Mini-Lesson: 505 International Words in the Hungarian Language

“Hungarian words have no connection with any language whatsoever.”

“There are absolutely no familiar words in Hungarian. The words simply don’t make any sense to my brain!”

Sounds familiar? These are sentences we frequently hear from our readers and fellow-Hungarian learners. And indeed, Hungarian words can look weird, long and impenetrable at first. If you’re used to speaking and studying Germanic or Romance languages like English, German, Spanish, Italian, Dutch or Portuguese, Hungarian vocabulary can seem truly odd and unusual.

However, luckily these claims and the assumption that Hungarians don’t use any international words is simply not true. In fact there are lots and lots of words that Hungarian adopted from other languages and which are used frequently in everyday speech.

Why International Words are a Valuable Bonus You Shouldn’t Miss out on

So why bother and learn these international words? We consider international words in Hungarian (or, in fact, any) language somewhat our best friends. They’re easy to memorise and give you a great headstart without you having to learn anything, really. Once you went through all of them you’ll be indeed surprised of how much you can say already. Also, learning these words will give you a good feeling for forming Hungarian nouns, verbs and adjectives and they will take away a lot of the fear from learning more odd and unfamiliar words later.

It doesn’t really matter whether you already have a fair amount of vocabulary learned or you’re just starting out. These words are little bonuses that are never too early or too late to apply in the course of your language-learning journey. They are pure genius!

Our List of 505 International Words in the Hungarian Language

In order to spare you the work, we sat down and collected every such word in the Hungarian language that we could possibly think of. The result is an astonishing 505 of them (which even surprised us!). Now before you think that these are abstract terms and expressions that Hungarians never really use in real life anyway, let us tell you that this is really not the case. In fact, many of these international words are ubiquitous in everyday speech and in various situations that you’ll most likely encounter.

We have grouped the words into 17 different categories ranging from food & drinks to sex & dating, politics, religion and a lot more. You can access our list as a printable pdf here.

Disclaimer: Some of these international words in fact do have their Hungarian “counterparts” that a Hungarian would rather use instead. Nevertheless, Hungarians will understand all of these words. So don’t be afraid of using them in real life speech!

Prerequisites: All you’ll need to be familiar with in order to start using this list right away is the Hungarian alphabet and pronunciation.

And now it’s your turn: Do you know any more international words that didn’t make it to our list? Have you already tried learning familiar words in oder to soak up new vocabulary quickly? Share your experiences with us and your fellow Hungarian-learners below, so that we can all learn from each other. Also, don’t forget to tell your friends on and off social media about this resource and article, if it’s been helpful to you.