Indo-European languages are using two words for what Hungarian is satisfied with one: “for you”, “with me”, “to them” and so on. Instead of this comfortable system of word pairs, we have a complete case conjugation for all personal pronouns.
For first, let’s see the pronouns themselves, in nominative.
én – I
te – you (singular, informal)
ő – he, she, it
mi – we
ti – you (plural, informal)
ők – they
For the sake of this article, let me use the forms you1 and you2 to distinguish which is which.
Six pronouns with 13 cases for each, that’s 78 words (plus the six caseless ones), but if you get the system once, it’s easy to memorize. So, let’s start it with the irregular case: accusative. For nouns, the suffix is -t (with a linking vowel: -at, -et, -ot, -öt).
engem – me
téged – you1
őt – him, her, it
minket, bennünket – us
titeket, benneteket – you2
őket – them
Some of the English equivalent are the same as the nominative forms, but you can get the rule. Two of the pronouns, us and you2, have two forms both, with practically no difference in the meaning.
And now, let’s see the 12 sets of regularly created words. They aren’t perfectly regular, there are some exceptions here and there, but still easy to remember.
Having six pronouns, the words have six endings. Most of them have three forms: for back vowel words, for front vowel ones and one to follow a vowel. In two cases (ti and ők), there are two forms to follow a vowel because the ending itself contains a vowel and it has to obey the vowel harmony, too.
én → -am, -em, -m
te → -ad, -ed, -d
ő → -a, -e, none or (in one case) -i
mi → -unk, -ünk, -nk
ti → -atok, -etek, -tok, -tek
ők → -uk, -ük, -juk, -jük
Let’s see all words in a table, together.
for nouns | I | you1 | he/she/it | we | you2 | they | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
nominative | én | te | ő | mi | ti | ők | |
accusative | -t/-ot/-at/-et/-öt | engem | téged | őt | minket | titeket | őket |
superessive | -n/-on/-en/-ön | rajtam | rajtad | rajta | rajtunk | rajtatok | rajtuk |
inessive | -ban/-ben | bennem | benned | benne | bennünk | bennetek | bennük |
adessive | -nál/-nél | nálam | nálad | nála | nálunk | nálatok | náluk |
sublative | -ra/-re | rám | rád | rá | ránk | rátok | rájuk |
illative | -ba/-be | belém | beléd | bele, belé | belénk | belétek | beléjük |
allative | -hoz/-hez/-höz | hozzám | hozzád | hozzá | hozzánk | hozzátok | hozzájuk |
delative | -ról/-ről | rólam | rólad | róla | rólunk | rólatok | róluk |
elative | -ból/-ből | belőlem | belőled | belőle | belőlünk | belőletek | belőlük |
ablative | -tól/-től | tőlem | tőled | tőle | tőlünk | tőletek | tőlük |
dative | -nak/-nek | nekem | neked | neki | nekünk | nektek | nekik |
instrumental | -val/-vel | velem | veled | vele | velünk | veletek | velük |
causal-final | -ért | értem | érted | érte | értünk | értetek | értük |
The first column is the linguistic term for the given row. The second one is the suffix applied for nouns to mark the case of that row, and then six columns follow for each pronoun.
The personal endings are marked yellow, the irregular forms requiring special attention are red. The noun suffixes corresponding to the beginning parts of conjugated pronouns are purple.
As you can see, most forms can be created by taking the noun suffix (or a bit modified version of it) and appending the appropriate form of the personal ending needed (that may be complicated to find which form is needed). There are nine exceptions: four in the accusative row, three in the conjugation of ő where there’s no ending at all, and two in the dative, where the ending irregularly changes to -i. But the initial rajt-, benn-, nál-, rá etc. parts are always the same.