A reference guide to Hungarian grammar, designed with English-speakers in mind

Today's name day: Regina Print Printer friendly version      

Adjectives in Hungarian


Take a quick survey and help make HungarianReference.com even better

Adjectives are describing words.
First, let us look at the three types of adjective in English, and then we can move on to see these in Hungarian.
Then you can see some irregular adjectives and examples.

Absolute, comparative and superlative adjectives

First, let us define what these mean in English. You may have heard people using the term "superlative" to mean "generic meaningless praise", such as "he said my report was good, wonderful, amazing, or some other such superlative."

WRONG! That's not what 'superlative' means.

Superlative is one of the three types of adjective. They will be described here using examples.

Absolute

This is the most basic statement. We state that an item, usually a noun, possesses a certain quality.

  • Daniel is tall.
  • Ági is pretty.
  • Jaffa is dumb.
  • Beer is good.
  • Budweiser is bad.
  • You have few brain cells.

We simply apply the adjective to the noun, without reference to any other noun. We do not compare Daniel's height to anyone else's, nor Ági's looks.

Go to the absolute adjectives page.

Comparative or relative

This uses an adjective to compare two items. We state that some quality (or quantity) is larger or smaller than some other quality (or quantity).

  • Daniel is taller than Ági.
  • Ági is prettier than Helen of Troy.
  • Jaffa is dumber than [Rolo].
  • Beer is better than wine.
  • Budweiser is worse than piss.
  • You have fewer brain cells than I. (not 'than [me]'.)

Note two things:

  1. The adjective has changed. Usually, the ending -er is added, but only for regular adjectives.
  2. The word than is introduced. We are comparing the quality or quantity to another.

Go to the comparative page.

Superlative

This uses an adjective to state that some quality or quantity is the greatest or least of all.

  • Daniel is the tallest.
  • Ági is the prettiest.
  • Jaffa is the dumbest.
  • Beer is the best.
  • Budweiser beer is the worst.
  • You have fewest brain cells.

Note three things:

  1. The adjective has changed again. Usually, the ending -er in the comparative changes to -est, but only for regular adjectives.
  2. The word than is removed, compared to the comparative. We have no need to mention any other noun.
  3. We usually put the in front of the adjective, compared to the comparative.

Go to the superlative page.

Creating adjectives of location

For a reference of how to create adjectives, see the adjective building page.


You are here:
Skip Navigation LinksHungarianReference.com > Grammar > Adjectives


Printer friendly version Print Add Favourite Send

Sitemap
Contact
Make a donation to HungariaReference.com