Na!

I think from spending time with Laura at x-mas and again last weekend, I’ve picked up her use of the all-purpose Hungarian exclamation, “na!” It’s like “tessék,” you can use it to mean many things - well, so, okay, hm...

The other day I used it in front of a Hungarian friend. Her reaction? She looked surprised and exclaimed excitedly and proudly, “Emily! That’s actually a real Hungarian word!”

Yes, after 15 months I’ve now mastered the use of pointless two-letter exclamations. Congrats to me, I’m a genius.

Na, anyway: beginning next week, my main English-speaking companion in Szolnok is leaving on a three week holiday. So what better time to throw myself learning this wicked language? I’m calling it ‘the Three-Week Spree’, or rather I should call it ‘a Három Hét Muri’. Goals include:

* finding a teacher
* finding conversation-mates
* learning vocabulary daily
* watching less MTV and more Hungarian tv
* writing in Hungarian daily
* memorizing grammar and verb conjugations
* finally getting my letters and numbers down (after all, even my 5th grade students can do this is English, and hopefully I’m slightly smarter than they are...)

ps. note the time stamp. Yes, I am up this early on a Sunday morning, and yes, I have been up for over an hour now. Yuck.