Verb conjugation 3 – verbs that break vowel harmony

As you already know, vowel harmony is especially important in Hungarian. It is there… everywhere!
So let us repeat the main rules:

• words containing back vowels (a, á, o, ó, u, ú) take endings with back vowels
• words containing front vowels take endings with front vowels (e, é, i, í, ö, ő, ü, ű)

Verb conjugation 2 – the -ik verbs

 

If you have read my previous post on verb, you already know the basic and most common verb conjugation (verb conjugation 1) in Hungarian.

 

Now let’s see another type of verbs. These verbs caused me a lot of problem as a child, because they need an additional -ik only in the 3rd person form. Children tend to overgenerize, what means if they learn a rule, they apply it everywhere. At around age 4 I knew, that some verbs needed the -ik. So what did I do? I added it to all verbs! My mom told me, not to do that. So what did I do after that? I left it out everywhere, even in the verbs that needed it 🙂 You see, it is not easy for children either 🙂

 

E.g. the verb “ül” (to sit) does not have an -ik an, but the verb “játszik” (to play) does. So I would start saying “ülik” which is nonsense in this case. After my mom told me not to do that, I started saying word like “játsz” which is also nonsense in this case.

 

Ok, that was my little story, and now let here stand your story 🙂

 

What you need to know is that there are just a few verbs that take -ik in the 3rd person. You will be able to learn them as they come along the way.

 

Click below to continue and you will read why these verbs are different and which are these verbs.

 

-ik verbs in Hungarian

Verb conjugation 1 – regular verbs 3 + summing it all up

In the previous posts we saw regular verb conjugation in the present tense.

 

Before we continue let’s repeat, what we’ve learned:

 

Endings of verbs that contain back vowels a, á, o, ó, u, ú:

1st singular: -ok             1st plural: -unk
2nd singular: -sz            2nd plural: -tok
3rd singular: —              3rd plural: -nak

Endings of verbs that contain front vowels e, é, i, í:
1st singular: -ek             1st plural: -ünk
2nd singular: -sz            2nd plural: -tek
3rd singular: —             3rd plural: -nek

End the endings of present tense for verbs that also contain rounded front vowels ö, ő, ü, ű:
1st singular: -ök             1st plural: -ünk
2nd singular: -sz            2nd plural: -tök
3rd singular: —             3rd plural: -nek

Verb conjugation 1 – regular verbs 2

In the previous post we saw regular verb conjugation in the present tense. Before we continue with verbs, let’s repeat a little bit what we learned about regular verbs:

• infinitives of Hungarian verbs end in -ni;
• to get the form of the 3rd singular, simply leave out the -ni ending;
• in order to conjugate your verb in the present tense (get the other forms of the verb) you need to add personal endings to the form of 3rd singular;
• you need to remember vowel harmony and be very careful with it.

 

In the previous post you saw back vowel verbs. Now let’s see 2 front vowel verbs:

Verb conjugation 1 – regular verbs 1

An infinitive of a Hungarian verb will have a -ni ending. So it is like: várni, tanulni. But if you look up a word in the dictionary you will find in it forms of the 3rd singular. To get the form of the 3rd singular, simply “delete” the -ni ending. In order to conjugate your verb in the present tense (get the other forms of the verb) you need to add personal endings to the form of 3rd singular.
 

You need to remember vowel harmony and be very careful with it: words containing back vowels (a, á, o, ó, u, ú) take endings with back vowels and words containing front vowels take endings with front vowels (e, é, i, í, ö, ő, ü, ű) – well, at least mainly 🙂