Past tense II

Yesterday we continued learning past tense — now in plural. First part is here:Yesterday we continued learning past tense — now in plural. First part is here:

Grammar

First person

Note: now it’s “we” (“mi”), not “I” (“én”).

1) For regular verbs: add “-tunk/tünk” for indefinite conjugation, “-tuk/-tük” for definite. As always, the right suffix should be chosen based on vowel harmony.

Examples: olvastunk, kértünk, kerestük (definite), főztük

2) Verbs that end with “-ít”, or with two consonants, or short verbs ending with “-t”: add “-ottunk/-ettünk/-öttünk” for indefinite conjugation, “-ottuk/-ettük/-öttük” for definite. So, the principle is the same: for those verbs we need an extra vowel to separate the suffix from the stem, and we also double the “t”.

Examples: hallottunk, segítettünk.

3) Irregular verbs. The general pattern is the same: take an infinitive, remove “-ni” or “-nni” ending, add an appropriate suffix from (1).

Examples: mentünk, jöttünk, ettünk/ettük (unlike singular, this case is different for indefinite/definite conjugations), ittunk/ittuk, tettünk/tettük, vettünk/vettük, vittünk/vittük, hittünk/hittük, aludtunk, feküdtünk, dohányoztunk.

Again, “van” (aka “lenni”) has two variants: “voltunk” (“we were”) and “lettünk” (“we became”).

Second person

In the indefinite case everything is the same as for the first person, but with “-tatok” instead of “-tunk” and “-tetek” instead of “-tünk”. But then Hungarians apparently lost their imaginativeness (is it a word?), so the endings for definite conjugation differ only slightly from indefinite: “-tátok” and “-tétek” respectively. And this applies to all verbs, including irregular ones.

Examples: olvastatok (or “olvastátok”), hallottatok, mentetek (or “mentétek”), voltatok/lettetek etc.

Third person

Here Hungarians’ writing block apparently continues, as definite conjugation is, again, almost the same as indefinite one, differing only in the accent. So, for indefinite conjugation we have “-tak/-tek”, and for definite one — “-ták/-ték”. And again, it applies to all verbs.

Examples: kértek/kérték, segíttetek/segítették, ittak/itták, voltak, lettek

Expressions

We did learn one tongue-twister, it can be found in Alex’s post here:

Dictionary

Quite a few words:

műt — to do a surgery

műtét — surgery

megint — again

furcsa — weird

előrejelzés — forecast

időjárás-előrejelzés — weather forecast

alkalmazás — application

aplikáció — application (really, the same as the previous one)

alkalmaz — to apply, to use

számológép — calculator (and computers have a more fancy word: számítógép)

hasznos — useful

használ — to use

létezik — to exist

nem sokal többet — not much more

egyesszám — singular

többesszám — plural

szöveg — text

mind a kettő — both; can be shortened to “mindkettő”

tett — action

tettes — culprit, offender

elvetemült — evil