# Hungarian dictionary abbreviations



## hedgehog27

Hello and jó éjszakát to all!

I'm enjoying starting to learn Hungarian.  One of my favourite resources is the SZTAKI Szótár (recommended by a Hungarian friend, especially when it launched its new version with an amusing Star Wars parody video).  I've run into a kind of meta-problem with it: I don't understand the grammatical abbreviations.

I can't remember our English dictionary conventions offhand, but I always understand them when I see them: something like "n" for noun, "adj" for adjective, something I can't remember for "colloquial", etc.  And in a French dictionary you'd get something like "nf" for "feminine noun", "nm" for "masculine noun" - not that that would apply in Hungarian.

On SZTAKI Szótár I get e.g.:

egyedül *mn*
egyedüllét _*fn*_

Can anyone point me to a key or guide to all these abbreviations?  They must be well-established, and probably common to all dictionaries in the language.  Even if a key to them is in Hungarian, I can laboriously look up the full-text equivalents of the abbreviations (and learn a few more words into the bargain!).

thanks!



hedgehog


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## Puppancs

Hi hedgehog,

There are many-many abbreviations so I've just collected the most important/common ones as include the following:

A szófajok rövidítése

(fn) főnév
(hsz) határozószó
(ige) ige
(ksz) kötőszó
(mn) melléknév
(msz) módosító értékû mondatszó - I knew that as 'módósítószó'
(nu) névutó
(szn) számnév


A lexikai minősítések rövidítése

(biz) bizalmas
(durva) durva, sértő
(id) idegen
(pej) pejoratív
(rég) régi, régies
(szak) szaknyelvi
(szleng) szleng, diáknyelvi
(táj) tájnyelvi
(tréf) tréfás
(vál) választékos

Happy dictionarying!


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## hedgehog27

Thank you Puppancs!

Material for much happy dictionarying indeed!


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## Zsanna

Hello hedgehog27 and welcome to our forum!

You would find pages of it in a classical dictionary in paper form (like in the Országh dictionaries) in both languages but I couldn't find a site on the net for it. (There are a list here in Hungarian that could help to identify the words themselves).

So I copy Puppancs's list (with some additions and regrouping) here with their translation:

A szófajok rövidítése - abbreviation of (some) parts of speech

(fn) főnév - noun
​(mn) melléknév - adjective
(szn) számnév - numeral
(hsz) határozószó - adverb
(ige) ige - verb (preceded by ts = tárgyas - transitive or tn = tárgyatlan - intransitive)
(isz) indulatszó - interjection
(ksz) kötőszó - conjunction
(msz) módosító értékû mondatszó - I knew that as 'módósítószó' - modifier

(no abbr.) névelő - article
(nu) névutó - postposition (practically like prepositions in English)
(nm) névmás - pronoun
(szem nm) személyes névmás - personal pronoun
(mut nm) mutató névmás - demonstrative
(kérdő nm) kérdő névmás - "question word"

Other terms:

(egysz) egyes szám - singular
(tbsz) többes szám - plural
(m) mondat or magyar - sentence or Hungarian
(vki) valaki - somebody
(vmi) valami - something
(pl.) például - for example
(stb.) és a többi - et cetera

A lexikai minősítések rövidítése - Style / usage level

(biz) bizalmas - familiar
(durva) durva, sértő - vulgar
(id) idegen - foreign
(pej) pejoratív - pejorative
(rég) régi, régies - old(ish)
(szak) szaknyelvi - technical
(szleng) szleng, diáknyelvi - slang, students' language
(táj) tájnyelvi - dialectic
(tréf) tréfás - humorous
(vál) választékos - polished/elaborate
(elav) elavult - out of date
(hiv) hivatalos - official


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## hedgehog27

Fantastic!  Köszönöm szépen!

That is such a thorough list; and the link you've given shows even more.  (I have to look up the Hungarian, but that's just teaching me more words).

I think SZTAKI Szótár uses "i" instead of "ige".  There's also an abbreviation "kif"  - but I can ask my friend about that when he comes back from Budapest.

One thing that would really help me would be some grammar help for the specific words.  The book I'm using to start learning lists words with lots of parts, e.g.: ház -a -at -ak, which is very helpful.  As well as my more formal studying, I'm doing a lot of reading of random small sentences I find, e.g. reading online blogs in English by Hungarians with Hungarian fragments, and trying to figure out how they work: i.e. which parts of the sentence are which parts of speech.  Good for familiarity, especially with idiomatic usage of the postpositions.  (weirdly, *-ból* for example is listed by SZAKI as _elölj_ - I'm guessing this stands for elöljárószó, which is listed as "preposition").

Is this full listing of the parts of nouns and verbs a convention in (perhaps only printed) Hungarian dictionaries?  I appreciate that SZTAKI is completely free, but it doesn't do this.  (A funny example is the word *szófajok*: listed only as a plural.  So I'm guessing the singular is *szófaj* - not, I guess, the singular *szófa* (!) - but SZTAKI only lists the plural).  It would be great if a dictionary could take learners like me back to the root: e.g. (simple example) look up *megyek* and it would tell me the infinitive is *menni*.  But I get the impression that there are so many possibilities in Hungarian that for a dictionary to do this - beyond simple examples - would be very difficult.  (Actually menni is an example of my confusion: the SZTAKI entry is *menni fn* - it may be a noun, but surely it's also an infinitive?)

Is there an electronic English-Hungarian dictionary (perhaps on DVD, that I'd have to buy?) that gives fuller details on words?

Off-topic, one site I'm enjoying, with bite-sized bits of Hungarian that (almost always) have me laughing out loud when I figure them out, is the Two-tailed Dog site: http://mkkp.hu/wordpress/?page_id=821 (The street-signs are particularly good! )

thanks again!


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## Zsanna

I'm glad if we could help but don't be too optimistic: the list is far from being thorough! 

I think SZTAKI uses their own abbreviation (invention) in the cases you mention (they may need shorter forms). They make some mistakes, too if they call -ból/-ből a preposition. 
The translated equivalent (_from_) is a preposition in English but then it's no longer -ból/-ből. 
(It is more useful for you to know the term in English, it is true - so there is an explanation - but it still remains a mistake in Hungarian.)

The abbreviations used in dictionaries should be more or less the same (I've just checked my Hungarian French dictionary - practically the same - but then they are all dated in the 80s, although my spelling dictionary is from the 90s and it still uses the same - only with full stops after the abbreviations).

It may be worth having a look at the Sticky Hungarian Resources (here), some links there could help.

For the rest, please see your PMs because, alas!, everything cannot be discussed in this thread. (Oh, those Forum Rules again!)


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## Akitlosz

(kif) kifejezés - phrase


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