Colloquial Hungarian: The Complete Course for Beginners by Carol H. Rounds Erika Sólyom (review)

Abstract

Reviews Rounds, Carol H. and S6lyom, Erika. Colloquial Hungarian. TheComplete Course forBeginners. Routledge, London and New York,2002. Xii+ 317 pp. Map. Illustrations.Tables. Glossary.Indexes. Cassettes.CDs. ?22.76. THE present volume, with a cover garlanded with clusters of gorgeous red paprika, thankfullysupersedesJerry Payne's Colloquial Hungarian, first issued in the dyingyearsof Communistrule (reviewedhere 66, I988, I,pp. 633-36). Thoughtfully written by Carol H. Rounds, who teaches Hungarian at Columbia University and has recently given us a highly accessible grammar of Hungarian in the same publisher's EssentialGrammars series, and Erika S6lyom, who also appears to be based in New York, this is a thorough introductory package for the solo learner, which will also be greatly appreciated by school, university and evening classes led by a qualified teacher. As the series title suggests, the emphasis is on lively, up-to-date and relevant encounters in a variety of everyday settings. It is a bravura feat to cover here almost all the rich inflectional morphology of the noun and verb systems,though the failureto even hint at the -nak/-nek-suffixedpossessoror relative clauses/clause equivalents will make its use in reading courses more problematic. The two-way word lists at the end contain some I,500 items in each direction (my estimate),but consist only of the mechanically cumulated lists in the lessons, so there is rathermore Hungarian vocabulary in the book overall. In the full pack there are also two valuable audio tapes (though one Hungarian male voice is so obviously embarrassed to be involved that he rattlesoff his lines at an unusable speed) and two CDs which also contain the taped material. Each of the fifteen lessons offersthree or four dialogues (occasionallyshort texts) each with a translation (occasionally stilted, and there are also some anglicisms in the Hungarian materials, e.g. on pp. I84-85) until halfway through the book; clearly-presented grammar points illustrated with brief exercises; a vocabulary list; and, finally, useful cultural notes, ranging from forms of address to micro-sketches of Hungarian music and history and including, for example, a page on distinguishingbetween the two Hungarian words corresponding to English 'red'.A wide range of realia trulybrings the book to life: these include bilingual menus and airline tickets,telephone area codes for the whole of Hungary and phone cards (thoughthere is nothing on mobile phones, nearlya page isgiven to how to sayphone numbers),transport tickets, and examples of cinema and TV listings from newspapers. Perhaps only the maps leave something to be desired: whole pages for Manhattan (p. 2 Io) and the Balaton(adulloutline map, p. I76) contrastwith only a hardto -decipher half-page for central Budapest (p. I24). Also very much to be commended are the amusingly illustratedproverbs and the use of extracts from writersto illustrategrammarpoints: Kolcsey, Ady, AttilaJozsef, Arpad T6th and Orkenyare amongst those introducedto the learner.(Unfortunately a line in IfI were a rose on p. 229 is mistranslated:viragba borulnek is not ' I would burymyselfin blossoms'but more relevantly' I would come into flower,burst into blossom'.) 3I6 SEER, 82, 2, 2004 In fact, a little more effort could have made this largely very sound foundation course into a really outstanding book. In the hope that there will be many more editions, here is my checklist of possible improvements, in ascending orderof the amount of effortrequired.A score or more of misprints remain, including several serious ones involving spacing: angoltanar,'teacher who is English' is used for angoltanar, 'teacher of English', for example (PP. 13-I5); verzetsz taxi!ruins a punchline on p. 75. The publishersand the authors are silent on the US/GB problem and probably most Britswill these days live with 'doctor's office' (but transformedinto GB 'doctor's surgery'in the wordlists),'restroom' (inflightsurelymore aparanymthan a euphemism), and perhaps even 'turkeybologna' (GB 'turkeyroll'?).But I began to wonder whetherUS/GB differencesdo not underlie, at least in part, the characterization of the allative/adessive/ablative suffixes as 'near' and 'near by' (pp. II8-I9, I22-23, 127; misleading in a GB context). Nor am I sure if the rendering of kockdnforog (pp. 222-23) as 'is at risk' (GB 'is at stake'), results from a difference of...