Verbs

Substantive verb
Here you can see the conjugation of the substantive verb lenni (this is the infinitive form of the verb,
so don't worry if you can't observe any similarities between lenni and the following forms; it used to be
useful though to note that in a dictionary, you would have always found the infinitive form of the verbs,
however now, most dictionaries will present the declarative present third person singular) in present
tense, declarative mode (it's also important to know what tense and mode we are in, as you'll perceive
later):
Person Singular

Plural

(n) vagyok (mi) vagyunk

(te) vagy

(ti) vagytok

() van

(k) vannak

(Note: though the formal and official forms of te (maga and n) and ti (maguk and nk) are in second
person, they use the 3rd person verb forms: maga van, n van, maguk vannak, nk vannak)

Omitting "van"
When the subject is in 3rd person, a unique rule is in effect. In these so-called equational
sentences the substantive verb is not used. Later we will learn the cases of the omission, for now
remember only the most common case: when using 3rd person (and the official or formal forms of
2nd person) we don't use the substantive verb (van) when the predicate is an adjective:

A knyv piros. ("The book is red", "The"=A, "book"=knyv, "red"=piros, "is" omitted)

A vros szp. ("The town is beautiful", "The"=A, "town"=vros, "beautiful"=szp, "is" omitted)

Maga fradt. ("You (formal) are tired.", "You"=Maga, "tired"=fradt, "are" omitted)

BUT

n hes vagyok. ("I'm hungry.", it's 1st person, so we don't use the rule)

This rule is used in plural 3rd person as well, we'll see an example when learning the plural form of
nouns and adjectives in the next lesson.

Infinitive
As we mentioned above, in dictionaries you'll find the infinitive form of the verbs that corresponds to
the English "to do something" form. The infinitive always ends in -ni and most of the time you'll get the
singular, 3rd person (present tense, declarative) form of the verb without -ni: Inf.: szeretni ("to love"),
S1: szeret ("he/she loves"); Inf.: lni ("to sit"), S1: l("he/she sits"). Of course, there are exceptions,
but it's a bit too early to care about them. For now, it's fair enough to know what those -nis mean in our
vocabulary.

Verbs and conjugations[edit]

In Hungarian there are only three tenses: past,present and future. In this section we will cover only the
present tense.
Infinitive forms end in "-ni". However in the dictionaries verbs are in present singular 3rd person form.

olvasni to read

olvas reads

Indefinite conjugation of "olvas"

n olvasok ( egy knyvet) I read (a book)

te olvasol

you read (singular you)

olvas

he/she reads

mi olvasunk

we read

ti olvastok

you read (plural you)

k olvasnak

they read

Definite conjugation of "olvas"

n olvasom ( a knyvet) I read ((a specific) book)

te olvasod

you read (singular you)

olvassa

he/she reads

mi olvassuk

we read

ti olvasstok

you read (plural you)

k olvassk

they read