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Hungary is one of the most popular tourist cities in Europe due to its unique architectural style and deep history. The Hungarian language, also known as “Magyar”, is spoken by 13 million people and is one of the most flexible languages out there.
Since books are among the most successful ways to learn a language, in today’s article, I’ll walk you through 8 of the best books to learn Hungarian that are available on the market.
Let’s dive right in!
1. Get Started in Hungarian Absolute Beginner Course
The Get Started in Hungarian book belongs to the ultra-popular “Get Started” series that teaches beginners a wide range of languages from all over the world!
What’s unique about this book is that it is designed for those who like the traditional lesson-based approach to teaching. With this book, you’ll receive 10 units that progress in complexity to teach you all the basic skills of reading, writing, speaking, and listening in Hungarian.
In addition to the language training, the book is also considered a nice resource about Hungarian culture, as it contains a variety of cultural notes about the people of Hungary.
The book also comes with an online audio feature that can help you improve your Hungarian pronunciation skills. In addition to all that, the book is rich in exercises that will help test your progress and memorize grammar rules.
Key features:
- Comes with free audio transcripts from a native speaker
- Excellent choice for day 1 beginners
- Features multiple lists of activities to help you learn more vocabulary
2. Complete Hungarian: Teach Yourself
As the name suggests, Complete Hungarian is ideal for everyone interested in learning Hungarian on their own. The book is a complete course for a beginner with little to no Hungarian background.
The author of this book is Zsuzsanna Pontifex, who is a native Hungarian with a high degree in the language. She sets the Language Exam for the Hungarian Foreign Office, so it’s an excellent book to consider if you’re planning to take the exam!
Moreover, the book comes with extra learning material in terms of audio and a mobile app to help you get familiar with Hungarian phonetics.
Key features:
- Written by a native language expert
- Remarkably thorough curriculum
- Activities to keep the learning process engaging and fun
- Continuously revised with new exercises and activities
3. Colloquial Hungarian: Complete Course for Beginners
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Colloquial Hungarian is a rich resource for learning Hungarian as a beginner. The book is packed with lessons and instructions for grammar and sentence structure as well as various dialogues.
The book feels interactive with tons of exercises to retain information with a pronunciation and vocabulary guide. It also has a small glossary in the background that includes a lot of terms and expressions, offering a good reference to the language.
The book focuses on all essential language skills, including listening, writing, reading, and speaking.
Key features:
- Excellent resource for self-learners as well as study groups
- Entertaining yet highly informative language course
- Features a small glossary at the end of the book
4. Hungarian: An Essential Grammar
The Hungarian language can actually be a little challenging for a beginner, especially with its wide range of vowel harmony, verbal prefixes, and word order as well as irregular nouns and verbs.
For that reason, you might need a comprehensive essential grammar guide that will help you through all that, and this is where this book comes in handy!
Hungarian: An Essential Grammar explains these grammar rules in simple methods and uses tons of examples to provide context and help you memorize them easily.
Key features:
- Well-written and easily explained
- A comprehensive reference for Hungarian grammar
- An excellent step up for beginners with a limited background in the language
5. Learn Hungarian with Short Stories
If the concept of learning through short stories is suitable for you, you should definitely consider this book.
Learn Hungarian with Short Stories is produced by HypLern, which is a successful series of language learning books that specialize in teaching the language by means of storytelling using simple language.
This style makes the learning process more engaging and fun, which encourages you to stick to your schedule, especially for a difficult language like Hungarian.
The book is available as a paperback and on Kindle and includes a selection of the best short stories by classic Hungarian writers, such as Frigyes Karinthy, Zsigmond Móricz, and Ambrus Zoltán. It helps you learn thousands of new vocabulary within an understandable context, which then allows you to predict and memorize the meaning of the words very easily.
Key features:
- An excellent showcase of Hungarian vocabulary and grammar
- Display some cultural notes within the stories
- Fun and engaging stories to facilitate learning for beginners
6. Learn Hungarian with Fairy Tales
This book is also a product of the HypLern Series of books. In other words, if you enjoyed the “Learn Hungarian with Short Stories” book, you’re going to love this one, and vice versa!
Similar to the previous one, Learn Hungarian with Fairy Tales also contains a wide range of Hungarian fairy tales, which makes it a massively practical way to learn more about Hungarian culture without spending extra time on it.
The book is relatively smaller than the previous one, but it’s full of new vocabulary and terms that make it an excellent read in addition to being a reliable source of language education!
Key features:
- Written in a simple style that is easy to understand
- Available on Kindle and comes with a free audio version for proper pronunciation of words
- Highly entertaining yet informative source of Hungarian vocabulary
7. Learn Hungarian: 2000 Key Vocabularies
One of the most important aspects of improving your level of any language is to know a wide range of words and how to pronounce them.
Lucky for you, there are some books that include the most commonly used and essential words in a language, which help you improve significantly in aspects of reading, writing, speaking, and listening.
This book will help you ramp up your inventory of Hungarian language vocabulary by up to 2,000 words. This can speed up your learning process significantly and give you a boost in confidence while learning grammar!
The book also includes all these words and terms in practical sentences to give you a decent context and help you memorize them. Moreover, every 25 new words are followed by a brief workbook-style drill to help you test your level of progression.
Key features:
- Excellent for increasing your vocabulary
- Contain some common phrases in addition to terms and words
- Put the words in sentences to memorize them easily.
8. Berlitz Language: Hungarian Phrase Book
Let’s be honest, many beginner Hungarian learners are just looking for some simple expressions and phrases that can help them communicate with native speakers on their trip to Hungary.
In that case, the best thing to consider is a book that provides you with a brief introduction to the language through essential phrases for communication.
This Berlitz Phrasebook is arranged in categories to make it easier to organize your learning process. Of course, this book is an unconventional way to learn the language, but it’s excellent for those who are traveling to the country in the near future!
The book also contains various cultural notes to help you communicate with the locals.
Key features:
- Ideal for travelers to Hungary
- A highly practical source of phrases
- Contains up to 1,700 new words
Wrap up
There you have it — a brief list that walks you through some of the best books to help you learn Hungarian as a beginner. Don’t forget to complement these with Hungarian learning apps.
Although Hungarian is relatively complex and fairly unique to many other languages, having the right tools to learn the language will make your journey a lot easier!
Ideally, I’d recommend the Get Started in Hungarian Absolute Beginner Course as the first book to pick because it’s an excellent choice for anyone starting from scratch and contains all the grammar and vocab necessary to take you to the next level!