Product Description
How did you learn to speak?

You probably don't even know. You listened to your parents, gradually understanding the meanings of sounds, words, and then whole sentences. Then, once you had absorbed or assimilated the meanings of the word associations, you began to link words and form your own sentences. Assimil applied this same natural process adapting it to the abilities of adults, young and old.

You assimilate in two phases:
The Passive Phase
The Active Phase

The first step is to familiarize yourself with the new language through daily sessions lasting 20 to 30 minutes. You listen and read and you understand what is being said through the translation provided. You repeat each sentence aloud to practice your pronunciation, with the help of easy phonetic spellings and, better still, recordings. During the Passive Phase you shouldn't try to form sentences. Just immerse yourself in the language. Every seventh lesson you'll find a review of all the points covered in the previous six lessons and a summary of the main grammar points learned during the week. The key to success is the daily routine.

The first two weeks are crucial. The rest will come naturally.

The Active Phase starts when you have acquired enough passive knowledge around Lesson 50.

This phase continues alongside passive learning, and involves revising Lesson 1, then Lesson 2 and so on, completing one active and one passive lesson each day.

In the Active Phase, you cover up the text in the target language and, using the translation on the opposite page, try to say it out loud or in writing if you wish. The Active Phase continues throughout the entire second half of the book. For most major languages, it takes about five months to assimilate a course of 100 lessons.

You'll be amazed at your results! During this second phase, you will be building sentences with ease and this encourages you to go on and complete your course.

A With Ease course will enable you to reach a level of fluent everyday conversation. ... Read more

Product Description
More than 18,000 entries. Includes scientific, medical, literary , and legal terms. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Goethe's goodies
This is a book that will bring pleasure to polyglots and be a treasure trove of ideas for translators, linguists, and philosophers.Makkai's thesis is that poetry written in languages other than the original must be a creative reinterpretration, not merely a translation, analogous to a musical theme and variations.He calls this "anasemic writing"and in a series of clever,informal and often highly amusing hypothetical Platonic-type dialogues between himself, a 20th-century scholar, and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (to whom the book is dedicated and whose poem "Ein Gleiches" and its ninety-six versions in eight different languages are used as examples), he explores the great 18th-century writer's theories of world literature.Following the dialogues is a more technical analysis of anasemic writing, a discussion of modern linguistics and its relation to literary translation, and more multilingual poetry, along with some really beautiful illustrations.Too bad this book is out of print! ... Read more

Product Description
Part of a series that offers mainly linguistic and anthropological research and teaching/learning material on a region of great cultural and strategic interest and importance in the post-Soviet era. ... Read more

Product Description
Hungarian is a Uralic language (more specifically an Ugric language) unrelated to most other languages in Europe. It is mainly spoken in Hungary and by the Hungarian minorities in the seven neighbouring countries. The Hungarian name for the language is magyar, which is also occasionally used as an English noun, such as Mighty Magyars. There are about 14.5 million native speakers, of whom 9.5-10 million live in modern-day Hungary. A further two million speakers live outside present-day Hungary, but in areas that were part of the Kingdom of Hungary before the Treaty of Trianon (1920). Of these, the largest group lives in Romania, where there are approximately 1.4 million Hungarians (see Hungarian minority in Romania). Hungarian-speaking people are also to be found in Slovakia, Serbia, Ukraine, Croatia, Austria, and Slovenia, as well as about a million people scattered in other parts of the world (see Geographic distribution). There are hundreds of thousands of Hungarian speakers in the Hungarian American community in the United States. ... Read more

Product Description
This is an EXACT reproduction of a book published before 1923. This IS NOT an OCR'd book with strange characters, introduced typographical errors, and jumbled words.This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. ... Read more

Product Description
Everyday speech of educated Hungarians in urban centers of Hungary. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Excellent for WWII, but dated because of political events.
This comes from the original Spoken Languages series developed at the Army's behest by the American Council of Learned Societies to teach languages to soldiers fast.It uses the same method that is used today by the State Department to teach languages to its personnel.The original series produced better materials for frequently-studied languages such as French, Spanish and Russian than it did for those less studied.This course, I have been told by Hungarian refugees from the communist regime, is somewhat outdated because of political correctness.It may not be the best choice for the current language.

See"Hungarian basic course," and "Hungarian verbs & essentials of grammar,"also listed on Amazon. ... Read more

Product Description

This book provides substantial new results in a novel field of research examining the syntactic and semantic consequences of event structure. The studies of this volume examine the hypothesis that event structure correlates with word order, the presence or absence of the verbal particle, the [+/- specific] feature of the internal argument, aspect, focusing, negation, and negative quantification, among others. The results reported concern the telicising vs. perfectivizing role of the verbal particle; the syntactic and semantic differences of verbs denoting a delimited change, and those denoting creation or coming into being; evidence of viewpoint aspect in a language with no morphological viewpoint marking; the aspectual role of non-thematic objects; the source of the ‘exhaustive identification’ function of structural focus; the interaction of negation and aspect etc.

Product Description
A Hungarian / English , side-by-side text of The Old Man and the Sea. ... Read more

Product Description
Living Language In-Flight Hungarian is the perfect boarding pass to learning Hungarian before you land.

There's no better way to make use of all that spare time on a plane than to master the essentials of a language.This 60-minute program is the simplest way to learn just enough to get by in every situation essential to both the tourist and business traveler.

The program covers everything from greetings and polite expressions to asking directions, getting around, checking into a hotel, and going to a restaurant.There are even sections for meeting people and spending a night on the town.

Short lessons make In-Flight Hungarian easy to use, and a handy pocket-sized insert is included as a cheat sheet for use on the go. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (10)

Helpful
I wouldn't call this "in flight" learning,due to the massive retention needed.It's best to get this early and play it over and over.You will gather what you are looking for and move on.
After traveling to Budapest, we found that very little other than Thank you, good morning, good day is needed.It's a courtesy to learn some of the language when traveling, but generally most of the younger generation and the hotels, shops, and tourist attractions have English speakers.

Great for the traveler!
I bought this before a trip to Hungary. Will this teach you to speak Hungarian fluently? Not at all.But that's not what it's about.It's for the tourist who has a few hours to dedicate to learning basic phrases that help them get around.I was able to pick it up fairly well, and was able to get around Budapest with it's help. I kept the little booklet that came with it in my back pocket, and that was a huge help too.
If you want to learn to speak fluently, buy a more comprehensive, more expensive product.If you are going to Hungary on a business trip or for a vacation, buy this!
After buying and using "Living Language in flight Hungarian", I bought the one for Italian before I went to Rome.

Great product if your 'rewind' button works well.
Overall, this taught me the rudimentary basics of survival Hungarian well.Locals in Budapest understood me pretty well, and didn't roll their eyes too much.:-)Thus, the high star rating.I did not give it five stars because I felt there was not enough repetition.This was easily solved by liberal use of the 'rewind' button on my iPod, though.(I downloaded the cds to my iPod before my trip.)Here are a couple comments and suggestions, in no particular order:
- Definitely start listening and learning before your flight.One transatlantic flight would never have been enough for me, personally.
- Before trying to learn some Hungarian, you must recognize how unique it is and how utterly unrelated it is to any Indo-European languages you may know.
- The phrasebook is very handy; I kept it in my pocket and used it frequently.

Hope this helps someone.Have a great time in beautiful Hungary!

Not the place to start.
As some of the other reviewers noted, Hungarian is a unique language. It is not related to the other Central European languages, it is not derived from Latin. Heck, it isn't Indo-European.
This is important when considering what to buy when trying to learn the language in that it means: 1. you are not going to recognize individual words because they are not similar to the same word in French, Italian, Spanish, German or English and 2. you are not going to be familiar with the vowel or the consonants. There are sounds unknown to English in Hungarian.
So why am I babbling on about this? One of the first phrase this ill-thought teaching method tries to teach you is " I don't speak Hungarian very well". Or Nem nagyam beszelek magyarul. They say it once (at normal speaking rate!), give you time to register just how completely unprepared you are to repeat what you just heard and then they move on to the next phrase. I kid thee not. I would bet that sometimes as they were recording this stuff they found it hard not to laugh.
The third section does cover numbers and is probably the most useful section of the CD. One word at a time when learning this unique language is about right. I have a Hungarian neighbor and when she (w/ infinite patience) tries to teach me words, I usually require three or four attempts to get them right.
They are no sections devoted to individual pronouns, verbs, etc. There are sections (like the one on restaurants) where they give you individual words like plate, etc. Those are useful. The book is a necessity the first few times you listen to each section. The phonetic pronunciations are essential and help you to pick up on things like the Hungarian tendency to stress the first syllable. And the book helps you to pick up on individual words.
I guess that what I am saying is that this is not necessarily a bad product. It is certainly not what I would recommend to anyone that needs a quick intro to this language. When I find that product, I will review it.

Worth every Forint
I wouldn't wait for the flight, but I listened to these tapes for a couple of months on my commute before going to Hungary and it was very helpful.Some suggestions.It would be more helpful if you begin not just by listening, but by sitting down with the book and getting used to the written word.Then once familiar, listening can be more fruitful.I managed to master a few important phrases like Hello, yes, no, I don't speak Hungarian, do you speak English, excuse me, how much, where is.. and sorry.But if I could do it again, I would have made a more concerted effort to learn my numbers (at least to 5) and as much of the CD as possible.It is only one CD, but it covers a lot of material.I believe that if you memorized everything in the CD, you would do very well.Keep in mind that there is a fair amount of English used in Hungary, it seems to be the common language between all non-English tourists, but it helps to learn a little Magyar, and I wholeheartedly recommend this CD. ... Read more

Product Description
The latest printing of the 1987 edition of the standard concise English-Hungarian dictionary, this volume includes over 65,000 words and phrases; 140,000 translations; hundreds of illustrative examples and idiomatic expressions; and generous coverage of American usage. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Best Option, Best Value
Akademiai Kiado is the top publisher in Hungary, and they've staked their investment wisely. Your other options are few, but you'll discover yourself well-pleased after digging deep into this dictionary.

As a beginning student of Hungarian, I have found most dictionaries for Eng-Hun disappointing. Clunky, or using old ways of phrasing, they get in the way of learning the language. A native speaker might determine the differences, but as someone just beyond "szia" and "jo reggelt," I need to have confidence in what I'm using is the best.

Definitions here are short, and usually only the main meaning is listed. The term is bold-faced, and the meaning is in plain text. All is clear and easy to read. Their typographer kept the design simple. The directions and contents--even the introduction--are in both English and Hungarian.

Laszlo Orszagh and Tamas Magay are the main names you'll see in better Eng-Hun books. This dictionary displays the strength of their books. Unfortunately, Orszagh passed away in 1984. He left a solid team to finish the job, and they completed their task as intended.

The Hungarian language is a behemoth to we English speakers, but this dictionary helps clarify the morass of prefixes and suffixes which help define this very old language.

I fully recommend "A Concise English-Hungarian Dictionary."

Anthony Trendl
editor, HungarianBookstore.com

Don't buy any other Hungarian dictionary.
The Országh László dictionaries are hands down the best.You could practically acquire a reading and writing knowledge of the language just from these dictionaries, because the example sentences and idiomatic constructions are so rich.There is also an appendix with a thorough investigation of all the suffixes (or case endings) used in Hungarian, which is enormously helpful for the beginning learner.Get the concise version (Kéziszótár) which comes in 1 volume H-E, one volume E-H and then graduate to Országh's Comprehensive (Nagyszótár) which is 2 volumes each way--not as handy for quick reference, but VERY, VERY thorough. ... Read more

Product Description
This is a selection of the work of Hungary's most distinguished postwar poet, Janos Pilinszky (1921-1981). This bilingual edition, comprising about one-third of Pilinszky's collected verse, represents all six of his major collections: "Trapeze and Parallel Bars", "On the Third Day", "Metropolitan Icons", "Splinters", "Denouement" and "Crater". Among the poems chosen from "Metropolitan Icons" is a complete new translation of the dramatic recitative "KZ Oratorio". All of the Holocaust poetry, as well as major, deeply personal writing, is also presented. The collection is provided with an introduction, and closes with notes on the poems, many of which solve literary puzzles and make suggestions for further study. There is a bibliography of primary and selected secondary sources, including a list of Pilinszky's work available in English. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Janos Pilinsky is the greatest poet of all time.
a poem by Janos (without stanza form)

As I was at the start so I shallremain. Like the convict who,returning to his village, goes on beingsilent. Speechless he sits in front of this glass of wine. ... Read more

Product Description
The Malay language, one of the most widely used in Southeast Asia, is commonly assumed to be relatively young. In the course of its development it incorporated a great number of loan words, galvanising them into an organic unit so successfully that it became the chief linguistic vehicle of regional trade. Easy to use and understand, Malay soon functioned as a kind of merchants’ Esperanto in the vast archipelago.

With this groundbreaking piece of research, Dr György Busztin postulates that the roots of Malay extend much deeper in time than previously thought. This study uncovers over one hundred words that tie the precursor of the Malay language – as we know it today – to languages spoken three thousand years ago on the steppes of Central Asia and its puzzling similarities with the Hungarian (Magyar) language. The Legacy of the Barang People is a must-read work for anyone interested in linguistics and the history of two unlikely cultural relatives.

György Busztin, a career diplomat, has spent over a decade in Indonesia, beginning as a grade school student and most recently as the Ambassador of Hungary. With an academic background in linguistics, Dr. Busztin has held positions in both Europe and the Middle East and is fluent in five languages. The Legacy of the Barang People is his first book. ... Read more

Product Description
This Practical Hungarian Grammar is aimed at students and teachers of the Hungarian language. The 110 chapters of the book offer a systematic overview of Hungarian grammar. They focus on the most important linguistic aspects and those difficulties most commonly encountered by students.Each grammar overview is clearly structured and immediately followed by exercises derived from commonly encountered, practical situation, a combination that helps the students both deepen their understanding of a particular grammatical point and enlarge their topic-related vocabulary. Longer units are followed by revision sections.The book focuses on the grammar and vocabulary required for the lower intermediate level (B1) language examination of the Common European Framework for Languages. However, as all the important aspects of Hungarian grammar are presented, it can serve as an effective resource from beginner to advanced levels. It is suitable for both group lessons and self-study settings. The book contains an answer key. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (6)

I do recommend it!!!
Since I have been trying to learn Hungarian for a long time, I can say that It's not easy to find a understandable textbook for foreigners. When I was in Hungary last year, I bought some textbooks and dictionaries in order to learn Hungary. However, textbooks have been useful to practice dialogues but they don't explain grammar very well. This is why I decided to buy this book and I'm glad with it.
This book is written in Hungarian and English. So, grammar's explanations can be read in English!!!. With each grammar topic, you will find some exercises which are written in Hungarian, but you can check some of your answers because at the end of the book, there is a section with the keys.
I do recommend this book widely to whom are learning Hungarian as a complement of a textbook.

A very complete grammar
Great grammar, with very complete and useful exercises, allowing an extensive knowledge of the hungarian language.

A Practical Hungarian Grammer
I have studied Hungarian for quit a time now. As the Hungarian language belong to the ugrian language group very different from the indoeuropean language group the grammar is very different. This book is the best as it does not only present the grammer rules as is the presentation takes off with practical exercises. Those exercises use good pedagogics. The book focuses on the grammer and vocabulary which corresponds to the B1, lower intermadiate level, examination of the Common European Framework för Languages. The book cover also studies that aim to more advanced levels. I found this book very useful and it will help me to improve my hungarian a great deal.

excellent practical hungarian grammar
My wife is hungarian and I have been trying to learn her native language for the past 6 years, from self study to personal tutors and intensive courses in hungary. Of the many grammar books that I have used, I must say that this is clearly the best, and the only one I felt deserved some positive feedback.
First the layout is extremely clear, with the "lesson page" facing the related "exercise page", something I found really useful for practicing and anchoring the new grammatical aspects on the spot. Second, and very important to me, the rules seem to avoid any excessive complexity and focus on practical use of the language, always accompanied by examples. For someone like me (I'm not a linguist!) this is most helpful and I feel I am not unduly buried under an overly technical jargon. This is not to say that the book is simplistic or incomplete, on the contrary, but that the authors somehow empathized with the foreign student and kept a practical view on the language. Third the book is bilingual hungarian-english, which truly helps avoiding confusion. Last but not least, there is a great 50 pages appendix section that includes conjugation tables, irregularities, prefixes, transitive verbs, etc..: I have used the book for about 2 months now and I find myself constantly referring to this section.
This book has become my preferred companion to the hungarian grammar and I would totally recommend it to anybody serious about learning this language.

Fundamental
This is THE book for the ones who, like myself, are trying boldly to tame this wonderful and delicate language - the Hungarian.
Highly recommended!
Buy it without fear!
And please, you guys at Amazon, enhance even more the amount of books to learn Hungarian in a deep way.
We need some book like the Barron's collection 501 verbs!!!!
Thanx a lot! ... Read more