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Budapest in 9 days. What to do? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Advice Center |  | |
| Gallo1801 Diglot Senior Member Spain Joined 4699 days ago 164 posts - 248 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Arabic (Written), Croatian, German, French | Message 1 of 11 08 May 2012 at 3:17am | IP Logged | ||
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Just put down a few euros for a weekend getaway to Budapest in 9 days. I have not the
slightest idea about Hungarian, except that it's Uralic and hard... Any advice on what to do before heading over there? Besides travel time, I'm looking at like 2 hours of time before now and then to devote to Hungarian study, but I want to at least try and learn the typical tourist jargon. Given that it looks totally foreign compared to most other European languages, it looks like I might just have to smile and nod a lot/use Globish. When I went to Italy, really not knowing Italian, I was able to play it by ear, but I don't think so with Magyar. At least written it looks like Klingon or Navi wish they could be. Thanks! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| hrhenry Octoglot Senior Member United States languagehopper.blogs Joined 4927 days ago 1871 posts - 3642 votes Speaks: English*, SpanishC2, ItalianC2, Norwegian, Catalan, Galician, Turkish, Portuguese Studies: Polish, Indonesian, Ojibwe | Message 2 of 11 08 May 2012 at 3:28am | IP Logged | ||
The last time I went to Budapest (2008), I ended up not needing anything other than English, although I stayed on the Pest side, only wandering over to the Buda side a couple times. Pretty much every shop or restaurant I went into, English seemed to be the default for all tourists. I had bought a phrasebook in an airport in Spain when I went, thinking I'd need it, but never really did. That said, big smiles came over people's faces whenever I said "kérem" and "köszönöm", so speaking it seemed very appreciated. R. == 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Merv Bilingual Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5070 days ago 414 posts - 749 votes Speaks: English*, Serbo-Croatian* Studies: Spanish, French | Message 3 of 11 08 May 2012 at 6:23am | IP Logged | ||
For such a short trip, your best bet is to ignore the language as such and just learn how to pronounce text (so you can find stores, restaurants, stations, etc. based on what people tell you). I remember being in Greece and hearing about a great restaurant called "Beri-beri." I kept on looking for something with a logo like Βερι-Βερι, when I really should have been looking for Μπερι-Μπερι. We lost about an hour wandering about because I didn't realize that in modern Greek beta is pronounced like a "v." Just read up on everything you want to see and do some research to look for fee-free access, extended/evening hours for museums, maps to help you plan your walking in Budapest, etc. With 9 days, you can probably see everything in Budapest there is, plus some of the environs. I'm a tad jealous. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 6953 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes 20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish | Message 4 of 11 08 May 2012 at 7:01am | IP Logged | ||
Watch at least some of the videos or read some of the tips here for bit on Hungarian for survival. The tips for tourists are generally accurate even though they were made about 10 years ago (I didn't pick up anything inaccurate on the site compared to what I've seen in Budapest with my latest trip there made last year). For some tips, here's the Couchsurfing Wiki for the city. Hope for good weather as Budapest is a great place for wandering. Nightlife can be fantastic but like anywhere it helps to know local people. If you're on Couchsurfing, you may be able to get wind of some night-out or house party with other Couchsurfers (locals and travellers alike). Assuming that you're a young heterosexual man, I'd leave the most important tip as to avoid hot Hungarian girls approaching you on the popular and lively Váci utca (Váci St.) as these may be "Konzum lányok" ("consumption girls"). I was approached by a pair once but brushed them off by telling them (in Hungarian so as to emphasize that I wouldn't join them) that I was in a hurry because I was late for a meeting with some friends. Hungarian girls are often hot, yes, but better to be safe than sorry (anyway with a bit of luck and on a return visit, you can find lots of them who aren't konzum lányok :-)) Jó utat! ([Have a] good trip!) P.S. Further to the point about girls on Váci utca, don't even think of going to strip clubs there (I'm not speaking from experience, mind you, as my friends there have regularly kept me out of trouble). Some of those places have a nasty reputation of scamming unaware foreigners. Edited by Chung on 08 May 2012 at 7:06am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| tractor Tetraglot Senior Member Norway Joined 5250 days ago 1349 posts - 2292 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Spanish, Catalan Studies: French, German, Latin | Message 5 of 11 08 May 2012 at 7:08am | IP Logged | ||
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When I visited Budapest a few years back, I was surprised by the number of waiters and shop attendants I overheard
talking to customers in Spanish. Anyway, as long as you stick to the typical tourist areas, you'll be fine with English. If you have no particular interest in Hungarian, I agree with Merv: Learn the basic pronunciation rules. Most important of all: Enjoy your stay there! Edited by tractor on 08 May 2012 at 7:10am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Gallo1801 Diglot Senior Member Spain Joined 4699 days ago 164 posts - 248 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Arabic (Written), Croatian, German, French | Message 7 of 11 10 May 2012 at 12:57am | IP Logged | ||
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@everyone Thanks for the advice!
@chung Haha to the girls thing. I've read/heard about that from a lot of sources. It seems that Prague and Budapest really are the porn capitals of the world... Will not be getting in to any trouble with that. @tractor Interesting about the Spanish! I wonder if I can get people to speak Spanish to me. I know English is the world language, but I hate using it. That's good about the English (and Spanish!). I am still going to try and use the phrasebooky type phrases. I like to try and speak the local language out of respect, and will switch to English once they get tired of my botched pronunciation! haha 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Volte Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 6236 days ago 4474 posts - 6726 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 8 of 11 10 May 2012 at 10:03am | IP Logged | ||
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For when you're there, I've got to recommend Napfényes Étterem, a restaurant. It has a fairly wide variety of dishes, including takes on some Hungarian classics. It might be the best vegan restaurant I've ever eaten at - the food was all very delicious. The people working there also seemed to speak quite a lot of languages, though I'm not sure about Spanish.
Aside from that, I second the advice above. Being able to read words out understandably and say köszönöm / köszi goes a long way. Walking across a bridge over the river is also worth doing. Have fun! 1 person has voted this message useful |
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