When we mentioned apps to learn Romanian, one of our readers mentioned a desire to learn Hungarian.
Classes
If you do a quick Google search for live classes of languages in Cluj, the results might make you pleasantly surprised. However, a closer look shows that the actual websites are a bit more deceiving. There are language schools that offer lessons in any language you like, as long as you organize it by supplying the students (only after you guarantee a class will they find a teacher and so on, or they might, who knows).
As there are no scheduled Hungarian classes in Cluj, we turned to online solutions.
Magyar Iskola
Yes, they are in Budapest, not even Bucharest, and definitely not Cluj. However, Magyar Iskola does the job.
Positives
- Well-paced curriculum which has been adapted to the needs of learners for decades
- different classes tailored to how fast you want to learn and how much free time you have.
- All levels from A1.1 to C…
- Great teachers, who are highly trained and experienced, as well as familiar with the curriculum.
Negatives
- They use a Hungarian time zone and a Hungarian calendar. Therefore, they might be working on Romanian holidays and their time off will be Romanian working days. (A little inconvenient if you are a homemaker or planning family holidays).
Each superintense course takes you through one full level in about two months. (I thought it was six weeks, but apparently it is eight).
There are apparently other schools in Hungary, which have good reviews, but we are happy enough with Maygar Iskola to go from complete beginner to A2.2 and we plan to continue with them at the end of the summer. (as soon as we know our schedule).
Apps
Some apps are good for one language but terrible for another. After trying a variety of them, three stood out as useful and one as useless for Hungarian, most were mediocre.
17-Minute Languages
– This was useful in supplementing a class. But when tried without a class, it can be a bit of a headache. Why all the endings? First-person, second-person, and third-person conjugations are pretty obvious. Well, they are if you have learned another language. But things like present, past, and definite verb tenses, while given in the app, are not sufficiently explained.
Verb suffixes are given, and some prefixes can be seen in the vocab. Without a course or at least a good textbook, it might just seem like extra words.
This was useful to supplement our class learning and help us catch up. The 17-minute language app could be useful, if it is not your only tool.
(Note, it is useless for Portuguese, okay for German and Dutch, and one of my favorite apps for Romanian).
Memrise.
Here there are vocabulary lists from certain textbooks, including perhaps the textbook for your class. I used the Memrise Magyarok word lists. They recently “improved” their website, adding a bunch of AI and making their European Portuguese and German courses infinitely worse (those were my two favorite languages for Memrise before).
HungarianPod101
They have the best affiliate program, which is why I tried them even after disappointment in another language. Actually, I like the pod in Brazilian Portuguese, but for Hungarian, it seemed like a complete waste of time.
positives
- great affiliate program
- Great SEO
negatives
- Template taken from Spanish or Japanese, Not adapted to Hungarian
- boring
- tiring
- more adverts than actual content, even after you’ve paid for the full version.
Zoom
By far the best app we found so far for learning Hungarian. Mainly because Magyar Iskola uses it.
Microsoft meeting
Okay for language learning, but has some hangups. It is more difficult to share information (like links, videos, news stories) through this app than others, or so it appears.
Skype
Pretty good for online courses, and includes the ability to share videos of the class with participants right after the class is done. However, in the EU you are not supposed to share videos of the class because of privacy issues.
Conclusion
So far, our favorite course is Magyar Iskola. There are weaknesses to online learning, and of course if we made a course we would fit the Romanian school year and perhaps have a few other touches, but it helped us get to a level in Hungarian quicker than we did through self-study in supposedly easier romance languages.