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Thursday, October 28, 2010

Beginner Hungarian - Teaház (Teahouse - A Hungarian Haiku)

The text of this haiku is to be found on the webpage of the Author. You'll find the audio here.

In Hungarian there are quite a few international words: tea is one of them. Not difficult to guess its meaning.
Ház is related to the German „Haus”, and the English „house” respectively.
Előtt means “in front of”.
Hagyom is the first person singular form for the verb hagy (he lets). What is it I let/leave? Esernyőmet! (esernyő – umbrella ----) esernyőm – my umbrella ----)
esernyőmet – my umbrella (accusative case – the noun is a direct object)
s is a variant for és, both meaning „and”
gond is identical to the Romanian „gînd” (thought)
gondjaim – my thoughts
gondjaimat – (a)t is the accusative case marker. Here the action verb entailing the use of nouns in the accusative case is hagyom (I leave) and it affects both esernyőm and gondjaim (plural genitive case: my thoughts)
The English translation of the haiku is as follows:
I leave my brolly in front of the teahouse, and my thoughts, too.

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