A few years back when I was spending more time in Romania, but had some time to spend in Hungary and enough time to get lost in Budapest alone I found myself in several exciting places. On my way to Statue Park I got a little turned around, but once back on the right course I met this friendly Canadian girl who was traveling alone as well and headed in the same direction. We decided to check out the gigantic memorials from the Communist dictatorship together and while her company was great it was a local Hungarian gentleman that stole my heart. Earlier that day I had taken a trip up to Castle Hill where he was working, answering several sight-seeing individuals questions. I don’t know how it happened or what word triggered our half hour long exchange of eastern and western linguistic study, but he wanted to make sure his accent was as pure sounding of any westerner, say from Portland. In exchange he wanted me to sound like an eastern European woman.
Today’s word is a Magyar (Hungarian) word used in Hungary:
Köszönöm – (ker-ser-nerm) thank you
Looks tricky at first, but this one is actually fairly easy. The Hungarian lingo is a Finno-Ugric language, which you can learn more about at Wikipedia, right now let’s stick to the places you can learn it for free. Hungarotips is a completely free site with beginner, intermediate, and advanced lessons. This impulzus web page has everything you’d basically find in a LP guide. There’s no audio, so read a little about the alphabet and then find someone who’s willing to make sure you speak like a local. The verbal exchange will be very rewarding I am sure.