Vous pouvez trouver la version française de cette leçon ici.

Plurals in Hungarian will always end in -k, but there are different linking vowels that you’ll sometimes need to add depending on the word. You’ll need to review vowel harmony and vowel lengthening first, so that you know which form of the endings to add.

---

Plural Suffixes

• words ending in a vowel: -k
• back-vowel words: -ok (sometimes -ak¹)
• front-vowel words: -ek
• rounded front-vowel words: -ök 

¹ “a” as a linking vowel – you will encounter this with plurals, possessives, and the accusative case. The fact is that while most back-vowel words take “o” as a linking vowel before the suffixes, there are some that take the linking vowel “a”.
Alex and I have both been trying to find some sort of rule or pattern on this, and while some of it relies on historical linguistics, it’s nothing simple enough for me to explain here. The best thing to do is just memorize these words as you encounter them.

• For example, “ház” (house) will be “házak” in plural, and not “házok”.
• This applies to possession as well: “ház – házam” (not “házom”)
• It also applies to the accusative case: “ház – házat” (not “házot”)

---

Examples

a kar – a karok
the arm – the arms 

egy ember – az emberek
a person – the people

az autó – az autók
the car – the cars 

az anya – az anyák
the mother – the mothers
-Remember vowel lengthening! The a becomes á.

a sör – a sörök
the beer – the beers 

---

Important Notes

1. When using a qualitative (many, few, some…) or quantitative (one, three, seven…) amount in front of a noun, you do not put the noun in the plural. It is left in singular, as the qualitative/quantitative descriptor is enough to signify a plural.

• “two cats” = két macska (NOT “két macskák”)
• “many cats” = sok macska (NOT “sok macskák”)

2.  Plurals also apply to adjectives in certain cases, but that is covered in this post, as they decline a bit differently than nouns.

3. When dealing with possession, there are different endings for plural nouns. You would not use the regular plural or possessive endings for a plural noun. I cover possessive endings here: singular / plural

4. When using demonstrative pronouns (this, that, these, those) you apply the plural to those articles as well.

• “these cats” = ezek a macskák
• “those girls” = azok a lányok

---

Vocabulary

sok – many/much

néhány – a few

kevés – few

(egy) kicsi – (a) little

több – more