Hungarian verbs

This page is about verbs in Hungarian grammar.

Lemma or citation form

There is basically only one pattern for verb endings, with predictable variations dependent on the phonological context.
The lemma or citation form is always the third person singular indefinite present. This usually has a ∅ suffix, e.g. kér.

''-ik'' verbs

A slight variation to the standard pattern is with certain verbs which have third person singular indefinite present ending with -ik, e.g. dolgozik, and 1st singular indefinite present usually with -om/-em/-öm. The stem for this is reached by removing -ik. These verbs are one of the reasons why this form is the citation form.
The -ik verbs were originally middle voice, reflexive or passive in meaning, which can still be seen e.g. about the pair tör vs törik. However, most of them have lost this connection so historically speaking they are like deponent verbs. Some verb pairs only differ in the presence or absence of the -ik ending, while they are unrelated in meaning, such as ér and érik.
With these verbs, the third person singular form consistently uses the -ik form. What is more, new -ik words continue to be created .
However, the first person singular suffix is often assimilated to the "normal" conjugation, so most verbs usually take the regular form for this person. Nevertheless, with some basic -ik verbs, the assimilated variant is stigmatized, so with these verbs, the traditional form is advised. At any rate, such non-traditional, assimilated variants are not rare in colloquial spoken language.
Since this -ik ending coincides with the -ik ending of the 3rd person plural definite form, only the type of the object makes it possible to identify the subject:

eszik egy almát: egy almát "an apple" is indefinite, so the verb must be a singular form, i.e. "s/he is eating an apple;"
eszik az almát: az almát "the apple" is definite, so the verb must be a plural form, i.e. "they are eating the apple."

In fact, most -ik verbs are intransitive, and the context may clarify the question even if the subject is not made explicit.
Some important "traditional" -ik verbs are the following. A person may appear uneducated if s/he uses the -k ending with them for the 1st person singular form:
For most other verbs, the -k ending is common in the indefinite meaning, especially in casual speech. Verbs ending in -zik, which refer to using some tool, almost exclusively take the -k, such as biciklizik "ride the bicycle", gitározik "play the guitar" or mobilozik "use the mobile phone".
There are a few non-traditional -ik verbs where the -m ending is impossible and ungrammatical. These are called "pseudo -ik verbs" in Hungarian. Examples:
The regular non -ik verb könyörög "beg" has a hypercorrect first-person singular indefinite present form könyörgöm "I am begging", which conjugation mimics that of -ik verbs. The correct form would be könyörgök. However, it is argued by some that the form könyörgöm is not unacceptable, either, and it reflects an idiomatic expression könyörgöm "I am begging ", which has eventually lost its object and in which the form könyörgöm actually follows definite conjugation.

Infinitive

The infinitive of a verb is the form suffixed by -ni, e.g. várni, kérni. There is a variant -ani/eni, which is used with the following groups:

verbs ending in two consonants,
verbs ending in a long vowel + t and
the words véd and edz.

Exceptions are állni "to stand", szállni "to fly", varrni "to sew", forrni "to boil", which have -ni despite the two consonants.
This is due to the fact that, in written language, the "long" 'l' or 'r' of the stem has to be kept even in the forms where it is pronounced short.

Infinitive with personal suffixes

When an infinitive is used with an impersonal verb, the personal suffixes may be added to the infinitive to indicate the person, as in Portuguese. Except in the 3rd person singular and plural, the -i of the infinitive is dropped, e.g. Mennem kell.. The person can also be indicated using -nak/-nek, e.g. Nekem kell mennem., Jánosnak mennie kell
These forms use the o/e/ö set of suffixes, see Personal suffixes and link vowels.

Person	menni	látni
	for me to go etc.	for me to see etc.
1st Sg.	mennem	látnom
2nd Sg.	menned	látnod
3rd Sg.	mennie	látnia
1st Pl.	mennünk	látnunk
2nd Pl.	mennetek	látnotok
3rd Pl.	menniük	látniuk

Tenses

Most verbs have two inflected tenses, past and present, and a future form using an auxiliary verb. The verb lenni, to be, has three inflected tenses: past, present and future.

Present

In the present tense, only sibilant-ending verbs differ from the rest, such as verbs ending in -s, -sz, -z and -dz. The chart below compares the conjugation of the regular kér 'ask' and vár 'wait' with the sibilant-ending keres 'look for' and mászik 'climb.' Example of verbs ending in the other two possible sonorants, -z and -dz, are húz 'pull' and edz 'train', which similarly double their stem consonants where -s and -sz are doubled.
The forms marked in bold are those where the suffix of sibilant-ending verbs differ from the suffix of other verbs: either because of the alternative 2nd person ending l, or because of the assimilation of j. Incidentally, the latter forms coincide with the subjunctive forms.

Futurity

Futurity can be expressed in a variety of ways:

By the auxiliary verb fog for any verb, expressing a strong intention or a necessity of events brought about by circumstances
The verb van, uniquely, has an inflected future tense.
By the present tense, when this is clearly a reference to a future time..
Past tense

The past tense is expressed with the suffix -t or -ott/-ett/-ött and inflects for person and number. As in the present tense, there are special indefinite forms for intransitive verbs and transitive verbs with direct objects that are 1st or 2nd person or indefinite, while definite forms are used for transitive verbs with definite, 3rd person direct objects, and there is a special form used just for instances where there is a 1st person subject and 2nd person direct object.
As far as the two phonetic variants are concerned, there are three types:

Type I never uses link vowel
Type II only uses link vowel in the 3rd person singular indefinite
Type III uses link vowel in every form.

If the above phonetic guidelines don't help, it may be useful as a rule of thumb to learn the rules and exceptions only for Type I and Type III and use Type II otherwise, because this latter type comprises the broadest range of verbs.

Regular homonymy of plain and causative forms in the same tense

Front-vowel unrounded verbs that end in consonant + -t may have ambiguous forms between plain and causative forms. In dialects that have e-ë distinction, these forms are distinguished in speech. The syllable 'tet' always contains a "closed e" in the meaning 1 and always contains an "open e" in the meaning 2. Approximately a hundred verbs are concerned that end in one of the following endings: -jt, -lt, -mt, -nt, -rt, -st, -szt.

Homoverb	Meaning 1	Meaning 2
Megértette.	"S/he understood it." megért + -ette	"S/he made them understand it." megért + -et- + -te
Sejtette.	"S/he suspected it." sejt + -ette	"S/he made them suspect it." sejt + -et- + -te

The past tenses of sejt and sejtet are identical, except for the third person indefinite form where it is sejt|ett for sejt, but sejtet|ett for sejtet. However, it usually turns out from the argument structure and the context which meaning is intended.
This ambiguity doesn't occur with back-vowel verbs because the linking vowel is different for the normal past tense and the causative, e.g. bontotta "s/he demolished it" vs. bontatta "s/he had it demolished". The linking vowel can only be o for back-vowel verbs and the causative can only have a with back vowels. Similarly, it doesn't occur with front-vowel verbs with a rounded vowel, either: e.g. gyűjtötte vs gyűjtette.
Below is a chart to review the conjugation differences between coinciding forms of the same verb. Ambiguous forms in the same person are marked in bold.

"I understood it" etc., past, def.	"I made them understand it" etc., past, def.	"I understood something" etc., past, indef.	"I made them understand something" etc., past, indef.
megértettem megértetted megértette megértettük megértettétek megértették	megértettem megértetted megértette megértettük megértettétek megértették	megértettem megértettél megértett megértettünk megértettetek megértettek	megértettem megértettél megértetett megértettünk megértettetek megértettek