Hungarian (Teach Yourself)

by Zsuzsa Pontifex

Book Overview

Bestselling language courses now with audio CDs From Catonese to Thai, Gaelic to Modern Persian, learning the languages of the world is attainable for any beginning student. Learners can use the Teach... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0340562862
• ISBN13: 9780340562864
• Release Date: January 1993
• Publisher: NTC publishing
• Length: 352 Pages
• Weight: 0.88 lbs.
• Dimensions: 7.8" x 0.9" x 5.2"

Customer Reviews

Very Useful Part of My 'Arsenal'

Though Hungarian can be daunting this course is quite good, especially for anyone with a bit of knowledge of the complexities of Hungarian and a bent for languages. But it is not an easy ride. The CD's are quite helpful & contain 13 & 11 tracks respectively, when copied to a player. Pontifex knows her stuff as a professional educator and presents it pretty concisely & with precision. Accompanying illustrations & socio-cultural tidbits add to the mix rather well. The course is designed to progressively move the traveler/businessperson learner to reasonable fluency. Her school and experience lean more toward Hungarian for the English-speaking business & gov't. communities than the casual learner. Since other reviews have delved deeply into the course's contents, I'll stop here and add... The serious student should be motivated to search for other sources, of which there are many, especially on the web: Webforditas, Sztaki Szótár, Hunglish Korpusz, Hungarotips, My Language Exchange to name a few. Google 'em. Correct pronunciation of this vocalically & consonantally rich language requires practice, as all letters, including doubles, are pronounced, with nothing truncated- ever. Syntax & grammar are exotically different- & tough, as a single 'word' may be 5 in English (Felprobálhatom? 'May I try it on?') which in such cases are more strings of meaning than single words. Hungarians are very economical with words. Hear it spoken and sung on Youtube (Heti Hetes, Gálvölgyi, Hol Vagytok Székelyek?, Crystal, Márta Sebestyén, Zámbó Jimmy, Kistehén; etc). They've had a difficult & tumultuous past, but the upbeat Magyars' big party town Budapest, music, food & wines are the best of eastern Europe, imo. Except for Chinese & Arabic, Hungarian's the most difficult I've tackled, yet it's the most fascinating. Armed with this program, Miklos Törkenzcy's concise grammar (both if you can get them), 'Lonely Planet Hungarian', 'Culture Shock! Hungary', & Hudoba's lessons thru Hungarotips I'm confident I'd be able comfortably to party hearty in Budapest & travel about Hungary for months.

Nick doesn't know what he's talking about.

Nick's problems with the Hungarian language stem from just that; the language. It is one of the most difficult languages in the world to learn, up there with Russian and Japanese. People who come here as children still need seven years to master the language. The book is a wonderful aid to the person living in Hungary and struggling to understand the language. For anyone else, it won't be that big of a help, simply because Hungarian is just so difficult. Don't knock the book or the author; she did the best she could. And she did a good job.

I doubt the other reviewers actually read the book

I found Pontifex's text the best Hungarian language course on the market. The first five chapters focus on the necessities of the traveler (numbers and shopping, eating, bus and train travel etc.), while the others are more focused on a progression of grammatical concepts. She does give a large amount of vocabulary words per lesson (ca. 100) which may intimidate the beginner. I found the exercises useful and entertaining. If you work your way through this book and actually learn the material, you will be able to talk reasonably well when you go to Hungary. I did!