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Hungarian Consonants sound more or less as they do in English.
There are some exceptions, in particular Hungarian consonant clusters, cs, gy, sz and zs. These function as separate letters and usually do not occur at the beginning of a word. They are pronounced as follows:
Other different Hungarian consonants:
Hungarian Vowels are less straightforward. In general vowels can be related to their English equivalents by remembering that an accent lengthens them. It is important to remember that an accent not only alters the sound, it can also alter the meaning.
é 'e' in 'they' (minus the 'y' sound). Compare the two 'e's' in egy négy személyes asztalt - 'a table for four' (Eating. Phrases.1)
i 'i' in 'hit'
í a longer version of i, like the 'i' in 'police' o as the 'o' in 'open' ó a longer version of o: szósz sounds like, and means, 'sauce
ö as a German 'ö' e.g. kösz, 'thanks', sounds like 'curse' without the 'r' sound.
o
a longer version of 'ö' . All four 'o' sounds can be compared in
Eating. Phrases. 2.
u as 'oo' in 'foot' ú a longer version of u, like 'oo' in 'pull' ü as German 'ü' or French 'u' in 'une' u is a longer version of ü Remember that the sound approximations given above are just that, approximations which attempt to match English to Hungarian. Use the table as an aid but reinforce it by listening to the examples in our Hungarian language software then compare your wave patterns with those of the native speaker.
Hungarian Pronunciation
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