Major Magyar Miscommunication

My first Hungarian lesson? Tejfol is sour cream, not yogurt.

As a budding, bashful French student in Montreal, I frequented a coffee shop every morning run by a few pretty girls. I developed a neat, tidy morning routine with all of them, and a healthy infatuation with one of them. Every morning, I’d order my coffee in French, one of the girls would switch right to English, and I’d slink out with my coffee, humbled.

After a week of similarly clumsy chats, I finally worked up the nerve to ask one of the girls why they switched to English. It had nothing to do with being snooty, she said, and had everything to do with hearing my Ontario accent then switching to English to accommodate me and speed up the transaction. I insisted that we speak French, for my benefit, every morning if there wasn’t a line-up. I would accept the struggle.

One of my favourite Hungarian language stories is also a French one.

During my second week in Budapest, I was still living out of a hotel on the Buda side of the river, but missed the last metro on the Pest side. I went to a cab stand and, with a combination of sloppy Hungarian and with my hotel address scribbled on a scrap of paper, I managed to negotiate a rate and communicated the location of my destination.

The cabbie spoke as much English as I spoke Hungarian, which is very little. But I spoke as much French as he did, which is just a bit. So off we went, over the river and into the Buda hills, practicing our French.

In the world of languages, Hungarian truly stands alone. It was decided to lump it into a lingual family with Finnish and Estonian but, from what I hear, the similarities extend to a handful of words. Every expat in my office, no matter what language they speak, have difficulty wrapping their heads around this language. It is a special case.

As someone who had never had an ear for languages, it is especially difficult for me. I will walk into a grocery store and say a quick greeting in Hungarian. I get what seems like a kind reply (hopefully), which I don't understand, so my reply is a vacant stare and an awkward shrug.

There is certainly some room for improvement. 

It's those embarrassing moments where I recall that part in the Matrix where Keanu gets those fighting skills downloaded into his head, and I wonder if I can skip this struggle with the language and download some basic communication skills between my ears.

So many Hungarians I know admit their language is a difficult, esoteric one and they are extremely understanding and gracious about so many foreigners wandering around with little ability to learn it. But I get all self-conscious when I can't complete a basic transaction with the cashier for my muesli.
 
I’m starting to make a modest effort here and there. For example, when I went to the market this past weekend, I wrote my grocery list in English and Hungarian. I also tried to use Hungarian numbers, though when I went over ten I busted out the old vacant stare and awkward shrug.

But learning a language is a long, tough process, and it's in the struggle that I learn the most. Those morning conversations in that Montreal coffee shop were some of the most horrendous things to happen to the French language. While I never was able to go out with my coffee girl crush, those clumsy little talks were important for me in developing French conversation skills that went beyond discussing the weather.

In a country with so many patient people, I have to remind myself to embrace the struggle. I must quit dreaming for a Keanu-style instant language brain download and remember that learning Hungarian, or any language, means putting myself out there enough to get a little embarrassed sometimes.