Hi everyone, welcome to another way too long blog post on the latest video for fellow mega geeks. I'll go through some of the references because why not. Again, i don't expect you to read all this but you might scan it.
First we see the opener of Dinnyefold, which is a play on Disneyworld. They sound really similar to me plus if you "ugy nezel ki, mint akinek nem jutott dinnyefold" it really evokes images of missing out on the most melon-iest place on Earth. So this felt like a no-brainer to me.
So today we're gonna keep it cooooool, and we play the Balatoni Laz song slowed down. The idea of slowing down a peppy song with buoyant lyrics to force fit it into chill or sombre mood (as I did at the end of the video) is the kind of conceptual misalignment I live for. For example, think of James Charles doing a soft acoustic version of Nicki Minaj's song, Chun Li (which is more akin to a battle cry than Tuesday mid-morning at the Central Perk).
Speaking of James Charles we move into my Beauty Guru intro. This was satire of a trend in the Beauty Guru community to use these stiff slightly Burtonesque animations of themselves in their intros. I don't know why they did this, and they ALL did the almost exact same style of intro.
And we move into outlining what this video will be about. You really all are a bit spesh because you've got so many interesting cultural and linguistic gems to tell me about. For example, harom emberes palinka is just amazing. That same person told me about "Squatting" palinka as well, which is where you have to squat below your fence lest your neighbour spies you and invites you in for obligatory palinka which is sadly poor quality. Maybe I'll mention that one later. I also chucked up a quick image of Fosters beer before moving on. I really don't like it haha, yet they've managed to become the most famous Australian beer worldwide.
I was really struck by Domino Day. When I heard the concept of a game show about dominos I struggled to imagine how that could be entertaining, but it's actually quite an elaborate and dramatic show! (At least the one episode I watched). They used such creative structures and wow it's high pressure as people's dreams fall down like.... things that fall down a lot (can't think of anything).
On TikTok at the time of writing this, it's been popular to say "NAUR" which is no in an Australian accent. It comes from a Tik Tok of some girls parodying the Australian TV show H20, so I wanted to say something like them so landed on "a FESZKOOAR". About 7 people will get this joke (soulmates)
Then we get to the real premise of this video, which is to share some cool expressions you've told me about. I say that the quality is "*mwah* Isten szintu" with a chef's kiss. On the screen I put up an Ethnicity Estimate from Ancestry.com, which shows that I'm 5% Southern European. This is obviously poking fun at people who have minor percentages of certain ethnicities then carry on like that significantly embodies their character. (It may! Not a criticism)
Now I let you in on some top-secret intel on how I store the knowledge of all these expressions. I heard about Neptun because someone who watched my videos sent me screenshots of it asking me to make fun of them haha. Fortunately the experience of an outdated university digital platform is universal so I wanted to make it a really messy outdated UI.
What do we think of the User Experience of my goodies database? You may not know that I used to be UX designer, so this was a lot of fun to think of the worst possible experience for how you might add data to a database... by navigating fragile and poorly organised menus. Shout out to 'Meat Street', I saw it's called "Meet Street" in the real Neptun.
In reality I just keep a running Notes file where I put things that intrigue me. So we're going to go through the 'ominozus lista' to rate some of the expressions and tell stories about them. This gentleman who pops up on the screen is from a Japanese series called Death Note about a boy who finds a book, where if he ever writes someone's name in it then they die. My list isn't ominozus in that way.. or is it? We'll see make sure to subscribe.
So let's catch up. We'll 'crack open some cold ones', which is slang to typically means 'have beer'. But I guess pickles can classify as 'cold ones' as well. This is from a Soproni reklam, I think from the Hetkoznapi szuperkepessegek series. They're pretty funny! I learned a lot.
But I do have to make it clear that I'm a dofi jampec, so please keep me in check and tell me which expressions I should actually start using so I stay a fly buckeroo.
Es a lecso? Csapjunk bele. The funny thing about this video is that despite its name I actually only rate five expressions. But in reality, I used a lot of expressions throughout the video. Anyone new to my videos will probably get really upset by that but I'm not a 'language teacher' youtuber, I prefer to just tell you stories about things I hear, thought and felt in my Hungarian adventures. It's more like a weird vlog at the end of the day. Anyway, let's get into that lecso before it gets cold.
So first section starts, and I mention that I've done a few media interviews in the last few weeks. I find it bizarre that media wants to talk to me. I don't know why there was this sudden influx within the space of a few weeks. It's hard for me to do interviews because well.. I think I'm really boring, but to be honest I don't ever expect this kind of attention so I may as well try it out while they care a smidgeon. It's a cool memento and some of you guys have commented that it's fun to see me pop up randomly.
It's not easy being A-list! I swear that text message is real.
So this story is true that an interviewer asked me the below question. They were really cute, they actually wrote a whole bunch of questions using novel expressions. I didn't know any of them haha so they had to explain each one to me but it was pretty funny.
As a small jab, I used the music from the Wii Sports theme when I did the news show transition animation. It's amazing how much these opening credits to news programs are more akin to superhero movies these days, so wanted to poke fun by just using full blown video game music. (this is not unique to Hungary and isn't a recent phenomenon, also the journalist in question wasn't part of a TV production it's just a general comment :))
After complimenting the expression, I said 'how good is that' and I made fun of my own pronunciation here which contained dipthongs all over the place. I don't think you use dipthongs in Hungarian (kettoshangzok) but it's part of English and I have to train myself not to use them. Vice-versa if you want to take your English pronunciation to the next level get into dipthongs. This font originates from Word Art in the 90s (remember that little paperclip dude?)
As per the journalist's question, we have a brief aside where we talk about the ramaty state of my 'hate comments'. Now beyond the sarcasm, there is truth here any language learner can appreciate. It's not always immediately obvious when someone compliments you using casual language. So it's happened to me multiple times where I didn't know how to react when I first heard things like 'ezen beszartam', 'ez a mukso nem piskoka', 'sirok' etc. Especially the first one.
But back to Kukutyin. I truly find these quaint expressions so interesting because it's cool to imagine the person who would say it, such as the TV Maci when they interrupt his Esti Mese. This was a prime opportunity to poke fun at that emoji campaign. Also the music that plays in the background is theme from The Voice because well.. it's a little hard to take it seriously.
I always have my favourite parts in the videos, and this is one of them. After rating the expression, I turn to the camera and ask "where do YOU like to hull oats". I'm of course parodying YouTubers who force fit requests for engagement with shallow questions, plus I love the imagery of people who have a preferred place to hull oats genuinely sharing their advice.
On to the next expression and story!
So as I said, I don't have a lot of chances to practise Hungarian in my daily life. I think as an adult it's really hard to keep up languages when you're working and grappling with life's responsibilities, and they don't fit in naturally within your life (e.g. if you use that language for work or in the home). So social media stalking has been a great way to see how people talk. I say stalking, but I mean is I pay attention when reading public tweets or the posts of mutuals (I'm not out here deep diving through strangers' pages!)
I used the music from Poirot and this footage from Selena Gomez's music video for Round and Round, which takes place in Budapest. I've never actually had Hortobagy Palacsinta but it looks really intense, and then I hear they deep fry it in some regions. Wowza
But social media is where I saw 'boldog-boldogtalan'. Now imagine my shock when I came across that one. As I said "az angol gyongytyuk agyam ezt full szo szerint ertelmezte". The images on the left were from an old old meme of 'woman laughing at salad', so I used one of those pictures and then woman looking concerned at her salad.
Before someone told me that it just means 'absolutely everybody'. Then I played Absolutely Everybody by Vanessa Amorosi (who is Australian), specifically when she performed it at the closing ceremony of the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games. Now you have to understand that this was a bit of an anthem for the Olympic Games here and so that song... was... everywhere... in that year. Plus how fitting that as of writing this the Tokyo Olympic Games are gearing up for their closing ceremony.
Now here's a niche reference for you. I said that boldog-boldogtalan is a really appropriate way to describe absolutely everybody because the phrase is mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive (MECE). This is notably management consultant jargon (my field lol), and it's a model used to understand the breadth of a problem. It's why over this slide I played the cheesiest song you've ever heard. It's a corporate theme song from Ernst and Young, made in the 90s in America I think (link). They're not exactly the professional services firm who is famous for using this type of model but that song is just... wow.
So then I can't help but wonder, why can't we use this structure with other adjectives because they would also be equally MECE.
Then we start our mission to identify an English equivalent. Google Translate is no help.
So in sharing an English / Australian equivalent I wanted to give a little more context. I see so many videos on Australian slang and honestly 85% is said by no one, or said as kind of an old-man joke. It'd honestly just be really awkward if someone said that, so I put together is Ausztral-o-meter so we can talk about what any English speaker would say vs. things that are more UK/AU vs. things that are AU but a little bit hokey.
Also, I used this background because it's so weird. Why is this person sitting there????
The second variation is 'Commonwealth Vibes' and I wrote 'use in Gold Coast, Delhi, Kingston etc' those are places where the Commonwealth Games has taken place (like Olympic Games but for Commonwealth countries). And quite frankly, you could probably say it to English speakers in all those places (you could actually say 'everyone and their mom was there' in the US too). Also, some people say 'everyone and their dog was there'.
When the ausztral-o-meter was going out of control it plays a sped up version of The Veronicas - 4Ever (they're Australian) and it says Big Kev (like Big Kevin).
He also looks like someone who might say 'It was chockers" which actually is something people might say (to mean it was full /it was crowded).
As part of my example sentence, I say "Aw the line a Szepjuhaszne Bufe was so long.. it was chockers". I simply scanned Google Maps for cool place names and that one struck my eye. Then I say "minden Tomi, Ricsi es Huba ott volt' which is referring back to where I just said "every Tom, Dick and Harry was there. Not everyone knows that Dick is a nickname for Richard. I'm not sure you have a version of Harry in Hungarian?
We're summing up the glory of boldog-boldogtalan, and I say it has a beautiful nursery rhyme cadence, a management consultant's logic and let's face it, a social commentary. I put up this work by Nietzsche 'Jenseits von Gut und Bose" which in English is "Beyond Good and Evil" and make it become "Beyond Boldog and Boldogtalan". I believe the Hungarian title is Túl az erkölcs világán so it wouldn't have worked.
We give the expression an A rating, and I recommend you "use it once per day" before playing some superfast disclaimers from a Hungarian vitamin ad. But I love this footage of the wallaby, it just perfectly fit that kind of stock image footage they use in pharma ads of people living their carefree lives after taking the medicine in question.
For a while I've wanted to make a Halloween-style video where I commission some Hungarian artists to create a new Hungarian monster or something. But I didn't want to wait to do that kind of concept so instead I engaged the artist Micsodsag to create some artistic interpretations for us for this video. I kept the brief really simple and let Micsodasag follow their whim. You can see why this one looks so sorrowful :( Look how much he likes dinnye. I love the melon-shaped heart breaking in the back.
I eventually say 'De dinnye vagy' which has also been something people have recalled from earlier videos. The goofiest part of the video is when I see his face and try to recall that expression "Buval... something". For those who don't know the expression is 'Buval b***ott". The voices cautioning me in the background while I'm trying to recall the full expression come from a Tik Tok sound, but "Buval.. buval... bossanova?"
As for English, this time our ipad user was watching an inspirational speech by Lolo but instead decided to whip out the Ausztral-o-meter. Hmmmm where are their priorities.
The next fabulous illustration is Kerulgeti, mint macska a forro kasat. It's a good one.
I mention that it's a cool expression because it's like an interpretive modern dance. I show footage of iconic Australian series Ja'mie Private School girl where there's famous scene where she does an interpretive dance (link). The song is Arva Fiu.
The English equivalent is Beat Around The Bush, which is something I bet you never do. Before Mae West interjects with "Whaddya talking about I beat around the bush all the time, auuuuuu". If you didn't know this is the drag queen Alaska from Drag Race imitating Mae West. Mae West was an actress back when movies were black and white who was always very suggestive.
I absolutely love how Micsodasag interpreted this next one. I wonder if anyone will get it before it's revealed. That'd be impressive.
It's true what I said that at first I thought 'suszter' was some kind of Hunglish construction, because I knew the word cipesz. So I thought it was like 'shoe' + profession suffix (e.g. gangSZTER) in a similar vein to INFLUENCE + SZER. I then say that I like this expression because I think Hungarians can turn on an old-world charm to communicate with grace. I immediately make a joke with that gentleman punching a sign but it's true that Hungarians can have a lot of elegance to get their message across.
Anyway, that essentially concludes the video except for real footage of you imploring Kacagojan(cs)i to sing, with the song János legyen fenn a János hegyen by Fekete Pál.
It's true what I said, I thought I was going to say about 20 things but I only really got through five in proper detail. I just think it's more interesting to let you in on how I come across expressions and what they trigger, as opposed to listing a bunch of things that you could look up in Google. But you're a döfi jampec so you already knew this
Thanks so much if you read this. Not many people will watch this video because everyone's on holiday and that's okay. It just matters to me that you watched it and hopefully found it at least a little bit interesting :)
Alright I better go attend to some serious business.
seee yaaa,
Tom
No comments:
Post a Comment