Thursday, June 11, 2026

Duolingo courses, number of units

 This post is based on my old post on the Duome Forum:  
https://forum.duome.eu/viewtopic.php?p=132653-number-of-skills-versus-the-number-of-units


In the Tree layout, every course had some skills, and now on the Path (Snake) there are units.
But there is a connection, since in the background, they still have the tree structure, it is just displayed differently.


For the current number of units, I checked https://duolingodata.com/

Note: in some courses, in the later sections one topic was cut into 5 units. This increases the number of units by a lot, so I ignore this change and look at what was before that. That way, the number of units equals the number of "normal" skills in the tree version. 


Sometimes there are multiple versions of the same course, where I knew, I marked them "old" and "new" .
Sometimes I write the number of units as "X or Y", in this case, probably there are also two different versions of the course available but I don't know which is which or I'm not sure of the skill count in the newer version.

Here, "old" means that it is old enough to show up in https://liuch.github.io/duolingo_courses_overview/ (FieryCat stopped updating that list in 2021)
"New" means it is the newest version that is available to some users.


The "smaller" courses, from English, not CEFR alligned:

LANGUAGEFROMSKILLSLESSONSWords
Arabic (AR) English 462101481
Czech oldEnglish 844222362
Czech newEnglish 884222626
Danish oldEnglish 703402341
Danish newEnglish 62??
Dutch (DN)English 1235022933
Esperanto (EO)English 693642389
Finnish (FI)English 351441007
Greek oldEnglish 742782010
Greek newEnglish 954323196
Greek anotherEnglish 1024523218
Haitian Creole oldEnglish 36125728
Haitian Creole newEnglish 68??
Hawaiian oldEnglish 38143799
Hawaiian anotherEnglish 51??
Hawaiian newEnglish 52??
Hebrew (HE)English 844462833
High Valyrian oldEnglish 38135825
High Valyrian newEnglish 43157982
Hindi (HI)English 32133656
Hungarian old English 783192367
Hungarian newEnglish 1104893176
Indonesian (ID)English 693101882
Irish oldEnglish 642921711
Irish newEnglish 66
Klingon oldEnglish 622381481
Klingon newEnglish 652481533
Latin (LA)English 2281538
Navajo (NV)English 1128143
Norwegian oldEnglish 1725903600
Norwegian newEnglish 24610085784
Polish (PL)English 672981938


Romanian (RO)English 622862405
Russian oldEnglish 793502279
Russian newEnglish 954052601
Scottish Gaelic oldEnglish 1074833525
Scottish Gaelic newEnglish 120??
Swahili oldEnglish 651951257
Swahili newEnglish 732431535
Swedish oldEnglish 663252361
Swedish newEnglish 853762549
Turkish (TR)English 672001466
Ukranian (UK)English 512091108
Vietnamese oldEnglish 843201661
Vietnamese newEnglish 753361775
Welsh oldEnglish 1184162366
Welsh middleEnglish 1073902365
Welsh newEnglish 112
Yiddish (YI)English 943822297
Zulu oldEnglish 2091628
Zulu newEnglish 35

the CEFR-alligned courses:

LANGUAGEFROMSKILLS/UNITSLESSONSWordsStories
Chinese oldEnglish 882841932
Chinese new A1English67??0
French B2English 272a lota lot405
German B1English 156a lota lot187
Italian oldEnglish 664052784
Italian middleEnglish 985653753
Italian new A1English 123??81
Japanese B1English221??30
Korean oldEnglish 652581793
Korean middleEnglish 943512230
Korean newest A1English 112431268440
Spanish B2
Portuguese
English
English
286
?
a lot
?
a lot
?
396
?

Saturday, December 13, 2025

When to omit van/vannak

 This post is a rewritten version of this old post here:   https://magyarbagoly.blogspot.com/2022/01/when-to-use-vanvannak.html

The verb van ‘to be’

You will notice that Hungarian sometimes lacks a verb where English has is. For example, while in English you would say What is this?, Hungarian does not have a verb here: Mi ez?

For "The apple is red", the Hungarian version is "Az alma piros"  (word-by-word: the apple red)


Conjugating van

The third person form of the English verb to be in Hungarian is van. Or is it?


Here are all the present-tense forms, Version 1

SGPL
1(én) vagyok ‘I am’(mi) vagyunk ‘we are’
2 inf


2 fr
(te) vagy ‘you (sg. inf.) are’


(ön/maga) van  ‘you (sg. formal) are’
(ti) vagytok ‘you (pl. inf.) are’

(önök/maguk) vannak
  
‘you (pl. formal) are’
3(ő) van ‘s/he is’(ők) vannak ‘they are’

Here are all the present-tense forms, Version 2

SGPL
1(én) vagyok ‘I am’(mi) vagyunk ‘we are’
2 inf


2 fr
(te) vagy ‘you (sg. inf.) are’


(ön/maga)  ‘you (sg. formal) are’
(ti) vagytok ‘you (pl. inf.) are’

(önök/maguk) 
  
‘you (pl. formal) are’
3(ő)  ‘s/he is’(ők)  ‘they are’

What happened? In the first version, I included the van/vannak conjugations in the table, in the second version, I dropped them.


When to use van and vannak

You will see that the words van and vannak are often omitted. This only happens in the third person conjugation, the first and second person vagyok, vagy, vagyunk, vagytok are never omitted.   


[And now we have to mention that the formal version of "you" in Hungarian, is conjugated as if it were third person. 

In the singular case, the informal you is "te" while the formal you is "ön" or "maga"

If you learned other languages, think of it like the difference between "du bist" and "Sie sind" or between "tu es" versus "vous êtes".]


But enough of the formality explanation, let's return to what is happening to van/vannak.


DON'T use van/vannak if you are describing what someone/something is using a noun or an adjective.

"Ő egy tanár" - "He is a teacher"

"Péter egy tanár" - "Péter is a teacher"

"Az alma piros" - "The apple is red"

"Mi az?" - "What's that?"

But DO use van/vannak in the following cases (basically, describing when, how, where something/someone is.)

Time - Expressing when something is.
 "Mikor van a buli?"  - "When is the party?"
 "A buli 7-kor van." - "The party is at 7."

State - Expressing how something/someone is.
 "Apád ma hogy van?" - "How is your dad today?"
 "Ma jobban van, mint tegnap, köszönöm."  - "He is better today than he was yesterday, thank you."

Location - Expressing where something is.
 "Hol van a mozi?" - "Where is the cinema?"
 "Ott van jobbra." - "It's there on the right."

Adverbial Participle - Expressing a verbal state of a noun
"Ki van nyitva az ablak?" - "Is the window open?"
 "Nem, be van zárva." - "No, it's shut."


All the above become "Vannak" when the subject in question is plural:

"Itt vannak a poharak." - "Here are the glasses."

"A szobák fűtve vannak." - "The rooms are heated."


---------

So you have:

(Én) tanár vagyok. I am a teacher.

(Te) tanár vagy. You are a teacher.

Ő tanár. (verb drops here) He/She is a teacher.

Ön tanár. / Maga tanár. You are a teacher (formal you, singular)

(Mi) tanárok vagyunk. We are teachers.

(Ti) tanárok vagytok. You are teachers.

Ők tanárok. They are teachers.

Önök tanárok.  / Maguk tanárok.  You are teachers. (formal you, plural)


 for adjectives:

  • Én okos vagyok. = I am clever.

  • Te okos vagy. = You(sg.) are clever.

  • Ő okos. = He/She is clever.  (Don't use 'van' here.)

  • Ön okos. / Maga okos. = You(sg. formal) are clever. (Don't use 'van' here either.)

  • Mi okosak vagyunk. = We are clever.

  • Ti okosak vagytok. = You(pl.) are clever.

  • Ők okosak. = They are clever (Don't use 'vannak' here.)

  • Önök okosak. / Maguk okosak. = You(pl. formal) are clever. (Don't use 'vannak' here either.)


As a comparison, let's look at the conjugation in a case where we use van/vannak, a good example is something with an adverb:  "Kati jól van."  "Kati is well/feeling fine."


for adverbs:

  • Én jól vagyok. = I am fine. / I am well. / I am feeling fine. / I am feeling well.

  • Te jól vagy. = You (sg. informal) are fine.

  • Ön/Maga jól van. = You (sg. formal) are fine. 

  • Ő jól van. = He/She is fine.

  • Mi jól vagyunk. = We are fine.

  • Ti jól vagytok. = You(pl. informal) are fine.

  • Ők jól vannak. = They are fine. 

  • Önök/Maguk jól vannak. = You(pl. formal) are fine. 



If we talk about WHERE someone is, you need to use the suitable form of 'van'.

  • Én a lámpák alatt vagyok.    (I am under the lamps)

  • Te a lámpák alatt vagy.      (You are under the lamps)

  • Ő a lámpák alatt van.

  • Ön /Maga a lámpák alatt van.

  • Mi a lámpák alatt vagyunk.

  • Ti a lámpák alatt vagytok.

  • Ők a lámpák alatt vannak.

  • Önök /Maguk a lámpák alatt vannak. 

Thursday, August 28, 2025

Word list, Duolingo Hungarian course (110 skills)

 Hi, this is a word list for the Hungarian course. 

As it was stored in the incubator, so a little warning: there could be a whole conjugation of a given word in the course, which was stored under "forms of lexeme <megy>" and then in this list it shows up as just one word. 

1 Name things and people
① az, a, egy, alma, fiú, lány, és
② férfi, autó, nő, lámpa, kicsi
③ bor, nagy, víz, pohár, sör

2 Talk about nationalities and languages
① vagyok, angol, vagy, amerikai, igen, magyar
② magyarul, angolul, beszélek, beszélsz, Péter
③ te, én, hölgyem, beszél, uram, értem

3 Describe people and things
① asztal, ez, szék, piros, busz, ablak
② ő, ház, fiatal, tanár, diák, toll, az
③ Zsuzsa, nem, alacsony, magas, szép, ön

4 Greet people
① jó, reggelt, estét, kívánok, éjszakát
② viszlát, nagyon, szívesen, szépen, köszönöm
③ viszontlátásra, elnézést, napot, szia, hogy hívnak? bocsánat, hogy hívják?

5 Say where people and things are
① van, kint, ott, bent, itt, otthon
② hol, János, bolt, szálloda, park, Kati
③ szállodában, házban, boltban, parkban, kert, étterem

Monday, October 16, 2023

Grammar Notes

For the Duolingo Hungarian course:  

The Tips and Notes that used to be available in the website version are not visible anymore since the Path redesign, but I copied them to a separate Google doc, you can find them here:
Hungarian Tips and Notes
I even added the "skill descriptors" so it will be easier to find the lesson you are looking for.

Maybe you are already familiar with https://duome.eu/tips/en/hu
The grammar notes on Duome.eu contain Tips from the old version and the new version of the Hungarian course mixed together, and there are some duplicates.

Missing the Stories? You can find some unofficial stories here: https://duostories.org/hu-en

Tuesday, September 19, 2023

Duolingo: Alignment Tree and Path for the Hungarian course (71 units)

In the old layout, the Tree, each skill had a skill name.
Now in the Path, every bubble has a "skill descriptor" instead.

sometimes I included more name variants, because we had a "short name" but also a "grammary name" for the same skill

1 Basics = Name things and people (unit 1 )
2 Intros = talk about nationalities and languages (unit 1 )
3 Qualities = Describe people and things (unit 2 )
4 Phrases = greet people (unit 2 )
5 Where? (-ban -ben ending appears) = Say where people and things are (unit 3 )
6 School = communicate at school (unit 3 )
7 Verbs 1 = Use verbs in present tense (unit 4 )
8 Café = Accusative 1 = Talk about food and drink (unit 4 )
9 Feelings = Express feelings (unit 5 )
10 Jobs = identify professions (unit 5 )
11 Food = Talk about cooking and eating (unit 6 )
12 More = Plurals = form the plural of nouns (unit 7 )
13 Numbers 1 = Express quantities (unit 7 )
14 Verbs 2 = say what we and they do (unit 8 )
15 Places 1 = Locate places in a city (unit 8 )
16 Come & Go = Irregular verbs = use the verbs come and go (unit 9 )
17 Time = Tell time (unit 9 )
18 This That = Use different forms of this and that (unit 10 )
19 Days = Talk about schedules (unit 10 )
20 Shopping = shop for clothes (unit 11 )
21 Hobbies = Infinitive verbs = Talk about hobbies and habits (unit 11 )
22 On Top = superessive case (-on -en -ön -n) = indicate the location (unit 12 )
23 Describing = Adjectives 1 = Describe things and people (unit 12 )
24 There Is = use van and nincs (unit 13 )
25 Weather = Talk about the weather (unit 13 )
26 My Cat (possessive) = form the possessive (unit 14 )
27 Nations = Name nationalities (unit 14 )
28 What? = Accusative 2 = form direct objects (unit 15 )
29 Body Parts = Describe health issues (unit 15 )
30 Numbers 2 = express quantity (unit 16 )
31 I See It = definite- indefinite = Use definite verb forms (unit 16 )
32 Family = talk about your family (unit 17 )
33 I Do It = Definite conjugation 1 = Discuss everyday activities (unit 17 )
34 Me & You = Accusative pronouns = refer to you and me (unit 18 )
35 Verbs 3 = Say what people are doing (unit 18 )
36 Love ( -lak-lek ending) = express emotions (unit 19 )
37 Languages = Say what languages you speak (unit 19 )
38 Stuff = plural accusative 1 = use direct objects in plural form (unit 20 )
39 You Do It = Definite conjugation 2 = Talk about activities (unit 20 )
40 Travel = ask about directions (unit 21 )
41 Cafeteria (-os-es-ös-s ending) = Order food (unit 21 )
42 To have 1 = talk about what you have (unit 22 )
43 Stuff 2 = plural accusative 2 = Express actions (unit 22 )
44 Giving = Dative (-nak -nek) = talk about giving someone something (unit 23 )
45 New Things = plural adjectives = Describe things and people (unit 23 )
46 Arts = Talk about art activities (unit 24 )
47 Sports = Comment on sports (unit 24 )
48 Inside = inessive case (-ban-ben) = Talk about being inside (unit 25 )
49 Beside = adessive case (-nál-nél) = Say what and who is beside something else (unit 25 )
50 Clothing = describe outfits (unit 26 )
51 Household = Talk about your home (unit 26 )
52 Ownership (possessive) = discuss possession (unit 27 )
53 Better = Comparative adjectives = Compare things and people (unit 27 )
54 Year = express dates and times (unit 28 )
55 Digital = Talk about technology (unit 28 )
56 This That 2 = use different forms of this and that (unit 29 )
57 Party = Talk about celebrations (unit 29 )
58 Memories = Past tense = describe past events (unit 30 )
59 Animals = Talk about animals (unit 30 )
60 With (-val -vel) = say who you do things with (unit 31 )
61 Colors = Talk about colors (unit 31 )
62 First! = ordinal numbers = use ordinal numbers (unit 32 )
63 No! = negation = Make negative statements (unit 33 )
64 To Have 2 = say what others have (unit 33 )
65 Now & Then = Past & Present = Distinguish past and present (unit 34 )
66 Into (-ba -be) = describe movement into (unit 34 )
67 Onto (-ra -re) = Discuss direction (unit 35 )
68 Toward (-hoz -hez -höz) = describe movement toward (unit 35 )
69 Moving 1 = Preverbs 1 = Clarify directions (unit 36 )
70 Moving 2 = Preverbs 2 = use verbal prefixes in negative sentences (unit 36 )
71 Into 2 = Indicate movement into places (unit 37 )
72 Onto 2 = describe direction (unit 37 )
73 Toward 2 = Describe movement toward a place (unit 38 )
74 Geography = state geography facts (unit 38 )
75 Memories 2 = Make statements about the past (unit 39 )
76 Linking = form complex sentences (unit 39 )
77 ThisThat 3 = Discuss choices (unit 40 )
78 Story 1 = talk about experiences and changes (unit 40 )
79 Describe 2 = Adjectives 2 = Describe things and people (unit 41 )
80 Moving 3 = Preverbs 3 = use verbal prefixes (unit 41 )
81 Travel 2 = Talk about travel (unit 42 )
82 Story 2 = say what happened (unit 42 )
83 Out of = elative case (ból-ből) = Discuss origins (unit 43 )
84 Down from = delative case (ról-ről) = indicate the starting point (unit 43 )
85 Away from = ablative case (tól-től) = Describe distances (unit 44 )
86 ThisThat 4 = combine postpositions with this and that (unit 44 )
87 Future = Discuss future plans (unit 45 )
88 Names and Family = talk about neighbors and friends (unit 45 )
89 To & From = Clarify locations (unit 46 )
90 Cooking = talk about cooking and eating (unit 46 )
91 Places 2 = Discover a city (unit 47 )
92 Directions = ask about directions (unit 47 )
93 Now&Then 2 = Past & Present 2 = Talk about the past (unit 48 )
94 Which? = use relative pronouns (unit 48 )
95 My Horse (possessive) = Talk about belongings (unit 49 )
96 Math = make calculations (unit 49 )
97 Someone = Use everybody and somebody (unit 50 )
98 Somewhere = use everywhere and somewhere (unit 50 )
99 To have 3 = Describe what people have (unit 51 )
100 This That 5 = use different forms of this and that (unit 51 )
101 Rain On Me = Adverbial possessives = Combine suffixes (unit 52 )
102 Origin = Ablative Postpositional Pronouns = indicate the starting point (unit 52 )
103 Position = Adessive Postpositional Pronouns = Talk about position (unit 53 )
104 Goal = Allative Postpositional Pronouns = use postpositions (unit 53 )
105 My Cats = plural possessive = Form plural possessives (unit 54 )
106 Do It! = imperative = tell others what to do (unit 54 )
107 Numbers 3 = Talk about how many (unit 55 )
108 Practice = use verb conjugations (unit 55 )
109 Quoting = Express opinions (unit 56 )
110 All Mine = possessive object = combine suffixes (unit 56 )


Units 57 -71 are personalized practice. 

Hungarian for English speakers, Tree 2, 110 skills, which got transformed into 71 units


-----------


A few more details about the first 7 skills:

Basics: very basic, like “the car and the apple”. Usually not complete sentences.

Intros: Beszélek magyarul. Beszélsz magyarul? Magyar vagyok. Angol vagy? (danger: both magyarul and magyar included.)
The formal “you” (ön) also appears here, along with uram, hölgyem.  

Qualities: sentences where “van” is omitted.

Phrases: similar to the old Phrases (but “paprikást kérek” and “Menj!” was removed)

Where?: sentences where “van” is used.

School: 3 verbs appear: áll, ír, tanul. (állok, írok, tanulok, állsz, írsz, tanulsz) Plus school-related words (szünet, füzet, könyv, tanterem, könyvtár, iskola)

Verbs 1: regular verbs, only singular, present tense, indefinite

Duolingo: Number of skills versus the number of units

 

In the old Duolingo Tree layout, every course had some skills, and now on the new Path (Snake) there are units.
But there is a connection, since in the background, they still have the tree structure, it is just displayed differently.

My guess (based on a few courses I checked) is that there are two new skills appearing in each unit (sometimes only one skill), and there are roughly 10 practice units at the end, so the number of units is close to (skills/2 +10). But not exactly. Sometimes there are more (or fewer) personalized practice units at the end.


The following table was based on https://magyarbagoly.blogspot.com/2022/ ... ourse.html, which in turn was based on http://ardslot.com/duolingocrowns.html

I checked the number of Units on the Duome Forum, based on MatOzone's posts. See also duolingodata.com

Sometimes there are multiple versions of the same course, where I knew, I marked them "old" and "new" .

Here, "old" means that it is old enough to show up in https://liuch.github.io/duolingo_courses_overview/ (FieryCat stopped updating that list in 2021)
"New" means it is the newest version that is available to some users.

I intentionally left out the some numbers for Spanish/French/German/Japanese courses: too many competing versions to keep track.
But I added the number of units for these courses too, and I picked the longest version.

Side note: for Italian, there is a version with 76 skills, which is not included in my beautiful table, but it is newer than the 66 skill version and older than the 98 skill version.

see also:   https://forum.duome.eu/viewtopic.php?t=15140-number-of-skills-versus-the-number-of-units


LANGUAGEFROMSKILLSLESSONSWordsUnits beforeUnits now
Arabic (AR) English 4621014813030
Chinese (ZS)English 8828419325757
Czech oldEnglish 8442223625455
Czech newEnglish 88422262657?
Danish oldEnglish 70340234145x
Danish newEnglish 62??4041
Dutch (DN)English 12350229337980
Esperanto (EO)English 6936423894545
Finnish (FI)English 3514410072323
French (FR)English a lota lota lot[219][194]
German (DE)English a lota lota lot[131][102]
Greek oldEnglish 742782010x
Greek newEnglish 9543231966162
Greek anotherEnglish 1024523218?
Haitian Creole (HT)English 361257282323
Hawaiian oldEnglish 381437992425
Hawaiian anotherEnglish 51??33x
Hebrew (HE)English 8444628335456
High Valyrian oldEnglish 38135825?x
High Valyrian newEnglish 431579822828
Hindi (HI)English 321336562120
Hungarian old English 78319236751x
Hungarian newEnglish 11048931767171
Indonesian (ID)English 6931018824445
Irish (GA)English 6429217114243
Italian oldEnglish 66405278451x
Italian newEnglish 98565375372?
Italian newerEnglish 123???79
Klingon oldEnglish 622381481xx
Klingon newEnglish 6524815334243
Korean oldEnglish 652581793xx
Korean newerEnglish 94351223061x
Korean newestEnglish 11243126847273
Latin (LA)English 22815381414
Navajo (NV)English 112814377
Norwegian oldEnglish 1725903600111x
Norwegian newEnglish 24610085784159161
Polish (PL)English 6729819384344
Portuguese (PT)English 9146329197560
Romanian (RO)English 6228624054041
Russian oldEnglish 79350227951x
Russian newEnglish 9540526016162
Scottish Gaelic oldEnglish 107483352569?
Scottish Gaelic newEnglish 120???78
Spanish (ES)English a lota lota lot[230][205]
Swahili oldEnglish 65195125742x
Swahili newEnglish 7324315354748
Swedish oldEnglish 66325236143x
Swedish newEnglish 8537625495555
Turkish (TR)English 6720014664344
Ukranian (UK)English 5120911083333
Vietnamese oldEnglish 84320166154x
Vietnamese newEnglish 7533617754948
Welsh (CY)English 11841623666970
Yiddish (YI)English 9438222976162
Zulu (ZU)English 20916281313
English oldHungarian55285195249??
English newHungarian????109?
German (DE)Hungarian5123816314433?

Frequently asked questions. (What is the difference between ...?)

Here are some questions (and answers) that come up often. Here I mainly focus on the What is the difference? type of questions. Q: What is t...