Júniusban meleg van.

to be

Breakdown of Júniusban meleg van.

• meleg: warm
• június: June

Questions & Answers about Júniusban meleg van.

What does Júniusban break down into?

Júniusban = június + -ban.

• június = June
• -ban = in

So Júniusban literally means in June.

This ending is a case suffix, not a separate word. Hungarian often expresses ideas like in, on, or at by adding endings to nouns instead of using separate prepositions.

Why is it -ban and not -ben?

This is because of vowel harmony, a very important feature of Hungarian.

Hungarian suffixes often come in two versions:

• -ban / -ben = in
• -hoz / -hez / -höz = to
• -nak / -nek = roughly to/for

The word június contains back vowels, so it takes the back-vowel form -ban.

So:

• júniusban = in June

A learner does not need to overanalyze every vowel at first, but it is useful to know that suffix choice is usually determined by the vowels in the word.

What case is -ban?

It is the inessive case.

The inessive usually means in or inside something:

• a házban = in the house
• a szobában = in the room
• júniusban = in June

With time expressions, Hungarian often uses the same case endings that it uses for location. So something that is literally a location ending can also express time.