West Coast vs. Really East Coast:
A Native Hungarian talks about the differences between her native tongue and English.
By Esther Kiss | June 28, 2011
Author Esther Kiss
“Hello, my name is Esther” or “Szia, a nevem Eszter” in my native Hungarian. They say that the English language is the hardest language to master; between verbs, adverbs, pronouns, nouns, conjunctions, punctuations, blah, blah, blah, there is definitely a lot to learn and very little of it is consistent, as is with the case with other languages. For starters: Hungarian uses a forty-four letter alphabet and English limits its vocabulary to twenty-six tools from which to make words.
The confusion between the two languages in which I function starts even farther back than that; in Hungarian, my native tongue is called “Magyar.” Whatever you call it, my first language is defined as a Uralic language and is spoken in many of the Baltic regions in Eastern Europe of which Hungary is a part.
While English is the most popular language in the world it has some idiomatic rules that drive non-native speakers… to study harder. For example prepositions do not exist in Hungarian/Magyar. Instead, we use the letter ‘�...’ (or some other form of the letter) to mean “with” or “from.” For instance, if I were to say that the package arrived form Budapest, I would say “Budastr�...l” in place of “From Budapest.” Further, Hungarian has no grammatical gender, whereas the English language uses “he” and “she” all of the time!
While the languages are frustratingly different, the way that we communicate is similar: both Americans and Hungarians believe it necessary to maintain eye contact during conversation that maintaining eye contact during a personal conversation is polite, and our personal space bubbles are relatively similar. Education is also highly praised in both cultures.
The duality of life; the similarities and differences between Budapest and Los Angeles; Magyar and English keeps life exciting! Viszontlátásra, Esther Kiss!
|
No comments have been provided.
|
