I spoke Hungarian before I spoke English; or at least that is what I am told. I guess growing up with a family of Hungarian-speakers it does follow that Magyar would come easily. I do have memories of being about 3 or 4 (when I assume my English was kicking in more full-time) confusing Hungarian words and English words.
Here was my language dilema:
A good Hungarian family we often had cakes (called Sütemény) and tortes and other amazing homemade things. And when we spoke about these we called cake Sütemény. But depending on where we were, we also called cake, well...cake.
And as most 3 years old do, I painted, drew with crayons, etc. and used the colour blue. And if I was with my grandparents I called the colour Kék (in Hungarian...pronounced CAKE). And elsewhere I called the colour blue.
One perplexing afternoon, probably in need of a nap, I was sitting on my grandmother's green sofa trying to understand the relationship between Sütemény, cake, blue, Kék...and finally determining that all cake must be blue.
Perhaps this is when the english lept forward to be my langauge of choice and my hungarian vocbulary slipped away. We did continue to speak a magyar-english hybrid very regularly until all my grandparents died. I try to use it when I can with my parents too. Ironically I think my Hungarian is still better than my French when forced to use either language.
So I'm in the right place I guess; I can speak the language. (And there is more behind my choice of destination...but more on that later).
For now I need to find a Kávéház and a blue piece of Sütemény.
The team officially meets on Sunday and then we head for Romania on Monday. Will spend the next day or so trying to get over the jet lag.
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