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Is Hungarian easy for a Finnish speaker? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| Verikukko Diglot Newbie Finland Joined 3977 days ago 8 posts - 12 votes Speaks: Finnish*, English Studies: Korean | Message 1 of 22 03 February 2014 at 7:53am | IP Logged | ||
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And Finnish for a Hungarian speaker?
I'm not interested in learning Hungarian though, just something I am curious of. Like Swedish is related to English and very easy to learn compared to most other languages, is it the same with Hungarian and Finnish since they are related? Or are they so distantly related that it doesn't really help? Sorry if I posted to wrong forum section, had trouble deciding where it belongs. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6707 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes  Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 2 of 22 03 February 2014 at 9:48am | IP Logged | ||
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I can't help you with yout question, but I have moved the thread to the section for specific languages.
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| Hungringo Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 3992 days ago 168 posts - 329 votes Speaks: Hungarian*, English, Spanish Studies: French | Message 3 of 22 03 February 2014 at 10:58am | IP Logged | ||
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I am Hungarian and for me Finnish is extremely difficult. The relationship between Hungarian and Finnish is not like between Swedish and English rather like between Swedish and Greek.
Transparency between Finnish and Hungarian is basically zero. As I said to a compatriot of yours a few weeks ago: if you give me newspapers in all European languages I will be able to gather some information in all of them with the sole exception of Finnish which is supposed to be related to my native tongue. Edited by Hungringo on 03 February 2014 at 12:48pm 9 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 7160 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes 20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish | Message 4 of 22 03 February 2014 at 4:59pm | IP Logged | ||
I'm not sure how it fits in the question about how easy these languages are for native speakers of other Uralic languages to learn but Kuunhalme long ago briefly expressed his view about them as a native Finn in this post. You may find some commentary and links to related discussions in the Finno-Ugric Profile (scroll down to 'LINKS' and 'COMMENTS FROM THOSE WHO HAVE “BEEN THERE” WITH AT LEAST TWO FINNO-UGRIC LANGUAGES') 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Hungringo Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 3992 days ago 168 posts - 329 votes Speaks: Hungarian*, English, Spanish Studies: French | Message 5 of 22 03 February 2014 at 6:18pm | IP Logged | ||
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Chung, I am going through the thread you've recommended and I have just come across a suggestion about Basque as being the non plus ultra in difficulty. From a Hungarian point of view and as someone who spent roughly 2 months familiarizing with Finnish and roughly 6 months very lightly studying Basque, I'd say that for a native Hungarian speaker Basque is way much easier than the language of our Finnish cousins.
For a monolingual Finn probably Estonian would be the easiest language to learn, for a monolingual Hungarian it would be more likely Turkish. Edited by Hungringo on 03 February 2014 at 6:37pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Gunshy Diglot Newbie United Kingdom Joined 4121 days ago 28 posts - 37 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: French | Message 6 of 22 04 February 2014 at 3:55pm | IP Logged | ||
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From someone who speaks neither natively who's been learning Hungarian for a number of years, I feel if I were to tackle Finnish at some stage I wouldn't be able to stop comparing the similarities and differences, and that additional reference would help me soak up the grammar. To me there's hardly any superficial transperancy between the two, but surely a native Hungarian speaker or vice-versa who has a strong command in their native language could learn the other without too much difficulty...
One thing I'd definitely struggle with learning Finnish is the low number of resources and opportunities to speak the language compared to Hungarian. You wouldn't think it, but there's so much Hungarian on the web (and second-hand book shops are everywhere you look in Hungary). I couldn't live without that luxury if I were to rarely visit Finland... Edited by Gunshy on 04 February 2014 at 3:55pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 7160 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes 20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish | Message 7 of 22 04 February 2014 at 4:49pm | IP Logged | ||
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The divergence between Hungarian and Finnish is quite wide despite the broad typological similarities and recognizable similarities in a small stock of basic lexicon (see here for some examples).
I thought similarly to you when I started to study Estonian (and subsequently Finnish) after having studied Hungarian for several years, but over time have found the similarity exaggerated. They are indeed about as divergent from each other as Swedish and Greek but it's just that there are only three national Uralic languages. Observers and native speakers readily associate the three with each other regardless of how divergent Hungarian actually is from Estonian and Finnish. In a similar way when you look at university faculties outside Estonia, Finland, Hungary or even Russia, the Uralic languages (if they are offered) are usually administered together. This would be comparable to an university subsuming all of the Indo-European languages into one faculty rather than the more frequent practice of having separate faculties for Germanic languages, Slavonic languages, Romance languages and Indo-Aryan languages. On resources, Finnish is very well-served considering the size and dispersion of its speech community. See here for what's available (scroll down to "Links"). However if you wanted to travel for the sake of practicing your target language then spending a vacation in Finland is on average more expensive than doing the same in Hungary (or Slovakia, Romania and Serbia which also have enclaves of Hungarians). 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| YnEoS Senior Member United States Joined 4258 days ago 472 posts - 893 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Russian, Cantonese, Japanese, French, Hungarian, Czech, Swedish, Mandarin, Italian, Spanish | Message 8 of 22 04 February 2014 at 5:08pm | IP Logged | ||
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Out of curiosity, are there any languages that would act as a bridge between Hungarian and Finnish, and would have transparencies with both languages and perhaps reveal some of their distant association?
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