Better Hungarian

[Hungarian] Indefinite Verbs

Published by

Ilona

on

As I did previously with definite verbs, here I’ve compiled a list of instances where you would use the indefinite form of a verb in Hungarian.

To read the overview of definite vs indefinite conjugation, see the post here. To see how to conjugate indefinite verbs in the present tense, see the post here.

a) preceded by the indefinite article “egy”

Látok egy fát (I see a tree)
Látok egy házat (I see a house)

b) anything specifying an abstract quantity of something

Látok néhany lányt (I see some girls)
Látok sok fát (I see a lot of trees)

*remember that with quantifiers or numbers preceding them, nouns stay in the singular in Hungarian (i.e. you would not say “három kutyák”, but rather “három kutya”)

c) direct object is te/ti1 or én

Ő lát téged (Xe sees you)
Te látsz engem (you see me)
Ők látnak engem (they see me)
Ők látnak titeket (they see you (pl.))

1this doesn’t apply if the subject is én, as én + téged/titeket has a special conjugation which I go over here

d) used with an infinitive

Szeretek aludni (I like to sleep)
Menni akarok (I want to go)

e) general terms like “semmi”, “valami”, etc

Nem látok semmit (I don’t see anything)
Látsz valamit? (Do you see something?)

f) verbs or verbal phrases that go along with a case

„utal valamire” (utal + -ra/re) – to imply something
Mire utalsz? (What are you implying?)

„bíz valamiben” (bíz + –ban/ben) – to trust in something/someone
Bízok az anyámban (I trust in my mother)

PRONOUNS AND DEFINITE VS INDEFINITE CONJUGATION

When it comes to pronouns, it can be tricky to determine whether the verb should be definite or indefinite. Here’s a handy chart to help make it a bit simpler! (hopefully)

9 responses to “[Hungarian] Indefinite Verbs”

  1. [Hungarian] Verbs: Present Tense (Indefinite) – A nyelvek az életem

    […] To see how and when to use the Indefinite verb conjugation, please go here. […]

    Like

    Reply
  2. [Hungarian] Verbs: Definite vs Indefinite – A nyelvek az életem

    […] To see an in-depth post about Definite verbs, go here.To see an in-depth post about Indefinite verbs, go here. […]

    Like

    Reply
  3. [Hungarian] Conditional Tense (Conjugation) – Better Hungarian Avatar
    [Hungarian] Conditional Tense (Conjugation) – Better Hungarian

    […] Vowel HarmonyVerbs: Definite vs IndefiniteDefinite VerbsIndefinite Verbs […]

    Like

    Reply
  4. Teknik Informatika Avatar
    Teknik Informatika

    Could you provide examples or instances where the indefinite form of a verb is used in Hungarian? Köszönöm Telkom University

    Like

    Reply
  5. Vishal Avatar
    Vishal

    Firstly, thank you for making this website! It looks really good and I will be using it to help me get my head around Hungarian.

    I have a question about c). For the first example ‘Ő lát téged (Xe sees you)’, isn’t this definite, because of the ‘-d’ suffix. The way I am seeing it is like ‘She specifically sees you’, so like out of a crowd of people she sees you.

    Is this because the subject is ‘én’ like you mentioned in the footnote? I feel like I am not understanding something blatantly obvious here.

    Like

    Reply
    1. Ilona Avatar
      Ilona

      Hi! Thank you for your comment and I hope that this site can help you 🙂 For your question, the reason it isn’t definite is because of the specific rules for pronouns. Basically, if én/mi or te/ti is the person being referred to (and the subject is NOT én), the verb is always indefinite. I have a chart here that shows the rules, since they may be a little confusing at first: https://betterhungarian.com/2020/03/02/hungarian-pronouns-and-definite-vs-indefinite-conjugation/
      I hope that helps make sense of it, please don’t hesitate if you have any other questions!

      Like

      Reply
      1. dazzling0b945d9d9d Avatar
        dazzling0b945d9d9d

        Ok, is this one of those things in Hungarian that is just there to make it difficult for learners hahaha.

        So, if I am understanding correctly, The sentence ‘Ask yourself’ would be definite in Hungarian, but ‘Do you like us’ would be indefinite then.

        Also, thank you for the chart! This might take a bit for me to get, but it should start to click with enough practice 😁

        Like

      2. dazzling0b945d9d9d Avatar
        dazzling0b945d9d9d

        Hi again, sorry to be a bother, but I have a question about the chart you made.

        For the part that is ‘Not én’ and the person being referred to is ‘én/mi or te/ti’, why don’t the sentences have the accusative case applied to them (the ‘-t’ suffix’)?

        For example, why is it ‘Ő lát téged’ not ‘Ő lát tégedet’? As, isn’t ‘téged’ the direct object in this sentence?

        Also, this is a bit random, but I was wondering how you type words with accents on your keyboard. I found a very handy tool for windows that lets you type accented characters quite easily. If you are interested I have linked it bellow. Its free and its really helped me with writing things in Duolingo 😂

        PowerToys Quick Accent utility for Windows | Microsoft Learn

        Like

      3. Ilona Avatar
        Ilona

        So, ‘téged’ is already in the accusative case. Most pronouns are irregular and don’t take the typical -t ending you see with nouns. Én becomes engem, te becomes téged, ő becomes őt (that one is simple!), mi becomes minket, ti becomes titeket. Ön/Önök take the typical ending (Önt/Önöket), as do maga/maguk (magát/magukat). So no need to add anything else to them, they all have their own accusative versions 🙂

        My post about the accusative case has a list of the accusative versions of the personal pronouns toward the bottom: https://betterhungarian.com/2018/04/15/hungarian-accusative-case-t-ot-at-et-ot/

        For the accents, I just install the Hungarian keyboard on my computer. You should be able to do this on both Windows PC and Mac computers, it’ll be in your language/regional settings (you just select “add keyboard” and choose the language you want). Then you can switch between keyboards whenever you need to (of course you’ll have to remember where the accented letters are on the keyboard, and some letters like y and z switch places, but with enough practise it’s become easy for me). Thanks for the recommendation though!

        Like

Leave a comment

Previous Post
Next Post