Hungarian can build a family of words around one base, but a familiar-looking ending is not always freely attachable. Olvas “read” gives olvasás “reading” and olvasó “reader/reading,” while a quality such as szép “beautiful” gives szépség “beauty.” The practical skill is to recognize the contribution of a suffix without assuming that every theoretically possible combination is an established word; the companion forms page inventories the shapes themselves.
Naming actions and processes with -ás/-és
The highly productive -ás/-és suffix turns a verb into a noun referring to an event, activity, process, or sometimes its conventional result. The verbal prefix remains part of the derivation, so ír “write,” megír “write/complete,” and átír “rewrite” yield different nouns.
A rendszeres olvasás sokat segít a szókincs bővítésében.
Regular reading helps a great deal with expanding vocabulary.
A jelentés átírása tovább tartott, mint gondoltuk.
Rewriting the report took longer than we expected.
An -ás/-és noun behaves as a noun: it can take a possessive ending, plural marking, and case suffixes. Yet a process meaning can retain the participants and case relations licensed by the verb. Vár valakire “wait for someone” corresponds to várakozás valakire “waiting for someone”; the required case does not disappear merely because the head is now nominal.
Az ügyfelek tájékoztatása a változásokról a szolgáltató feladata.
Informing customers about the changes is the provider's responsibility.
Here az ügyfelek is interpreted as the people informed, while a változásokról preserves the delative complement associated with tájékoztat valakit valamiről. Hungarian nominal argument structure is flexible and context-sensitive, so long stacks can become ambiguous; a finite clause is often clearer in speech.
Participants and functions with -ó/-ő
The -ó/-ő form is productive as a present participle. Before a noun it describes an ongoing, habitual, or characteristic relation; as a lexical noun it can name a person, device, or place associated with the action. A participial phrase retains verbal case marking.
A sarokban telefonáló férfi hirtelen kiment az utcára.
The man talking on the phone in the corner suddenly went outside.
A gyerekekre váró szülők a bejáratnál beszélgettek.
The parents waiting for the children were chatting by the entrance.
Elromlott a kávéfőző, ezért ma teát készítünk.
The coffee maker broke, so we're making tea today.
In gyerekekre váró, the sublative -re comes from vár valakire. By contrast, lexical olvasó “reader” or vezető “manager/driver” need not denote someone acting at this moment. Context distinguishes participial description from a dictionary-established noun.
Result nouns with -at/-et
The old deverbal -at/-et family often names a product, result, or established concept: ír → irat “document,” mond → mondat “sentence,” gondol → gondolat “thought.” It is much less freely productive than -ás/-és, and the modern meaning may be lexicalized.
Az irat alján hiányzik az aláírás.
The signature is missing at the bottom of the document.
Ezt a mondatot kétszer is el kellett olvasnom.
I had to read this sentence twice.
Compare írás, which can mean the activity of writing, a piece of writing, or handwriting, with irat, an official or identifiable document. English “writing” does not predict which Hungarian noun a context requires.
Qualities and collectives with -ság/-ség
-ság/-ség commonly makes an abstract noun from an adjective: gyors → gyorsaság, szép → szépség, pontos → pontosság. It can also create collective or institutional meanings, many of them lexicalized: katonaság may mean “the military,” not merely “soldier-ness,” and újság means “newspaper,” not normally “newness.”
Nagyra értékelem a válasz őszinteségét és pontosságát.
I greatly appreciate the honesty and accuracy of the answer.
A fiatalság egy része külföldön szeretne tapasztalatot szerezni.
Some young people would like to gain experience abroad.
Because these nouns denote qualities as concepts, they are frequent in formal and abstract writing. Everyday speech may prefer a clause: Az jó, hogy pontosan válaszoltál rather than a heavy noun phrase about a válasz pontossága.
Characteristic, relation, and origin: -s versus -i
Adjectival -s often means “having, containing, equipped with, or characterized by”: cukros “with sugar/sugary,” szemüveges “wearing glasses,” háromszobás “three-room.” The exact relation is lexical and contextual.
Kérhetek egy cukormentes kávét és egy sajtos szendvicset?
Could I have a sugar-free coffee and a cheese sandwich?
Egy világos, kétszobás lakást keresünk a belváros közelében.
We're looking for a bright two-room apartment near the city center.
-i usually creates a relational adjective from a place, institution, time expression, or other noun: városi, egyetemi, nyári, budapesti. It answers “connected with what?” rather than “containing what?” Hungarian lowercases many geographic derivatives that English capitalizes.
A budapesti irodánk nyári nyitvatartása júniusban változik.
The summer opening hours of our Budapest office change in June.
Not every word ending in s or i is transparently derived for a modern learner. Piros “red” should be learned as a whole, and the i of the surname Petőfi is not the productive relational suffix in current analysis.
Absence with -tlan/-tlen and approximate measure with -nyi
The privative family appears as -tlan/-tlen and, depending on the base, -atlan/-etlen. It means “without, lacking, free of”: sótlan, reménytelen, barátságtalan. The result may acquire an evaluative meaning: barátságtalan is “unfriendly,” not merely “without friendship.”
A váróterem tiszta volt, de személytelen és barátságtalan.
The waiting room was clean but impersonal and unwelcoming.
-nyi creates an adjective expressing an amount, extent, or resemblance to a measure: órányi “an hour's worth,” maroknyi “a handful of,” tenyérnyi “palm-sized.” A numeral can precede the base.
Kétórányi séta után végre elértük a menedékházat.
After two hours of walking, we finally reached the mountain hut.
Csak maroknyi érdeklődő maradt a vita végéig.
Only a handful of interested people stayed until the end of the debate.
A short dialogue
– Milyen volt a bemutató? – Érdekes, de a magyarázat túl hosszú volt. – Legalább lehetett kérdezni? – Igen, a végén még félórányi idő jutott rá.
– What was the presentation like? – Interesting, but the explanation was too long. – Were you at least able to ask questions? – Yes, there was another half hour for that at the end.
This exchange contrasts lexical magyarázat with the conversational finite phrase lehetett kérdezni and the measure adjective félórányi. Derivation is useful, but conversation need not package every action as a noun.
Formal and informal packaging
Nominal derivation supports dense (formal/academic) prose because one noun phrase can package an entire event. Conversation often prefers a finite verb.
A pályázatok elbírálásának elhalasztása jelentős bizonytalanságot okozott.
The postponement of evaluating the applications caused considerable uncertainty. (formal)
Későbbre halasztották a pályázatok elbírálását, ezért most senki sem tudja, mire számítson.
They postponed reviewing the applications, so now nobody knows what to expect. (informal)
The formal sentence is not “more correct”; it backgrounds human actors. Good writers alternate nominal and finite packaging according to what should be prominent.
Common Mistakes
❌ A gyerekek várása a kapunál már fél órája tart.
Incorrect for ‘waiting for the children’: this makes the children the waiters or leaves the relation ambiguous.
✅ A gyerekekre való várakozás a kapunál már fél órája tart.
Waiting for the children at the gate has already lasted half an hour.
❌ A dokumentum írásata tegnap érkezett meg.
Incorrect invented derivative: Hungarian does not freely add -at to írás.
✅ Az irat tegnap érkezett meg.
The document arrived yesterday.
❌ Egy Budapest-i kollégával ebédeltem.
Incorrect spelling and segmentation for the ordinary geographic adjective.
✅ Egy budapesti kollégával ebédeltem.
I had lunch with a colleague from Budapest.
Key Takeaways
- -ás/-és productively names events; -ó/-ő can retain verbal arguments or lexicalize as a participant noun.
- -at/-et is largely lexical: learn irat, mondat, and similar words individually.
- -ság/-ség names qualities and some lexicalized collectives; -s and -i express different kinds of adjectival relation.
- -tlan/-tlen marks absence, while -nyi expresses measure or approximate extent.
- Parse long words into lexical base + derivation + inflection; surface resemblance alone does not prove a productive suffix boundary.
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Start learning Hungarian →Related Topics
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- Noun and Adjective Formation: Contrasts and Learner TrapsB2 — Choose among competing Hungarian noun and adjective derivatives without mistaking lexicalized endings for freely productive suffixes.
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