1. Forum
  2. >
  3. Topic: Hungarian
  4. >
  5. "Szeretlek."


Translation:I love you.

July 22, 2016



Szóval, egy olyan feladatban, ahol be kell helyettesítenem a mondatba egy hiányzó szót, de az egész mondat maga a hiányzó szó, honnan vegyem azt, hogy akkor most mi a helyes válasz??? Én a „Szereted”-et választottam, mert nyelvtanilag (mint tárgyeset) ez is helyes lenne mert „Te őt szereted”. A másik választási lehetőség „Szeretik” szintén helyes lenne (Ők „őt/azt” szeretik) Ez a feladat nagyon nem jó így ahogy van.

So in this exercise where I have to select a missing word into the sentence but the whole sentence stands from the missing word itself, how am I supposed to know the right answer??? I selected "Szereted" which grammatically would be also correct, because it means "You love/like HER" The other option "Szeretik" would be also correct (They love/like HIM/HER/IT). This exercise needs to be fixed.


Report it next time, if you haven't already. :)


Are there separate words for "like" and "love"?


There is kedvel, which means 'to like'.


Szeretni can often translated to 'like' as well.
In general, szerelem is a romantic love, and szeretet is more broad.


I don't understand what part of Szeretlek implies "you".


The -lek suffix. It's a special suffix used to express that I (the subject) do something to you (as an object). Szeretlek - I love you; csókollak - I kiss you; várlak - I am waiting for you. The object can be either singular or plural you, by the way. If you're referring to multiple people, you usually add titeket to make that clear.


I'm actually very confused by this, is this in the tips & notes section? I can't find it.

Does this mean that Hungarian has different verb endings for each object? What would "i'm waiting for them" be?


It's not in the tips and notes section, as far as I'm aware.
There are two conjugation modes in Hungarian, depending on whether the direct object (that one with a -t suffix) is a definite one or not. Definite objects are in most cases designated with the definite article a (Olvasom az újságot - I read the newspaper), but ezt/ezeket/azt/azokat (this/these/that/those) or names (Zsuzsát and so on) are definite objects as well. Whenever you talk about a certain thing, shortly. Then you use definite conjugation. You'll learn about that one a little later, I think.

If the direct object is an indefinite one (Olvasok újságokat - I read newspapers, Egy fiút szeret - He loves a boy), or the verb doesn't have an object (Alszik - he sleeps), you use indefinite conjugation.

Followed so far? Good.

The matter is a bit different if your objects are people, in form of personal pronouns. For that, you use the definite conjugation only for the third persons. Let's make a handy table for the word szeret:

szeret- me you him/ her/it us you(pl) them
I love -ek -lek -em -ek -lek -em
You love -sz -sz -ed -sz -sz -ed
S/he loves - - -i - - -i
We love -ünk -ünk -jük -ünk -ünk -jük
You (pl) love -tek -tek -itek -tek -tek -itek
They love -nek -nek -ik -nek -nek -ik

As you see, 'him/her/it' and 'they' use the same (definite) conjugation, and the rest the indefinite one. The only weird one out is "I love you" (both singular and plural you) that use -lek instead of the usual -ek.
(Edit: making tables by hand is quite the task)

Edit 2: Duolingo's update messed up my table a bit, so I looked more into Markdown and learnt how to make automatic tables. It should be legible again, even though it leaks a bit.


RyagonIV, thank you for your patience in preparing the above table of very useful conjugations. Well done you, it's no easy task and so time-consuming putting it all together. I copied it into Word and made a file to keep. It's ever so much easier with tables or tabs in a word processor, but you did not have that luxury - all the more credit to you, much appreciated.


Ah, thank you for the kind words. :)
I'm actually writing on an overview to Hungarian conjugation currently, to put up on here sometime. But time is a bit sparse, so it goes slow. I'm glad I could help with this little table. :)


Thanks, that's a lot, but very helpful. I hate to be a pest, but I have a few more questions.

  1. Just to be clear, if the object is a person, you always use the indefinite conjugation UNLESS the object in question is him/her/it/them. Am I right here?

  2. Is the -lek ending in this example an exception? Are there other verbs that have this ending?

  3. Let's use Szeretsz as an example. How do I know if that means "you love me" vs "You like"? Context. Do I need to include a pronoun?

I apologize if these sound really dumb, but I've never heard of the concept of Definite Conjugation. Thanks for everything!


You're here to learn, so ask away. :)

  1. If you refer to the person with a pronoun, you use indefinite conjugation, except for him/her/it (őt), or them (őket). Or the formal you-forms which are grammatically treated like third person forms (önt, önöket (pl), magát, magukat (pl)).

  2. Hungarian is a mix-and-match language, pretty much. You can use the -lak/-lek suffix with any transitive verb. Those are verbs where you can say "I [verb] you": várlak (wait for), látlak (see), festelek (paint), figyellek (watch), and so on.

  3. If you use szeret with a person, it means "to love". If you use it with anything else, it means "to like".
    Zsuzsát szeretem - I love Zsuzsa.
    Ez az asztalt szeretem - I like this table.
    You can "like" people with the verb kedvel, and "love" objects (or rather "be infatuated with") with imád.


To add to what RyagonIV said:

  1. If the object is a noun, you get to choose between definite and indefinite -- Egy lányt szeretek "I love a girl" (indefinite) versus Azt a lányt szeretem "I love that girl" (definite).
  2. Nothing to add here
  3. In general, you need to specify the object explicitly, e.g. as a noun or with a pronoun. The two big exceptions are -lek and the definite conjugation. -lek has the object built into it; and the definite conjugation shows that the object must be something third-person (him, her, it, them, (polite) you), so that can be inferred if that definite object is not explicitly mentioned. But for something like "You love me", you would have to include the "me" explicitly: Engem szeretsz.


Also to answer your other question: "I'm waiting for them" would be "Őket várom". Definite conjugation.


You are awesome! I have one more question then I'll be done annoying you, based on your chart it seems there is no way to tell if someone is saying they love me/you/us/you all. It's Szeretnek. Is there a way to tell them apart?


Ah, well. You have to spell out the object most of the time. Like Mizinamo said earlier, only szeretlek (I love you) and the definite forms ([someone] loves him/her/it/them) hint at the proper object. The personal objects are:
Én - engem (rare: engemet)
Te - téged (rare: tégedet)
Ő - őt
Mi - minket (also: bennünket)
Ti - titeket (also: benneteket)
Ők - őket

So you can say something like "Minket szeretnek" - they love us. Note that you also can add objects to those other forms like "Téged szeretlek" or "Szereted őt" to make it more clear which object you're referring to.


Thanks! One more question. What would "I love myself" be? Ent Szeretek?


"Ent" sounds cute. :D
It would be a shame if the accusatives of the personal pronouns would be so easily to form, no? "Me" is engem in Hungarian. (Huh, where's the -t? Well, there's also a rarely used longer form with the -t suffix: engemet) So "I love me" could be "Engem szeretek." (Not actually used, though.)

And then there's also a word for "myself" in Hungarian, which is more self-centred than engem. The Hungarian selves are formed with the base word mag (lit. kernel, seed, core) and a possessive suffix. You'll have a lot of fun with those later on. (That's also where the formal form maga comes from, literally meaning "him/herself".) "Myself" is magam, accusative is magamat, so "I love myself" is "Szeretem magamat." Yes, now with definite conjugation again because magamat is not an actual pronoun.

  • 554

As RyagonIV showed, “engem szeretek” could be technically correct, but no one ever says that. We say “szeretem magamat”.

Actually, in that beautiful 6x6 table, I love me, you love you, we love us should be left out, because these forms are not used.


The ending -lek means that the subject is "I" and the object is "you".

It's an ending that marks not just the subject but also the object.


we add -ek for 1st singular person. and the stem is szeret. so why don't we say szeretek. we always add extra -l for 2nd singular person in each verb? for example for figyel, if we want to say 'i am watching you', then we have to say figyellek?


Yes, if the subject is first person singular and the object is second person, there's an extra "l". And yes again, "figyellek" is the correct form in that case. :)


Well, that accounts only for the front vowel verbs. Back vowel verbs get the suffix -lak, not *-lok. (Látlak - I see you.)


köszönöm szépen :)


Is this a trick question? Like did you forget something?.....Oh yes "Please"


According to the theory to this exercise, should it not be that "szeretlek" is just "I love (something)" and "szeretlem" would be "I love you?"


No, because the root is not szeretl- or szeretel- (with vowel dropping on adding an ending) but szeret-.

The ending here is -lek and not -ek.

Szeretem could, I think, mean "I love you" when the implied third-person definite object is Önt "you (polite, singular)" rather than őt "him, her, it".

But szeretlek with the -lek ending specifically means "I love you" with implied second-person object teged or, less likely, titeket.

And the word meaning "I love (something indefinite)" is just szeretek, no L.


No as "you" takes the indefinite conjugation. And because whenever I does something to you (as a direct object) it takes the special form -lek/-lak.


I understand the "I + love + you" in the single word "szeretlek", but I was wondering how incorrect would be "Én szeretek téged". I know it's not the official version for "I love you", but I think it can be understood since the verb in 1st p.s. indefinite "szeretek" and the object ("you" in accusative) "téged" are all ok. Is that right? If I say "Szeretek téged", how weird it would sound? How a hungarian would react? Köszönöm!


This is 5 months ago so you probably have already figured it out, but to other people wondering the same thing:

It still has to be "Én szeretlek téged", because the -lek ending (or -lak for back vowel) is the ending used when the subject is "Én" and object is "téged".


It is simply incorrect. But you could understand "I loves you" even though it is incorrect. Right?


Is there a way to email discussion threads or revert to them somehow? This a good one that could be helpful to go back to.


On the web version you could just bookmark the discussion page. If you're on mobile, it's going to be a bit more difficult, I guess, but I can give you the link: https://www.duolingo.com/comment/16790034


Thank you very much. Yes, mostly on mobile.


I don't see the sentence


You had this as a "pick the correct word" task, no? The problem is, this sentence is only consists of one word. The even bigger problem is that usually any of the choices you can make there is a valid Hungarian one-word sentence.
For now you should just remember that the answer is "Szeretlek" until the course managers take that one out. I think this is the only "pick the word" exercise I've come across in this course, so remembering this shouldn't put a lot of strain on you.


What is that? No voice, no sentence...... but I have to select a word. It is not possible to give an answer, because there is no question. Only one possibility: skip!


My version was straight translation, not pick a word.


Please bare with me, I have spoken the launguage for 58 years but have never been taught reading or formal grammer other than being called a sarhazi (❤❤❤❤ or out house). emadlek means to love or adore a person - szeretlek is for friends or animals - i would like to eat is an szeretlek any - you can add nagyon or the like but it is still not emadluk


"imadlak" - but "love" is also used in a less passionate way in English and for that "szeretlek" works. A dictionary will give "love, like, be fond of" - which matches 90% of the use of "love" in English.


és is szeretlek duo


How would you say "I love her" or " I love them/us/you all"?


I love her. Szeretem (őt).

I love them. Szeretem (őket).

I love us. Szeretek minket.{sounds weird}

I love you all. Szeretlek (titeket).

Love your avi, btw

Learn Hungarian in just 5 minutes a day. For free.