this post was submitted on 20 Jul 2024
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[–] [email protected] 54 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (4 children)

Yes our alphabet is absolute shit. S is sh, sz is s, zs is like s in pleasure. Of course english is much worse but hungarian is a strange combination of having a goofy alphabet and writing in general but it actually follows its own rules so its predictable and hungarians will always write the same thing in the same way. Other goofy things about the hungarian alphabet and writing:

  • there are letters that are actually 2 or 3 letters combined like sz, cs, ty, dzs, etc
  • even tho we have ty, ny, gy, ly; the traditional hungarian alphabet does not contain y(even tho we have some names with y in them but they come from other languages) so some old hungarian fonts only contain a small y and not the capital version Y
  • yes we have a letter that is made up of three and in some cases due to grammar you can have a version that is 4 letters long. This is because we have long and short consonants. So cs becomes ccs and sz becomes ssz and in very very rare cases the dzs can become ddzs which is horrifying. But we of course have words which have a a doubled up version instead of a long version because they are compound words so instead of kulccsomó its kulcscsomó
[–] teft 15 points 3 months ago (2 children)

Spanish is similar. Things are pronounced the way they are written. Made learning it way easier than my friends who went the other direction learning english.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 months ago

Yeah im so happy i grew up in ireland and hungary so i know english to a native level. Hungarian is just a cool conversation starter. I had one year of spanish and the whole phonetic system is really easy, my only problem was the 1 million different conjugations you had to learn. From what i heard english is still worse because you just kinda imply tenses and most people dont have the feel for it.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 months ago (1 children)

There's always a trade-off that makes it difficult it seems. I struggle mightily with Spanish conjugation and gender without having to think about it. In English those two are much less of a concern, but at the cost of having a much stricter word order requirement and our mishmash of word pronunciation from all the French loanwords.

[–] Ultraviolet 2 points 3 months ago

English used to have that. The -eths and -ests that people tack onto random words in a terrible attempt to evoke Early Modern English are supposed to follow similar rules to Spanish verb endings because they're fundamentally the same thing.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Hard disagree. Your alphabet slaps and once you learn the rules, pronounciation is crystal clear from the way something is written.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 months ago

Its kinda strange because most foreigners who know about hungarian think its a pretty cool little language but in hungary they have to make it a nationalism thing for some reason and that alienates the youth. Like in school they still have to point out the fact that technically Q W X Y is not a part of the alphabet so dont use words with it(a lot of surnames literally have y's in them...). While in sweden where i live now everyone uses whatever they want because language is about expressing yourself.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (2 children)

When I was in Budapest on a school trip in 2002, I remember being so relieved upon realizing that our tram stop was pretty much pronounced the way it was written: Nepliget

EDIT: Now that I think about it, maybe the T was silent? It feels like a lifetime ago, so I don't remember.

Loved the city and the street food, by the way. Sausages were a dirt cheap and delicious snack when just loafing around the city.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 months ago

Yeah Népliget lol. The t isnt silent. Hungarian doesnt really have silent letters but some letter combinations have rules for easier pronounciation like adta is pronounced atta usually. Sometimes the n on the end of a word is left off in speech but in places where this is common they sometimes even call this a dialect and write it that way because if you dont hear it you wont write it down.

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[–] [email protected] 31 points 3 months ago

Sean Connery: I don't get it?

[–] [email protected] 21 points 3 months ago (2 children)

This is a sign on the road to Budapesht near the border between Ukraine and Hungary. There's the weird insistence in Ukraine to do a one-to-one transliteration of Cyrillic to Latin without much thought, so Ш just becomes SH... Google Maps link: https://maps.app.goo.gl/YyzH7xx7gWNJCcqA6

[–] riodoro1 6 points 3 months ago (1 children)

In polish we say and write Budapeszt.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 3 months ago (1 children)

In polish you do almost anythig for those crazy Scrabble scores.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

Polish Scrabble has just 1 point for Z. Meanwhile, the Czech spelling Budapešť uses the 7-point Ť!

[–] angrystego 3 points 3 months ago

First I didn't know what was wrong, only saw the cyrillic version. Then I noticed they transcribed it back to Latin in a different way to the original - that's mindblowing! I also kinda read it as bud ape shit.

[–] cmder 14 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I say Paris but here it sounds like Paris.

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[–] solrize 14 points 3 months ago (5 children)

The real test is Montreal.

[–] ivanafterall 16 points 3 months ago (5 children)

Louisville, KY is neither of the pronunciations you're thinking.

[–] colforge 15 points 3 months ago (1 children)
[–] ivanafterall 10 points 3 months ago

Also occasionally sounded like Lull-vull.

[–] thesporkeffect 5 points 3 months ago
[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 months ago

"LUH-vull."

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

As a Craig Ferguson enthusiast, I know for a fact It's pronounced "Wrvrl"

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 3 months ago (1 children)
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[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 months ago

As long as anglophone Canadians say Montree-all, I'll take that as the correct pronounciation lol

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 3 months ago (2 children)

Germans when pronouncing the name of the Seine river:

„𝑍𝔢𝑦𝔫𝔢!“

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[–] ccunning 12 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Where does Hawai’i vs Hawaii fall on the scale?

[–] ivanafterall 12 points 3 months ago

I believe the whiter you are, the more stank you're supposed to put on the "'i."

[–] [email protected] 10 points 3 months ago (2 children)

It’s possible to take this too far, like mispronouncing “Beijing” as “bei-zhing” because it sounds more foreign and gives the impression of being educated and well-traveled.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 3 months ago

TIL it's not bei zhing

[–] feedum_sneedson 3 points 3 months ago (2 children)

This will sound weird, but if I say it "in English" it's Bei-zhing, and if I say it in Chinese it's Běi-jīng, and that J isn't really a phoneme we have in English anyway. So nobody's really pronouncing it right.

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[–] Droggelbecher 9 points 3 months ago (2 children)

Kinda opposite where I live because we speak a dialect (of German) where s gets turned into sh

[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 months ago (2 children)
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[–] Vinny_93 7 points 3 months ago (2 children)

Saying Ahmsterdahm instead of emsterdem

[–] edgemaster72 15 points 3 months ago

ermagerd, Emsterdem!

[–] [email protected] 8 points 3 months ago (2 children)

That's just common sense. Who would say emsterdem?

[–] Vinny_93 3 points 3 months ago (1 children)
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[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 months ago

I just say Budapesht because I liked Castlevania.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 months ago (1 children)

My German father, who lived and worked in Budapest for a long time, pronounced it wrong. I rarely have cause to use the name but when I do, I try to do it justice.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 3 months ago (5 children)

I wouldn't say it's wrong if he pronounced it the German way in German speech. I mean I also don't go around saying My grandma lives is Moskwa and I met my husband in Sankt Peterburg just to keep the native pronunciation. If he talks Hungarian and pronounces it wrong within a Hungarian sentence though...

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[–] teft 4 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

The one that always makes me laugh is any time someone has Pablo Escobar without a Paisa accent. In the accent Pablo should have, the city he is from (Medellin) is pronounced Med-uh-jean, not Med-uh-yeen.

There are other words and phrases that you can tell when the actor isn’t colombian paisa but that’s the biggest.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 months ago (2 children)
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[–] butwhyishischinabook 3 points 3 months ago (4 children)

Now I'm having flashbacks to how horribly every city was pronounced in that Dracula anime lol

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[–] lath 3 points 3 months ago

At one point in time, I was told Budapest could be translated as "shit-stirrer" and that memory resurfaces occasionally.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 months ago

Saying yob instead of job

Saying isstree instead of history

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