2 · Beginner · 10 minutes
Szia, jó napot
By the end you can: Greet someone correctly — and know which greeting would be a mistake.
Hungarian splits sharply between formal and informal address, and choosing wrong is noticeable in a way that a grammar mistake is not. Getting this right on day one buys you a lot of goodwill.
is for friends, family, children, colleagues your own age, anyone who has invited you to be informal. It works for both hello and goodbye. To a group, it becomes .
— literally "I wish a good day" — is the formal default. Use it with shopkeepers, officials, older strangers, anyone in a professional setting. Hungarians often shorten it to just , which is fine, but the full form is never wrong.
The rule of thumb: if you would hesitate, use the formal one. Being slightly too formal reads as polite. Being too informal reads as presumptuous.
Time of day matters too: until about nine, through the afternoon, from early evening. And for leaving formally, — long, but you will hear it constantly.