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Movie dialogue: “Csocsó, avagy éljen május 1-je!”

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Happy May 1 everyone! Today is a public holiday here in Hungary, and to celebrate, we’re going to show you two short clips from the 2001 Hungarian comedy, “Csocsó, avagy éljen május 1-je!” (“Csocsó, or Long Live May 1!”). The movie can be viewed in its entirety here.

Gusztáv “Csocsó” Csomai, played by Róbert Koltai in the type of nutty comedic role that he always excels at, is a fun-loving Russian teacher (who doesn’t actually know much Russian) in 1952 Hungary.

Watch the following two clips and see if you can answer the questions that relate to the dialogue. The answers to the questions, a transcript of the dialogue and English translation are all below.

Also, leave a comment below if you have any questions for us about this, or anything else to share!

Clip 1:

Csocsó, who is nursing a bad hangover after carousing last night, has been summoned by the boss and has a short conversation with Ági, the secretary. Csocsó is coaching the local soccer team, and Ági asks him a question about it.

Questions:
1. Why does the boss want to talk to Csocsó?
2. What does the secretary want to know from Csocsó?
3. How does Csocsó respond to her?

Clip 2:

The meeting with the boss does not go well (Csocsó walks in asking for a beer), and Gubinyi (Sándor Gáspár) from the ÁVH secret police force asks Csocsó a serious question.

Questions:
1. What does Gubinyi ask Csocsó?
2. What does Csocsó say?

[Read more…]

Advanced Lesson 1 – Magyarország és a magyarok

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With this installment of the podcast, we bring you our first Advanced Lesson! In this lesson, Györgyi talks about Hungary, and tells you a little about the people who live there, all in Hungarian. Don’t worry, we also have the English translation in our lesson notes.

Using this material:
Try to repeat everything she says, even if you don’t understand everything completely. One useful technique to try (as we discuss in the podcast) is called shadowing. You can see one proponent of shadowing, Dr. Alexander Arguelles, in this video.

What do you think of our first advanced lesson? Leave us a comment below telling us, and thanks for listening!

Music: Nomada, “Aven le Roma.” Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 Hungary License. Available at remix.creativecommons.hu.

The PDF file below contains the written transcript in both Hungarian and English, and the MP3 file has the audio for Advanced Lesson 1. Download both of them below, or subscribe on iTunes.

Advanced Lesson 1 notes (PDF)

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Watch: the movie “Moszkva tér”

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In the last podcast, Györgyi gave an enthusiastic recommendation for the 2001 Hungarian film “Moszkva tér” (Moscow Square), which is set in Budapest in 1989 and gives a retro look back at the city at that time.

The city, of course, has changed so much since then. As we mentioned in the podcast, even Moszkva tér itself is now called Széll Kálmán tér.

The entire film is online, alas without English subtitles, but still it’s a good way of getting a feel of the Hungarian language. See how much you can understand!
 

A note to our dear Hungarian listeners…

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Today I noticed a post about language learning podcasts in the Hungarian site Webisztán. It was basically about how many free language learning podcasts are available, and the author’s desire to continue learning Italian through podcasts.

But in the comments section we were obliquely referenced.  The first comment was innocuous enough:

grabog 2008.05.11. 20:18:11
Belehallgattam a magyarba. Hát, érdekes. 🙂
(I listened to the Hungarian. Interesting.)

But the next comment also caught my eye:

richard4tus 2008.05.12. 04:37:56
ezt a podcastot már én is próbáltam, de eltántorított az elképesztő angol akcentus…
(I also tried this podcast, but the horrid English accent sent me reeling.)

Apparently he means me and my accent in Hungarian.

First of all, I apologize for butchering the Hungarian language. I probably do have a strong accent. Györgyi’s used to it by now, but I imagine that other native speakers might not be so impressed.

Second, it should go without saying, but it’s worth stating openly:  DO NOT IMITATE MY SPEECH PATTERNS.  Györgyi is the native speaker, and you should repeat after what she says ONLY. I’m only here so that she doesn’t sound lonely speaking by herself, and because a dialogue needs at least two people. 

If there was another Hungarian speaker near us, we would gladly co-opt that person into our podcast and get me out of the way.  Hopefully we’ll be able to get another native speaker on soon so you can hear two native speakers talking and imitate their speech patterns properly.  Until we can do that, I ask for the native speakers’ understanding and tolerance with my tört magyar!

—steven