't [lit.: wouldn't have] met the Queen, we would have arrived hours ago.") (cf. the English counterfactual conditional).

The front-vowel suffix at the end of the 1st person singular indefinite form of the back-vowel verb (várnék) is an apparent exception from the vowel harmony: it may serve to distinguish from the 3rd person plural definite form (várnák). (The indefinite kérnék forms still coincide, just like the 1st and 2nd person plural endings.)

The only opposition between the 3rd person singular definite and indefinite forms is vowel length (although a–á and e–é differ in quality as well), which can be considered one of the rare fusional traits in Hungarian.

A linking vowel is inserted into verbs with a consonant cluster or long vowel + t at the end, e.g. festenék 'I would paint', tanítanék 'I would teach', analogously to the rules given for the infinitive form.

Uses of the subjunctive:

1. For a command (i.e. an imperative)
2. For a request
3. For hesitant questions with 1st singular subject (cf. English "Shall I …?")
4. For suggestions for joint action with 1st plural subject (cf. English "Let's …")
5. For wishes (3rd person singular and plural)
6. In subordinate clauses after verbs expressing orders, requests, suggestions, wishes, permission, etc.
7. In hogy subordinate clauses expressing purpose

In the subjunctive or imperative mood, verbs with a sibilant or t ending differ from the rest, with two groups for the t ending: those with a preceding short vowel, and those with a preceding long vowel or a consonant.

Meanings of the verbs below: kér 'ask (have a request)', vár 'wait', keres 'look for', olvas 'read', fest 'paint', szeret 'love', fut 'run', ment 'save', tanít 'teach', böngészik 'browse', mászik 'climb', ereszt 'let go', akaszt 'hang', néz 'look at', húz 'pull', edz 'train', lopódzik 'sneak'.

Note 1: Fest 'paint' is the only single example (according to the Reverse-alphabetical dictionary of the Hungarian Language) that ends in st, and there is no -ik verb with these two ending consonants. This verb is conjugated like the szeret, fut type: fessek, fess(él), fessen, fessünk, fessetek, fessenek; fessem, fes(se)d, fesse, fessük, fessétek, fessék; fesselek.

Note 2: the definite conjugation may be ungrammatical for verbs that cannot have an object, e.g. fut 'run', lopódzik 'sneak'. However, these forms may occur in constructions like végigfutja a távot 'run all through the distance', or perhaps even végiglopóddza az épületeket 'sneak through the buildings'. This solution doesn't work, though, for the forms affecting the 2nd person (unless in a poetic, vocative sense), that is why they are marked with an asterisk.

Forms marked with a preceding equality sign are identical with the indicative forms.

Second person forms have a short and a long variant both in indefinite and definite conjugation, with minimal difference in style.

If no explicit object is present, the most common interpretation of the definite verb forms is including "him/her/it". If an indefinite verb form semantically requires an object, "me" or "you [sg]" or – obviously – an indefinite object (third person) can be inferred: "something". (The plural forms are generally made explicit.) This difference makes it possible for the writer or speaker to refer to people without making them explicit. In most cases it is enough through the context to differentiate between 3rd-person and non-3rd-person pronouns.

Definite examples:

• olvassa ("s/he is reading") – most common meaning: s/he is reading it (the book etc.)
• nézi ("s/he is looking") – most common meaning: s/he is looking at him/her/it

Indefinite examples:

• fut ("s/he is running") – usually can't have an object so its meaning is unambiguous
• olvas ("s/he is reading") – most common meaning: s/he is reading something (the object may be omitted like in English)
• néz ("s/he is looking") – most common meaning: s/he is looking at me or you (or: gazing in the air)

There are a few words which appear to begin with a particle, but don't actually, e.g. felel ("reply"), lehel ("breathe/puff"), kiált ("give a shout") and beszél ("speak") where fel-, le-, ki- and be- are parts of the words themselves, rather than actual particles. The difference is important in the above-mentioned syntactic cases when these elements will – naturally – not function like particles do. Compare the above kiált (no compound) with ki|áll ("stand out", a compound): nem kiált ("he doesn't give a shout"), but nem áll ki ("he doesn't stand out"). – A similar case is fellebbez ("appeal [in court]"), from the adverb fellebb ("upper", today: feljebb), containing no particle.

A verb may occasionally be a homonym in the above sense, i.e. being a single word or containing a particle, e.g. betűz ("spell [by letters]", no compound), but be|tűz ("stick in" or "shine in", a compound).

The other misleading cases are those verbs which were historically formed from nouns derived from verbs with particles, so they seemingly begin with particles, but they don't behave like them. An example is befolyásol ("influence", v) which derives from befolyás ("influence", n), a calque from German Einfluß, literally "in-flow", including the particle be- ("in"). This element, being part of the original noun, will not act as a particle of the derived verb befolyásol. There are few such words, e.g. kivitelez ("implement") from kivitel ("implementation, execution", cf "carrying out"). Kirándul ("go hiking") used to be a compound (ki + rándul), but people don't usually treat it like that anymore so they say, e.g., Kirándulni akar. ("s/he wants to go hiking") instead of Ki akar rándulni, which is obsolete and only used jokingly. A common error among native speakers is the case of feltételez ("suppose" or "assume"), which comes from feltétel ("condition"), so the prefix is only part of the embedded noun, rather than of the full verb, but it is still often separated: ?fel sem tételezhetjük, ?fel kell tételeznünk ("we can't even assume, we must suppose"), instead of the correct forms nem is feltételezhetjük, feltételeznünk kell. What functions as a verbal prefix sometimes may not be one other times, e.g. ellenáll 'resist' can separate like nem állok ellen 'I don't resist', but ellenőriz 'check' stays together like nem ellenőrzök 'I don't check' – because the latter is derived from the noun ellenőr ("inspector").

When the verb is used as a copula i.e. if one speaks about what someone or something is, it is omitted in the third person singular and plural of the present tense. The verb is required in all other tenses and persons when speaking about where or how something is, or to emphasize the existence or availability of something. Examples:

• Péter orvos ∅. – Peter is a doctor. (present tense, third person, speaking about what someone is: no linking verb in Hungarian)
• Péter jól van. – Peter is well.
• Péter itt van. – Peter is here.
• Péter orvos volt. – Peter was a doctor.
• Orvos vagyok. – I am a doctor.

The non-copula form of van is also used to express the equivalent of "There is/are":

• Van orvos a szobában. – There is a doctor in the room.

The negation of the third person van (plural vannak) as a non-copula verb is the suppletive nincs (plural nincsenek):

• Itt van Péter. – Peter is here.
• Nincs itt Péter. – Peter isn't here.

Hungarian has no verb which is equivalent to "to have". Instead, ownership/possession are expressed using van with a possessive suffix on the noun:

• Van könyvem. ("I have a book.", literally "There-is book-my")

Like the verb "to be" in many other languages, van is irregular. It comes from three (or four) bases: vagy- (or van-), vol-, and len-. These overlap to some extent with the verb lesz ("become"). As it cannot have an object, it does not have definite forms. It is the only verb in Hungarian which has a future form.

There is little difference between the two conditional forms. In theory, lennék etc. are preferred when an option is considered as possible (e.g. Ha otthon lennék, "if I were at home") and volnék etc. are preferred when it is considered impossible (e.g. Ha rózsa volnék, "if I were a rose"), but the limits are rather vague. It is probably not by chance that the former is akin to the future form (leszek), which might still become true, and the latter to the past form (voltam), which is already determined. In practice, the lennék series is somewhat more frequently used in both senses.