Manner Adverbs with -an/-en and -ul/-ül: Forms and Core Pattern

Hungarian often forms a manner adverb from an adjective with -n/-an/-en: gyors → gyorsan “quick → quickly,” szép → szépen “beautiful → beautifully/nicely,” drága → drágán “expensive → expensively.” A second family in -ul/-ül includes language names such as magyarul “in Hungarian” and lexical manner forms such as véletlenül “accidentally.” The choice is not equivalent to automatically adding English -ly.

This page presents the productive shapes, stem changes, and principal exceptions. Extended functions appear on the usage page, while close choices appear on the contrast page. Unless labeled otherwise, forms are neutral modern standard Hungarian.

Productive -n/-an/-en manner adverbs

The most accessible pattern describes how an event happens. Consonant-final adjectives commonly take harmonic -an/-en, while many vowel-final adjectives take -n, often with a stem change.

An adverb does not agree with the subject or object. Boldogan stays unchanged whether one child or several children are happy. This differs from predicative adjective boldog/boldogok.

The suffix vowel and adjective stem

Harmony is real, but the citation-form adjective may change before the adverbial suffix. Common high-frequency patterns must be learned as pairs.

In hosszú → hosszan, the stem shortens. This is a derivational stem alternation, not careless loss of an accent. A small lexical group takes -on, including vakon, gazdagon, szabadon, and nagyon; learn these forms individually rather than predicting -on from harmony.

The lexical meanings can extend beyond pure manner. Nehezen often means “with difficulty”; hosszan often concerns duration rather than physical length. A derived form may develop meanings not predictable from the adjective alone.

-ul/-ül and language adverbs

Language names regularly use -ul/-ül to mean “in [a language]”: magyarul, angolul, németül, törökül, franciául. Harmony and final-vowel behavior still apply: francia + ul → franciául, with a → á.

The suffix means the medium or language of expression, not nationality. Magyar diák is a Hungarian student; magyarul ír means “writes in Hungarian.”

Privative adjectives in -tlan/-tlen regularly select -ul/-ül: gondtalanul, reménytelenül, feltétlenül. Other -ul/-ül words express state or manner rather than language, including egyedül “alone” and véletlenül “accidentally.” Outside the language-name and privative classes, -ul/-ül is not freely interchangeable with -n/-an/-en, so established forms must be learned lexically.

The second is common in formal notices. Függetlenül valamitől retains an ablative complement and functions adverbially over the whole statement.

Magyarul versus magyarosan

Some bases allow both suffix families with different meanings. Magyarul names the Hungarian language as medium. Magyarosan means “in a Hungarian style/manner.”

Likewise, angolul beszél means “speak English,” while angolosan ejt ki egy nevet means “pronounce a name in an English-like way.” The difference is language code versus resemblance/style, not free variation.

The irregular essentials jól and rosszul

The adverb of jó “good” is jól “well,” not jóan. The adverb of rossz “bad” is rosszul “badly/unwell,” not rosszan in the ordinary manner meaning.

Jó in the second sentence is a predicative adjective describing the coffee. Jól modifies the preparation event. Rosszul can mean both “badly” and “unwell,” so context matters: rosszul vezet “drives badly,” rosszul van “is unwell.”

These forms are basic lexical exceptions. There is no benefit in forcing them into the regular -an/-en pattern.

Adverbial meaning is not always adjective plus suffix

Hungarian also uses lexical adverbs, frozen case forms, and nonfinite constructions. Ma “today” is a lexical adverb; csendben “in silence/quietly” is historically and transparently an inessive form; mosolyogva “smiling” is an adverbial participle.

Csendesen and csendben overlap, but csendben strongly profiles absence of noise, while csendesen can describe gentle volume or manner. English quietly does not force one derivation.

The essive-modal forms page explains noun-based -ul/-ül relations, while the adverbial nonfinite page treats -va/-ve.

Comparison and degree

Manner adverbs are compared with -bb followed by the adverbial ending where the form permits it: gyorsabban “more quickly,” szebben “more beautifully,” pontosabban “more precisely.” Irregular jól has comparative jobban “better.”

English “more quickly” uses a separate word, but Hungarian packages degree into gyors-abban. Not every lexical adverb follows a freely productive comparison pattern.

Manner and temporary state

An -an/-en form can describe not only the way an action is carried out but also the subject's state during that action. The interpretation comes from the adjective and the event together.

Fáradtan does not mean that the speaker performed “arriving” in a tired style; it says that the speaker was tired while arriving. English commonly uses a bare adjective in this secondary-predicate function. Hungarian marks the relation adverbially.

This example also shows that Hungarian does not force every English -ly meaning into one suffix. Csendben is a frozen inessive form, while izgatottan is productively built with -an. Both function as manner expressions.

Here hidegen and forrón describe the preferred state of the drinks. In ordinary informal and neutral usage, such forms are completely natural. The English translation may use an adjective, but the Hungarian form follows its own adverbial morphology.

Segmentation exercise

1. gyorsan → gyors-an: back-vowel manner form.
2. szépen → szép-en: front-vowel manner form.
3. franciául → franciá-ul: language form, with final a → á.
4. függetlenül → független-ül: established front-vowel -ül adverb.
5. könnyen → alternate stem könny- + -en: final ű is absent; long nny remains.
6. gyorsabban → gyors-abb-an: comparative -bb plus manner ending; the surface has long bb.

Common Mistakes

Key Takeaways

• -an/-en is the broad productive manner pattern, with harmony and frequent lexical stem alternations.
• -ul/-ül forms language adverbs and a restricted set of established state/manner adverbs.
• Learn jó → jól and rossz → rosszul as essential irregular pairs.
• Distinguish language medium (magyarul) from style/resemblance (magyarosan).
• Hungarian adverbial meaning also comes from lexical words, frozen cases, and -va/-ve forms; English -ly has no single Hungarian equivalent.