Please and Thank You in Hungarian, and the Reply

Most people land in Hungary with köszönöm and nothing else. It is the right word, and on its own it leaves half the exchange hanging. Hungarian politeness works in pairs: you say a thing, the other person says the matching thing back, and if you are the one who goes quiet, the exchange feels unfinished rather than relaxed.

The second problem is that almost every polite word in Hungarian comes in two versions, one for people you address as te and one for people you address as ön. This is not a stylistic preference. Getting it wrong with a pharmacist or a bus driver is noticeable in the way that calling a stranger mate in English is noticeable.

Tap play on any phrase below and say it back. Hungarian stress is always on the first syllable of the word, with no exceptions worth worrying about, so once you have the rhythm the respellings matter less.

Both mean please. Kérem is what you use with anyone you are being formal with: shop staff, officials, people older than you, anyone you have just met in a professional setting. Kérlek is for friends, family, colleagues you are on first-name terms with, and children. They are built from the verb kér, to ask for, so you are literally saying I ask it or I ask you.

Hungarian does not bolt please onto every request the way English does. When you order, the asking is already inside the verb, and adding anything else is optional. Egy kávét kérek is a complete, polite order. It means I ask for a coffee, and nobody will think you were curt.

This is the phrase to learn if you learn only one. It means be so kind, and it works as both please and excuse me: you use it to open a request, to flag down a waiter, to stop someone in the street. Legyen szíves is the formal version, légy szíves the informal one.

Among friends and in messages the informal one gets squashed down to légyszi, which is the Hungarian equivalent of pretty please and sounds wrong from a stranger. Keep the full form in shops.

Köszönöm is thank you. Köszönöm szépen is thank you very much, and it is not reserved for big favours; it is the ordinary thing to say when someone hands you your change. Köszi and the shorter kösz are for friends only.

The half that learners skip is the answer. When somebody thanks you, you are expected to produce szívesen, which means with pleasure, or nincs mit, which is closer to don't mention it. Saying nothing is the part that reads as cold. English lets a smile stand in for you're welcome; Hungarian does not, and a silent nod from behind a counter would strike a Hungarian as rude in the same way.

Tessék is the single most useful word in this article and the hardest to translate, because it covers here you are, go ahead, after you, come in, and pardon? with a rising tone. It is what someone says when they hand you something, when they hold a door, and when they did not catch what you said.

Parancsoljon comes from the verb to command, so a waiter greeting you with it is literally inviting you to give an order. It sounds grand written down and is entirely ordinary spoken. You are not expected to use it back; tessék covers you.

Bocsánat is sorry for something you did: you bumped into someone, you were late, you knocked a glass. Elnézést is excuse me in the sense of may I get past, may I interrupt, may I ask you something. The two overlap, but reaching for elnézést when you have trodden on a foot sounds oddly administrative.

There is also ne haragudj, literally do not be angry, which Hungarians use constantly for small apologies and small interruptions. The formal version is ne haragudjon. It is warmer than bocsánat and worth having for the moment you need to ask a stranger something while they are busy.

The apology has a reply too. Semmi baj means no harm done, and it is what you say when someone apologises to you for something trivial.

Sajnálom looks like the obvious sorry and it is not. It means I am sorry in the sense of I regret, and it belongs with bad news, illness and condolences. Saying it after you knock someone's umbrella is like saying I feel for you when you meant excuse me.

The second trap is szia. It means both hi and bye and it is lovely with people your own age, but it is the te form, and offering it to an older shopkeeper is the equivalent of walking in and saying hey. The formal greeting is jó napot kívánok, good day, which gets clipped to jó napot in quick exchanges.

The third is a pronoun. Hungarian has two formal you words, ön and maga, and they are not interchangeable in feel. Ön is the neutral, respectful one and is the safe choice for a learner. How maga lands is genuinely contested and depends on region, age and tone: plenty of people use it warmly, and in the wrong mouth it can sound cold or sharp. Use ön and you will never need to think about it.

One last thing. If someone offers you more food or another drink and you answer with a bare köszönöm, it is often taken as a polite refusal. If you want it, say igen, köszönöm, or ask for more outright.

Hungarian varies less from region to region than most languages of its size, and the words in this article work everywhere. What shifts is register. In Budapest, among people under about thirty-five, the move to te happens fast, sometimes within a sentence or two, and a café will often address you informally from the start. In smaller towns the formal address tends to hold longer, and starting formal and being invited to relax is the easier order to get right.

Csókolom is the clearest regional and generational marker. It is a shortening of I kiss your hand, and it is traditionally said by children to adults and by men to older women. You will hear it far more outside the capital and from older speakers than from a twenty-year-old in the seventh district.

It is one to recognise rather than to use. From a foreign adult it tends to land as either a joke or a misjudgement, and the risk is not worth it when jó napot kívánok does the same job with nobody raising an eyebrow. The same holds for the Hungarian spoken in Transylvania, Slovakia and Vojvodina, where older polite forms have stayed in circulation longer than in Budapest.

One table ritual is nationwide. Before anyone eats, somebody says jó étvágyat, and the person who has already been wished it answers viszont kívánom, the same to you. Staff say it when they put the plate down, and köszönöm is enough in reply.

Hungarians answer the phone with halló, or with tessék, or simply by saying their own name. If the caller is a friend whose number is on the screen, szia is normal. None of the polite greetings from this article are used to open a call to a stranger; you give your name and get to the point, and the politeness arrives later in the sentence, usually as legyen szíves.

Writing splits sharply. A formal email opens with Tisztelt and the surname plus úr for a man or asszony for a woman, and Hungarian puts an exclamation mark after the salutation where English would use a comma. A friendly email or letter opens with Kedves and a first name. Note that Hungarian puts the family name first, so the man you know as János Kovács is Kovács János on the envelope and Kovács úr in the greeting.

Sign-offs follow the same split. Tisztelettel is the formal one, with respect. Üdvözlettel is the everyday business one, with greetings, and it shortens to üdv between colleagues. Among friends a message ends with puszi, a kiss, which is common between women and from women to men and carries no romantic weight.

Learn köszönöm and szívesen as a single unit, because one without the other leaves the exchange open. Add legyen szíves for every request you make of a stranger, and bocsánat for every small collision.

After that it is mostly listening. Notice which half of the pair the person in front of you has used, give back the matching half, and the formal and informal split starts to sort itself out.