Better Hungarian

The causative “case”¹ in Hungarian indicates that someone (or something) is being made to do something. It doesn’t necessarily mean by force, but can also refer to having someone do something as a favor, or having somebody follow instructions. If you’re familiar with Japanese 〜させる, -(t)at/-(t)et works about the same.

¹some people might call it a “tense” or “mood”, and I wouldn’t say either is incorrect.

-(t)at/-(t)et works like -hat/-het in that you place this suffix directly after the verb stem. You will still keep the same conjugation at the end depending on the subject. The suffix basically goes between the verb stem and the conjugated ending.

I recommend reading vowel harmony if you haven’t already, as it explains how to choose the correct variant of the ending.

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Suffix Variants

I found some “rules” on this, but they were too inconsistent for me. There are always exceptions to any rule, but I wanted to try to give a better approximation of the general pattern that I’ve come across. I put the word most in front of each category, because frankly there are a lot of verbs and I’m sure that they have more exceptions than what I’ve found.

Wikipedia mentions “verbs ending in a vowel”, but that never occurs in Hungarian except for a few really archaic words, so it really won’t apply. In general, Hungarian verb stems will end in at least one consonant.

Again, these ‘rules’ are not 100% comprehensive and they have exceptions, but these patterns can at least give you a good guess.

• most -ik verbs (when verb stem ends in 1 consonant): -tat/-tet
• most verbs ending in 2 consonants: -at/-et¹
• most verbs ending in 1 consonant: -at/-et²
• most verbs ending in -ít: -tat/-tet

¹When a verb stem already ends in 2 consonants, we don’t want to add more, so instead of -tat/-tet, we would put -at/-et.

²This is the one I’ve seen the most inconsistency with. Generally, 1 consonant = -at/-et (except for -ik verbs), but there are many regular 1-consonant verb stems that take -tat/-tet as well. It’s one of those things you’ll pick up as you advance and learn more vocabulary.

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Examples

Note: ‘to make someone cry’ is not sírat, as you might assume. In this case, the older verb rí (to weep) is used, and becomes ríkat. The reason for that is because sirat actually means “to weep, mourn for/over someone or something”.

működik (to function, work) > működ + -tet = működtet (to operate/run something)
literally: to make something work/function (as it should)

fürdik (to bathe oneself) > fürd + -et = fürdet (to give someone (else) a bath)

kihúz (to take out, extract) > kihúz + -at = kihúzat (to have something taken out, extracted, removed)

tisztít (to clean) > tisztít + –tat = tisztíttat (to have something cleaned, to have someone clean something)

tanít (to teach) > tanít + -tat = taníttat (to have someone, typically one’s child, educated or taught)

keres (to search, look for) > keres¹ + -tet = kerestet (to have someone/something looked for, to send for someone)

¹As you can see, this doesn’t follow the ‘pattern’ listed above, as it ends in only 1 consonant, yet takes -tet instead of -et.

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Examples in Context

Tudod működtetni¹ ezt a gépet? (Can you make/get this machine to work?)

¹The meaning here is closer to ‘do you know how to operate this machine’? Működtet is fairly official.

A kisfiám utálja, amikor fürdetem (My little boy hates when I give him a bath)

Holnap kell mennem a fogorvoshoz. Kihúzatom a fogam (I have to go to the dentist tomorrow. I’m getting/having a tooth pulled out)

Tisztíttatom a kedvenc ruhámat a holnapi bulira (I’m having my favorite dress cleaned for the party tomorrow)

Nem azért taníttatom a lányomat a drága magániskolában, hogy aztán fodrász legyen belőle! (I’m not having my daughter taught at this expensive private school just so that she can be a hairdresser afterwards)

A húgommal¹ kerestetem a cipőimet, mert ő az, aki elvesztette (I’m making my sister look for my shoes, because she is the one who lost them)

¹If it’s a case of making somebody do something, then the person being made to do the action will take -val/-vel.