my new way of learning Hungarian

I find it a bit tricky to learn Hungarian I must admit. Or not only tricky but actually very difficult. Other languages I tried I have learnt relatively quickly, but maybe I just don't match with Hungarian. Sometimes I'm thinking of how fast I would probably have learnt the language if I would have been in almost any other country.. Anyway, now I somehow feel more motivated to learn. This doesn't mean that I will learn but at least the attitude is the right one.. :)

The good places to practice..
So far I liked to practiced at the market on Saturdays. There, the topics are limited to "are the apples good" "how much does it cost" or asking for something that I cannot see directly on the table... Even if I really like to practice with these small and friendly ladies, the topics are limited however.

Lehel market - quite a good place to learn Hungarian

I also practice with the taxi drivers and the people working in my little shop down the street. and other friendly people I come across. Maybe I should take a course, I have been thinking of it, but my level is so strange. I know many words, I understand quite a bit, but my capability of putting together sentences is limited... so which level to join??

A new way of learning
Anyway, the last month I found the perfect way of learning!!! I go for manicure and pedicure every week and this is my hour to practice Hungarian. The girl is really friendly and she doesn't speak English which makes it the perfect occasion to do conversation practice and the topics are more varied than at the market. She is also very patient, and together we do communicate quite well I must say.

my nails are not as nice yet.. but soon soon! :)

Today we were speaking about my trip to Frankfurt and she asked what I bought. I didn't know the word for candle so I told her that I bought a "kis naturel lampa" :) :) and imitated how to light a candle with matches. She smiled alot and told me the Hungarian word: gyertya. I then could tell her that I found those wax candles at the market that we use to have at home when I was a child and we continued speaking about many other small things.. like weekend plans, company christmas parties, and more..

I feel very happy about this new way of learning. Of course some studying would also do good, but right now I'm quite satisfied with my little progress I'm doing at the Szepsegszalon ...:) As she is listening to me, repeating and talking in a comprehensive way I'm gaining confidence with this Magyar language. Also she is very friendly and the best is that my hands and feet are being taken care of at the same time...:) so I think 8 euro is well worth the money!!

Dutch - a new dimension to the street sign game

Pretending to be a serious blogger and no posting for a week or so... To my defence, I've been to Holland for a few days and what a pleasure it is to get away from computers, internet and other electronic stuff for a while.

the street-sign-game
For me, a Swede in Hungary, the street signs and advertisement are more part of the game “Guess what is written here..” than actual information. A player in this game gets points every time she understands a word with the final aim to get a full sentence and hopefully to learn some new words or grammar constructions. This game has the great feature that the full message is in many cases lost and the player can escape all stupidities violating our public space such as “How to loose 15 kilos by eating a lots of Christmas food” or "which famous person did what kind of un-interesting things lately".

the Dutch language - a Swedish perspective..
The same game in Holland is very easy, almost too easy. Again, I realised that Dutch (atleast in a written form) is so similar to Swedish. Walking on the street, everything seems to be a bit misspelled (hehe) but it is still very understandable. In addition to all the words that are almost like in Swedish (straks, begreipen, stroom and many more), there are many words inspired from English and also of course with Latin origin. At an outdoor bar, I realised that I can even order my orange juice in French - jus d’orange.. :) What concerns the rest you can easily imagine it from German, even the grammar structure is similar to German. So, as conclusion, if the Dutch language didn’t have all those crazy “hrrch” sound in almost every word, it would be the most easy language to learn!

Maybe one day, I'll give it a try and become one of the 5 millions who have Dutch as a second language. It may even be proven to be useful; Dutch is actually the native language in several countries and also the official one in three Unions. Knowledge of Dutch can also be useful if you want to learn some of the creole languages or Afrikaans. Apparently, also in Namibia many people can understand it. However, without moving to one of these countries it may not be worth it – most Dutch people has a really high level of English and other languages...

Of course, this is not news to anyone, Swedish and Dutch are naturally similar, both being members of the Germanic languages family (North respective West, but still..). Anyhow, I was very happy to play my street-sign-understanding-game in Holland and to bring it to another dimension with the Dutch…:)

And if anyone got tempted to learn.. here is a nice free online course:
http://learndutch.elanguageschool.net/