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Consonant gemination


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Gemination in the context of Hungarian verb conjugation means the doubling-up of the last consonant in a verb's ending. The first consonant in the ending we are trying to apply turns into the last consonant of the stem.

Three examples of this, explained below, may be see here:

  • olvas + -ják = olvassák they read it
  • barát + -val = baráttal with a friend
  • z + -vá = házzá turning into a house

Take care with gemination because it may mean that you do not recognise a word as having had a known ending applied. Learn to recognise -ss- etc near the end of words.

Sibilant verbs stems: -s, -sz, -z, -zs, -dz

Verbs that end in one of these letters usually undergo gemination of this final letter when we add any ending that starts in -j-.

Note that although there are five letters in this group, only three exhibit gemination all the time: -s, -sz, -z.

It will only occur when the first letter of the ending is -j-.

We simply replace the -j- with the sibilant letter from the root.


  • olvas + -ják = olvassák they read it
  • hoz + -jon = hozzon let him bring it!
  • s + -jük = véssük we chisel it
  • ébresz + -jük = ébresszük we awake

Since gemination occurs only with -j- endings, the present tense indefinte, which contains no endings that start with -j-, does not exhibit gemination. The same applies to third person singular and all plural persons for front-vowel words in the present tense definte, they do not exhibit gemination simply because no -j- endings exist.

The -val and -vá noun endings

When we apply the -val-vel (instrumental case) or the -vá-vé (translative case) endings to a noun, the -v- is replaced with the last consonant in the noun stem.

For nouns ending in a vowel then there is no gemination.

To summarise: We simply replace the -v- with a final-consonant in a noun.


  • barát + -val = baráttal with a friend
  • könyv + -vel = könyvvel with a book
  • barátom + -val = barátommal with my friend
  • könyveid + -vé = könyveiddé turning into your books
  • hajó + -val = hajóval with a ship N.B. there is no gemination here.

Gemination of double-glyph letters

As could be seen above, remember that when we end up with two double-glyph letters next to each other, we write only the first stroke twice:

  • színész actor
  • színész + vel
  • színész + szel
  • színésszel with an actor Note how sz + sz = ssz

See the

TODO - link

section of the alphabet.


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