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Carol Rounds
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Colloquial Hungarian: The Complete Course for Beginners (Colloquial Series) 3rd Edition

by Carol Rounds (Author), Erika Solyom (Author)
4.3 4.3 out of 5 stars 71 ratings
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COLLOQUIAL HUNGARIAN is easy to use and completely up to date!

Specially written by experienced teachers for self-study or class use, the course offers a step-by-step approach to written and spoken Hungarian. No prior knowledge of the language is required.

What makes COLLOQUIAL HUNGARIAN your best choice in personal language learning?

Interactive – lots of exercises for regular practice

Clear – concise grammar notes

Practical – useful vocabulary and pronunciation guide

Complete – including answer key and reference section

Whether you're a business traveller, or about to take up a daring challenge in adventure tourism, you may be studying to teach or even looking forward to a holiday - if you'd like to get up and running with Hungarian this rewarding course will take you from complete beginner to confidently putting your language skills to use in a wide range of everyday situations

Course components:

The complete course comprises the book and audio materials. These are available to purchase separately in paperback, ebook, CD and MP3 format. The paperback and CDs can also be purchased together in the great-value Colloquials pack.

Paperback: 978-0-415-56740-4 (please note this does not include the audio)

CDs: 978-0-415-56742-8

eBook: 978-0-203-86035-9 (please note this does not include the audio, available to purchase from http://ebookstore.tandf.co.uk/audio_viewbooks.aspx)

MP3s: 978-0-415-56743-5 (available to purchase from http://ebookstore.tandf.co.uk/audio_viewbooks.aspx)

Pack: 978-0-415-56741-1 (paperback and CDs)

Previous page
  1. ISBN-10
    0415567416
  2. ISBN-13
    978-0415567411
  3. Edition
    3rd
  4. Publisher
    Routledge
  5. Publication date
    May 24, 2011
  6. Part of series
    Colloquial
  7. Language
    English
  8. Dimensions
    5 x 0.75 x 8 inches
  9. Print length
    392 pages
  10. See all details
Next page
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Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Carol H Rounds is lecturer in Hungarian and has been teaching at Columbia University since 1988. Previous titles include Hungarian:An Essential Grammar, another in the Routledge language series.

Erika Sólyom, an NYU graduate, is a sociolinguist and she has been teaching Hungarian as a Foreign Language at Eotvos Lorand University and Corvinus University of Budapest. She is also the director of the American Corner Budapest at Corvinus.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Routledge; 3rd edition (May 24, 2011)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 392 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0415567416
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0415567411
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.15 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5 x 0.75 x 8 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.3 4.3 out of 5 stars 71 ratings

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Carol Rounds

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Customer reviews

4.3 out of 5 stars
4.3 out of 5
71 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

DAVID M.
5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful resource for beginner or intermediate student.
Reviewed in the United States on February 26, 2015
Verified Purchase
This book is very helpful. I have been studying Hungarian for 8 months and have used several resources. This book is very thorough in its explanations. It seems to have been written by a English/Hungarian team, so it is authentic, yet also geared towards the native English speakers "mind" or way of thinking.
I have used other books written by Hungarians which are also useful, but they assume a bit much in terms of how we as English speakers think! For example, finally, after 8 months, I underst the rule fir when to use the Hungarian "to be " and when not to! It is so simple now that I have read it in this book, but no where else have I found it explained so clearly! The CD is sold separately, and is helpful but not essential. Buying the CD without the book, however, is not very helpful. In other words if you can only get one or the other, get the book.
10 people found this helpful
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Petar
5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Hungarian Course!
Reviewed in the United States on February 10, 2015
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I had a great difficulty finding a book that would teach me Hungarian. There were very few titles available and they didn't look comprehensive enough. This book looked to me as the most promising one. It was rather expensive, and I had to buy pricey Audio CD separately from the book. But, after reading the book excerpt and user reviews I decided to give it a try; and I haven't made a mistake!

The book is very well written, and intense, as it progresses rather quickly. The Audio CD is necessary, especially for getting acquainted with the sound of the language.

Just be careful to choose the same edition of the book and Audio CD when buying, as there are different editions available. Even though I chose the same edition of both they were still out of sync occasionally.
One person found this helpful
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Chris Heagerty
4.0 out of 5 stars Almost a 5 Star
Reviewed in the United States on October 23, 2015
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I am studying Hungarian and this is written intelligently with relevant dialogues and vocabulary broken out for each unit. Sometimes though it introduces grammar elements perhaps a bit early and doesn't give adequate explanation. I would have given it a 5 star rating, but while it has some exercises with each Unit, there are not enough of them to support mastery of the grammar elements. Hopefully in the next edition this will be corrected, but right now you have to write your own exercises above and beyond what is provided. I am studying with a very good instructor but without an instructor this would be very hard. There are also cultural notes that are very helpful. The dictionary at the back of the book is often missing words that are part of the dialogues, so you will need and English Hungarian and a Hungarian English dictionary to supplement.
8 people found this helpful
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Happy Customer
5.0 out of 5 stars 100% effective!
Reviewed in the United States on May 17, 2022
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This is probably the best book out there for learning Hungarian. The grammar is explained very well, and the vocabulary is very useful and covers the basics that will allow you to have a decent conversation in Hungarian
2 people found this helpful
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ACM
3.0 out of 5 stars half of the dialogues with no english translation
Reviewed in the United States on August 1, 2021
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Good book to learn Hungarian, however half of the dialogues have no english translation.
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Tom Plate
5.0 out of 5 stars I'm going to be speaking like a native
Reviewed in the United States on September 19, 2016
Verified Purchase
I have been trying to learn Hungarian for a while and tried several different methods. This book, with its downloadable app to help with the spoken language is finally doing the trick for me. I make an set of Anki flash cards for the vocabulary and study that as I can. I try to get to the book every few days, do some reading, some speaking, and some exercises.

My goodness! By the time I return to Hungary next year, I'm going to be speaking like a native!
One person found this helpful
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Big Wayne
5.0 out of 5 stars in comparison...
Reviewed in the United States on November 8, 2011
Verified Purchase
-------- my wife is hungarian, so i'm learning hungarian in self-defense. i've used three books in class (at uc berkeley ), one from Pontifex, Solyom's first version, and this one .

This has exercises that are really aimed at the material - you don't have to have had a miracle occur in order to be able to do them ! The dictionary is MUCH fuller - in both directions. And, typos and other minor glitches are gone.

If i have to point out a flaw, the CD, with the dialogues, becomes too fast, too soon .
20 people found this helpful
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Jennifer
2.0 out of 5 stars Don't buy it unless it's required for a class.
Reviewed in the United States on April 17, 2015
Verified Purchase
I had to buy this for a class, and I'm kind of wishing my prof had gone with a different book. This just isn't a very good textbook for learning a language. The grammatical explanations are extremely lacking, especially when explaining concepts not present in English. I know there's an accompanying grammar book, but there isn't even a basic explanation for certain concepts, which you'd think would be included. The dictionary is disappointing; it's more of a pain to use it than to just flip through the book to the dialogue where the word was introduced, if the word was even introduced before. It's a pain to navigate, since sometimes words will be used in exercises, like "aeroplane," and then be included in the dictionary as just "plane," and that is even under "machine" (weird Hungarian thing), with no entry under "aeroplane" to point to where the translation actually is, not even an entry like "aeroplane: see 'machine'." Additionally, the dialogue is really contrived and seems like it's trying to cram in as much vocabulary as possible, which in no way helps in learning, since the dialogue will go from discussing one thing to discussing something else entirely, or it will be about something that just doesn't provide a context that's helpful for language learning, like what someone is getting their family members for Christmas.

Honestly, I can't imagine this being very helpful outside of a class. Even in a class, it was kind of obnoxious to use. If you're just learning Hungarian for fun, save your money and use a few free online language learning sites. They're way more intuitive than this textbook.
One person found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

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Capitán Haddock
5.0 out of 5 stars Super bien explicado
Reviewed in Spain on January 31, 2020
Verified Purchase
El mejor libro que he encontrado sobre el tema. Tengo el de PONS y el de Peter Durst. Buenas explicaciones y muchos ejercicios. Aprendereis rapido y bien. Con los otros dos libros nos os molesteis. Este es el bueno (mi opinión)
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Jose Miguel
5.0 out of 5 stars Best book for learning Hungarian I found
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 18, 2012
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A very good book for learning or remembering back Hungarian. The book covers most parts of Hungarian grammar, also it uses a large vocabulary of common words that would make a foundation for using the grammar in other situations. It uses a progressive approach to build up your knowledge. The CDs are helpful to get the correct phonetics and intonation that although not as terrific as they seem when described, are difficult to figure unless you have access to a native speaker. Unfortunately the audio drills are not enough to learn from them directly on the run, they are mostly useful for phonetics and intonation. Anyway I would recommend to purchase the book with the CDs since it is not expensive (the edition I purchased incorporated the CDs, although Amazon description does not state it clearly, look at the red triangle on top right). Three words seem to appeal to the reader, colloquial, complete and beginner; the key word is complete, the book is indeed complete. I don't want to say that if you are a complete beginner the book is not good for you, but it is not for the faint hearted and many hints and even puns would be lost to you. Lessons are long, a lot of vocabulary is covered, grammar is unusual... The language used is standard Hungarian, both formal an informal speech are present, so don't be discouraged by the colloquial word in the front page. Explanations are straightforward and no linguistics are necessary, If you work hard you will know Hungarian at the end, not just a bunch of topic sentences.
This edition is a lot larger and improved than the anterior editions, I would have not doubt about getting this one. Also it complements well with "Hungarian: An essential grammar" by the same author, that again covers something more than the essentials. One of the good things of both books is that are written by a non native Hungarian. Hungarians had pride in their language but they do poor work teaching it to others. Most Hungarian grammars or dictionaries are only presented from a Hungarian view point: they are very, very hard to use. Here you will find a more affordable approach to the language even if, as myself, you have not English as a mother language.
Hungarians like to think their language and phonetics as most difficult, don't allow them to intimidate you, they are only different. On the other hand they would try to understand you even if you speak badly, they would be indeed delighted and would test the sallowness of your knowledge to the bottom.
In short, the method is good, the layout pleasing, price affordable. The real price for learning is your effort. Now we have not excuses not to learn.
15 people found this helpful
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John E
5.0 out of 5 stars Very user friendly and well structured.
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 4, 2014
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I have several hungarian language books, but this is the best by far. To get the best out of this resource, consider buying the CD's as well.
4 people found this helpful
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brian
3.0 out of 5 stars NO CDs included. Be careful. Sold separately.
Reviewed in Canada on July 29, 2015
Verified Purchase
Pace of narrators is too fast and not enough repetition.
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stephen Walsh
5.0 out of 5 stars Colloquial Hungarian: The Complete Course for Beginners (Colloquial Series)
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 8, 2014
Verified Purchase
A tried and trusted method of language learning now brought completely up-to-date. With intelligent application one really can
master this dauntingly difficult language.
3 people found this helpful
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