Hurdles in Hungary

Whenever anybody travels it is likely that they will run into a language barrier. We have definitely found many instances of miscommunications and blunders caused by our lack of Hungarian language expertise. We would like to share a few of these stories with you.

An instance where knowledge of a few more Hungarian vocabulary words could have come in handy was in the pastry shop. I would expect that in a pastry shop they would sell, you know, pastries. Typically the words alma (apple), csokoládé (chocolate), and cukor (sugar) are pretty useful and sufficient to get something deliciously sweet. However, one day I really wanted a jelly pastry. I found the perfect one, and I could see the red jelly peeking out of the edges. When I got back to the hotel, I bit into my pastry to find a hot dog. The red stuff? That was ketchup. What I learned: pastry shops in Hungary sell pizza and hot dog pastries (if you can still call them pastries) mixed in with the sugary ones, so don't buy a mystery pastry unless you are feeling adventurous.

Another oddity that many of us students have noticed is that when we hear a foreign language we immediately want to respond, not with English, but with whatever other foreign language we know. For instance, we who have taken Spanish feel the need to say adios, sí, or no comprendo. It doesn't help when you find Hungarian words spelled the same as a Spanish word but pronounced completely differently. "Este" in Spanish means "this," but in Hungarian it means "evening." So when one of our classmates tried pointing to a food item he wanted to buy saying "este" the vendor could not figure out what the food had to do with that evening.

At times we find that store owners also get frustrated with our Hungarian deficiency. There is a convenience store around the corner from our hotel called the CBA where we frequently stop for snacks. Many shops such as the CBA like costumers to pay with exact change. One student's purchase totaled 310 forints, so she paid with 400 forints which seemed close enough to the total to make a vendor happy. The cashier began angrily chattering at her, but the look of confusion on the student's face made the cashier more frustrated. The student first thought that there was something wrong with the purchase or the amount of money that she tried to pay with. Finally, after lots of hand motions, confusion, and anger the cashier realized the student had no smaller coins to pay with. So the cashier threw her the change and grumpily helped the next person in line.

Even opening doors in Hungary proves to be a serious challenge; do you push to open the door or pull? We are math students, but somehow a 50/50 probability to get this question right seems to end in 100% failure. We honestly cannot figure out why we all have so much trouble with this simple aspect of life. Occasionally we find the words tolni (push) and húzni (pull) on the doors, but then it is a matter of remembering which Hungarian word means which English word.

While we have learned many key Hungarian phrases, we still find ourselves in funny situations that make great stories. The entire interim trip is a learning experience, and we tend to learn more from our struggles (except we still have not learned how to open the doors on the first attempt).