Going shopping
How to say "I'm going shopping" in Hungarian?
Vásárolni megyek.
- vásárolni = to do the shopping
- megyek = I am going, I go
You can observe the word vásár ("fair") in the verb vásárolni. In Hungarian we do not have continuous tenses, so we have the same form for "I am going" and "I go":
Na, megyek vásárolni.
This is a colloquial form to express that you have just made a decision to go to the shop, something like "OK, I'm going shopping."
- vásárló = customer
Boltba megyek
- bolt = shop
Here we use the suffix -ba/be, which means "into". So this expression means "I am going into the shop". We chose the -ba version because of the vowel harmony rules,.
It is not uncommon to see instances of incorrect use of -ba/be. Incorrect use means that some native speakers say -ba/be instead of -ban/ben, which means "in". So the sentence:
- A boltban vagyok. = I am in the shop.
is correct, but if somebody writes
- *A boltba vagyok.
is definitely incorrect, since -ba/be expresses a movement (into) and not a position (inside). However, in spoken language, we are often too lazy to pronounce the final n of -ban/ben - this may be the reason of this confusion. With -ba/be, sentences expressing movement or direction, like
- A boltba megyek.
are correct.
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♬ original sound - Hungarian Pronunciation