Villamos (left) and Vilmos (right)

What is so exciting about Hungarian language? I have heard that this is one of the most difficult languages in the world and such; but it was a little bit soothing to find out that it has actually uncanny similarities with Javanese, one of few languages I am familiar with. First of all is the same a pronunciation which is different than the English a (in Hungarian it’s rather á). There is also the word vásár in Hungarian—means sale, fair . Javanese however pronounces v as p as it has no such letter in the alphabet; so it is interesting that it has indeed the word pasar which means market. Is market not similar to sale in some ways? Táska in Hungarian (trans. bag) is simply tas in Javanese.

Another strange coincidence is for the word lába (trans. leg). No, it has completely different word in Javanese. What I was trying to explain is that in Javanese, plural form is the same like the singular; only said twice. For an instance; the plural form for tas = tas-tas; pasar = pasar-pasar. But for the word spider (we all know it has many legs), Javanese calls it as laba-laba, although laba itself doesn’t mean anything in the language. Strange, eh? I am no linguist expert, so perhaps this form exists somewhere else also. But it’s fun!

Does it therefore make Hungarian an easy subject to learn? My answer would be NO and NO! After two years of living in Hungary, my vocabulary is still limited to vegetable and fruit names because I would need them the most during shopping. One day Zsolt and I were watching TV. I could hardly understand anything said, but I heard a man mentioned nadrág gomba. I knew nadrag means pants and gomba means mushroom. Being a mushroom gobbler myself, I could not resist to ask about this mushroom to him, “What kind of gomba is that: nadrag gomba?” He burst to laugh on the question before explained that it was actually nadragomba—means into my pants. Oo-er missus!

Another time we had to go to cukrászda to order some cake. I wanted to ask him when the shop would be opened. I remember opened would be nyitva, and I thought I always saw the sign nyitva tartalom (trans. Open hour) on the door of every shop here in Hungary. But again, he chuckled and said that it’s nyitva tartás. When I checked the milk bottle we usually buy, I then found out that I had mixed up the words from zsir tartalom (trans. fat content). Phew, at least now I also know: It’s vilmos körte (trans. William’s pear) instead of villamos (trans. Tram) körte!