Hungarian style guide¶
Write Hungarian with the house voice and the product's terminology. Use A magyar helyesírás szabályai, 12th edition for spelling and punctuation. The shared localization review covers meaning, context and testing.
Address and meaning¶
Use polite third-person singular forms in house instructions: Nyissa meg a fájlt., Válassza ki a mappát. These address the reader even though the verb is grammatically third person. Usually omit ön when the verb makes the reference clear. Informal te address is a legitimate choice for a different, agreed audience; it is not restricted to children. Keep the choice consistent across a flow.
Prefer a direct verb to a heavy nominal phrase when the actor and meaning stay intact. Az eszköztárral can replace Az eszköztár segítségével when both mean using the toolbar. Do not impose a one-clause limit, ban every passive or replace a clear technical term merely to avoid repetition. An actor-neutral result can be more accurate than an invented we.
Choose words by meaning. Profi is not a universal replacement for professional; a professional qualification or product tier needs its actual term. Szeretne can soften a question about preference, but must not weaken a requirement. Keep adding an item, applying formatting, moving a file and deleting it distinct. Translate an idiom's contribution without adding a performance claim or silently removing information.
Preserve the whole operation. A restart warning includes other affected users, their unsaved work and whether loss is possible or certain. Restarting an installer is not necessarily restarting the computer. Keep the condition for an automatic move and all named permission/data categories. Do not turn permission into an instruction to enable collection.
Cancel and Delete are different actions: Mégse and Törlés. If Cancel returns to editing so the reader can save, retain that final action: A visszalépéshez kattintson a Mégse gombra, majd mentse a munkáját. Use this only when it describes the real flow; the label alone does not promise recovery.
People and ownership¶
Hungarian ő does not distinguish he from she; ők is plural. Use role names such as kolléga without gratuitous gender marking, while respecting how a named person describes their role. Do not replace a singular person with a plural group. Szülő means parent, not every kind of legal guardian.
Keep accessibility descriptions accurate. A person with a disability is not necessarily a person with a mobility impairment. Avoid presenting people without disabilities as inherently normal or healthy. Follow the individual's preference where known and the shared accessibility guidance.
Possessive endings can carry necessary information: a fájl is the file; a fájlja can mean the reader's file in this polite context, or someone else's file when that person is the referent. Omit redundant possessives only when ownership remains clear. Repeat the owner when a third-person ending could refer to two people. Do not add possession just to sound friendly.
Nouns, articles and verbs¶
Hungarian uses suffixes and postpositions where English often uses prepositions. Choose the construction for the intended relationship: a menüben means in the menu, az eszköztáron on the toolbar, a lapon on the tab/page, and az átlag alatt below the average. Do not turn these into a single rule for every interface container.
Keep adjective and noun forms distinct:
| Function | Example |
|---|---|
| One file | új fájl |
| Several files | új fájlok |
| Definite object | az új fájlt |
| Plural object | az új fájlokat |
| Inside the file | az új fájlban |
| Files described as new | A fájlok újak. |
An ordinary adjective before a noun does not copy its plural or case ending. A predicative adjective can take plural agreement, as the last example shows. Quantified nouns use singular forms: 1 fájl, 2 fájl, 5 fájl, több fájl. Without a quantity, fájlok is the ordinary plural. Keep case where the sentence requires it: Válasszon ki két fájlt. Do not infer the complete message's grammar from a numeric token alone.
Choose a or az by the first pronounced sound: a fájl, az alkalmazás. Do not mechanically prepend a(z) to every unknown name. Articles and definiteness also affect verb choice: Nyisson meg egy fájlt. asks for an unspecified file; Nyissa meg a fájlt. refers to a definite one. This is a practical contrast, not an exhaustive account of every pronoun or object construction. Changing the object may require changing the verb.
A topic title such as Fájl másolása names an activity; it is not a plural form and does not itself command the reader. Másolja a fájlt. is an instruction. Keep the intended number and reference instead of mechanically deleting egy or converting singular to plural.
Verb particles move with sentence structure. Compare Megnyitja a fájlt., Nyissa meg a fájlt. and Ne nyissa meg a fájlt. The separated particle does not acquire a hyphen. For ordinary inability, use A fájl nem nyitható meg. Do not apply that word order mechanically to contrastive focus or to every word following nem.
Names, compounds and abbreviations¶
Preserve product spelling and case. A grammatical suffix is not the same as a compound element. Hungarian commonly attaches suffixes directly to foreign names; silent endings and other spelling/pronunciation patterns can require a hyphen. Check the actual name and pronunciation. For arbitrary names, a descriptor is often clearer: a FontLab alkalmazásban. A trademark symbol does not supply a grammatical rule.
Write established compounds consistently, for example eszköztár, párbeszédpanel, webhely and e-mail-cím. The six-syllable guideline concerns compounds with more than two constituents, not every long word. Distinguish inflectional endings from derivational suffixes when counting. Other rules can require hyphens independently of length. If a compound becomes hard to parse, use a phrase that retains the relationship: a beépülő modulok letöltése.
Do not infer spelling from the number of spaces in the English term. With an acronym, PDF-fájl is a compound, while PDF-ben is an inflected form. Choose suffix vowels and assimilation from pronunciation. Preserve exact technical forms such as MB, kB and kbit/s; bytes and bits are different units.
Explain unfamiliar abbreviations when the explanation helps the reader. Established forms include pl., stb., db and Ft; they do not all take a final period. Ordinary abbreviation spelling and acronym spelling are different systems. Keep an acronym's verified expansion: DNS expands to Domain Name System, not Domain Name Server. A label does not need a long parenthetical English expansion merely because an acronym appears in it.
Labels and message states¶
Use sentence case for new headings and labels. Preserve the actual capitalization and ellipsis when quoting an existing label. Common words such as súgó, vágólap and telepítő stay lowercase in ordinary prose; they can start a sentence or form part of an exact label. Do not capitalize every word of an invented translated product name.
Attach grammatical endings to a descriptor rather than changing a quoted control: Kattintson a Mentés gombra. is a pointer instruction; Válassza a Mentés parancsot. names command selection. Use the right control noun and the input action actually required. A checkbox label, menu command and button are not interchangeable.
Keep the message's time and outcome:
| Meaning | Example |
|---|---|
| Command | Mentse a fájlt. |
| In progress | A fájl mentése folyamatban van. |
| Completed | A fájl mentése befejeződött. |
| Failed attempt | Nem sikerült menteni a fájlt. |
| Current limitation | A fájl nem menthető. |
A fájl nem található. reports that the file cannot be found; Nem sikerült megtalálni a fájlt. reports an unsuccessful attempt. Do not force both into one tense. A termékkulcs használata sikertelen volt. reports failure without deciding that the key itself was mistyped or invalid. Add a cause only when the product knows it.
Distinguish memória from lemezterület. Name the actual missing resource and a supported recovery step. Do not add an exclamation mark to make an uncertain failure sound more serious.
Placeholders¶
Preserve token spelling, order constraints, escaping and markup according to the real formatter. %s does not tell you whether its value is a person, file, sentence or empty string. Inspect the substitution contract before choosing grammar; do not paste suffix alternatives around unknown values.
For a filename, a complete sentence can put grammar on a known noun: Nem sikerült megnyitni a következő fájlt: „{filename}”. Keep the filename unchanged. Use this only with the project's actual token syntax. Test names beginning with vowels and consonants, digits, spaces, punctuation and non-Hungarian letters, plus empty values where supported. Check long names and counts in the rendered interface. A safe noun phrase does not replace a missing-value policy.
Punctuation and characters¶
Use Hungarian „…” quotation marks: U+201E opens, U+201D closes. Preserve áéíóöőúüű and capitals ÁÉÍÓÖŐÚÜŰ, including the double acute on ő and ű. Do not substitute umlauts or remove accents in uppercase text. Keep straight quotes where an executable format requires them.
Commas follow Hungarian structure. An ordinary list can use név, jelszó és cím without a comma before és; a clause boundary can require one before the same conjunction. Paired conjunctions need their own punctuation. Több mint öt fájl expresses a quantity threshold without a comma; a comparison can use több, mint. A sentence may begin with És, De or Vagy when the connection is clear.
The spelling rules permit alternative comma positions with constructions such as anélkül hogy, depending on phrasing. Do not enforce one placement as the sole grammatical form. A colon can introduce a lowercase explanatory clause; it does not automatically capitalize the next word. Separate following sentences and direct quotations need their own capitalization.
Use a period for ordinary house instructions and full error sentences. Hungarian spelling guidance allows periods for instructions in suitable contexts; this is not simply an override copied from English. A subject can be understood from the verb, and A fájl üres. is a complete sentence without an explicit equivalent of is. Short labels normally omit final punctuation. Preserve question marks for actual questions and reserve exclamation marks for justified emphasis.
Keep a hyphen, a range dash and a mathematical minus distinct: PDF-fájl, 3–6, −18 °C. Use nonbreaking spaces between a number and its unit where supported. Do not insert literal into a plain-text message or assume one keyboard shortcut works in every editor. Write és for an ordinary conjunction, but preserve meaningful &, + and other characters in names, expressions and syntax. Verify their spoken treatment when they matter to a task.
Numbers and dates¶
Use decimal commas in Hungarian display text: 12,5 mm. Group five or more digits in threes with spaces: 10 250,75. An isolated four-digit value such as 1250 normally remains ungrouped; a column may group it for alignment with larger values. Ordinary percentages attach the sign: 50%, 3,5%, with inflected 50%-os. Keep a space before a currency or unit: 1250 Ft, −18 °C. A technical notation standard can require a different presentation; follow the actual field contract.
Use numerals for exact measurements, prices and values the reader must find. Spelled-out quantities can suit ordinary prose; there is no universal digits-only rule. Preserve magnitude, precision, currency and whether a value is approximate. Do not convert a code's decimal point to a comma.
For an unambiguous prose date, use 2026. szeptember 13.; the month is lowercase. A day with a suffix loses its final period: szeptember 13-án. A bare year is not automatically followed by a period in every grammatical context. Keep version identifiers exact, such as 4.2.1, and put prose around them: a 4.2.1 verzió. Versions are not decimal numbers. Check actual date/time widgets and input formats instead of rewriting stored values.
Keyboard and spoken text¶
Distinguish access keys, application shortcuts and keys printed on the keyboard. Verify the Hungarian layout, operating system, focused control and actual command before documenting a combination. Do not copy a generic shortcut catalog: a shortcut that deletes is not Cancel, and arrow keys do not behave identically in every control. Distinguish the numeric keypad when behavior differs.
Preserve key labels the reader can find. Szóköz can name the space key; direction words can identify arrow keys. Assign access keys using the actual product's collision and input rules, including accented letters. Do not force a duplicate simply because the translated label has few characters.
Use established Hungarian pronunciation for localized terms and an agreed pronunciation for product names. Test inflected names and read meaningful URL, identifier and mathematical characters when omission would change the task. Do not infer that every URL scheme or dot can be dropped. Follow the shared audio and video guidance for captions, visual description, pacing and script checks; the source's ten-second opening and no-recap formulas are not house requirements.