Word of the Week 3 and Person of the Week 3

Koszonom - Thank you
Pronounced: koh-so-nome

Okay, we know that it's pretty basic and not that interesting of a word, but, in case you didn't know, Hungarian is one of the least similar languages to any other language. Basically, it's like nothing you've ever seen before. There's lots of gy's and sz's and other word combinations that are hard to pronounce. We have learned maybe around five or less Hungarian words so far, which are basically "yes", "no", "exit" and "thank you". Not really very interesting, but useful.


This week, we chose two people for our Person of the Week. Ildiko and Emily were both born in Hungary and Ildiko is Emily's mother. They are our current host family.

Name: Ildiko Milstein

Where in Hungary did you grow up? I grew up on the Northern side of Hungary, near the Slovak border in a small village.

What do you think of the public transportation system in Budapest? When I used to use it, I thought they were usually dirty and cold in the winter, but I could get anywhere I wanted. Nowadays, they have these terrible scandals with the management. They basically stole everything from the company. There are eleven managers currently being investigated for it. The systems are very old. They basically haven’t modernized anything.

What do you do for a living? We have a photo agency and I work in sales and marketing for Hungary. We sell celebrity and stock photos to magazines.

What’s your favorite Hungarian dish? Palacsinta, a crepe filled with chocolate, jam or applesauce.

What’s the Hungarian school system like? When I was in school, they made you go to the closest school to your house. Now, you can choose basically any school you want. You go to primary school from 6 to 12 or 14. You can enter high school now at 12, which I don’t think is a good idea. There’s too much of an age difference between 12
and 18. School seems very difficult now; there are tougher subjects and languages are very important now.

When and how did you learn English? I started at the age of 14. I was in the first class at my school allowed to learn English. Before, there was only Russian and sometimes German. I chose English mostly because I liked American music and wanted to be able to understand the words. I had such a great teacher; she didn’t even need to teach with a book. The teachers are always so important.


Name: Emily Milstein

What grade are you in? Fourth grade.

Do you like your teachers? Some of them; our gym teacher is not so good because she’s very tough, but I like maybe the English Science teacher. (Note: Emily attends a bilingual school, so has classes such as Science in both English and Hungarian.)

What’s your favorite thing to do in the city? I like shopping a lot with my mom. I also like to go to movie theaters and museums.

What are your favorite museums? In America, I like the Natural History Museum. In Hungary, I like the National Art Museum.

What do you think in the most useful word for us to know in Hungarian? Gyikhus, which means lizard meat (kind of like mystery meat at home).

What’s your favorite food/drink/candy? Spaghetti with tomato sauce, Sprite and Starburst.