Vocabulary (Review)

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Lesson Transcript

Sziasztok, Lívia vagyok! Hi everybody! I’m Livia.
Welcome to HungarianPod101.com’s “Magyar nyelvleckék három percben”. The fastest, easiest, and most fun way to learn Hungarian.
In the last lesson, we learned how to talk about nationality.
In this lesson, we’re going to learn about the verb van meaning “to be”. This is the second part of our lesson about this verb.
Van is also used to talk about location, to say things like "I am in the street" or "He is in the room", so it's very useful!
When you want to know where something or someone is, you use the verb van in Hungarian. Don’t forget that like all verbs, this too has to be conjugated for the subject and in present or past tense.
Let’s see the conjugation of the verb van in present tense.
vagyok - “I am”
vagy - “you are”
van - “He/she/it is”
vagyunk - “We are”
vagytok - “You are”
vannak - “They are”
For example, when someone asks you on the phone Hol vagy? That means "Where are you?" in an informal way.
Let's break it down.
Hol means "Where"
vagy is the conjugated form of van, meaning “you are”.
All together it is Hol vagy?
[slowly] Hol vagy?
Answering this question is a bit tricky, but not too hard. You say the place where you are and add a suffix that means “in that place”. The verb vagyok comes last.
The issue of which suffix to use is too complicated for this lesson, but you will use one of these five. For now, practice with the examples I give you and you can learn the exact rules a little later.
For example, you can say Utcán vagyok. which is "I am in the street".
Street is utca. Adding the suffix -n, makes it utcán.
[slowly] Utcán vagyok.
Now let’s see a few other possible answers with “I”
"I am at the office" would be Irodában vagyok.
"I am in a meeting" would be Tárgyaláson vagyok.
"I am in a store" would be Boltban vagyok.
Another useful expression with the verb van is when you answer the phone. To introduce yourself, just say your name and then say, vagyok.
So when I pick up the phone I often say Lívia vagyok. It is really simple—you just say your name and add vagyok.
This verb van changes a lot depending on the subject and its tense. Let’s review the conjugation once again.
vagyok - “I am”
vagy - “you are”
van - “He/she/it is”
vagyunk - “We are”
vagytok - “You are”
vannak - “They are”
Now it’s time for Livia’s tips.
Using the verb van, you can ask this convenient question if you’re on a train or in a car and want to know where exactly you are.
You can just say - Elnézést, hol vagyunk?
“Excuse me, where are we?”
Slowly - Elnézést, hol vagyunk?
In this lesson we learned how to talk about your location thanks to the verb van. Next time we’ll learn how to talk about age in Hungarian. So do you want to know how to ask somebody’s age? I'll be waiting for you in the next Magyar nyelvleckék három percben lesson. Sziasztok!

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