Lesson 57 of 74 · A2, Unit 3: Work, learning, and free time
Verb prefixes: meg-, el-, ki-, be-, fel-, le-
A prefix glued onto a Hungarian verb usually does one of two jobs: it adds a direction (ki- 'out', be- 'in', fel- 'up', le- 'down'), or it signals the action is complete, whole, done (meg-, and often el-). ír means 'to write' in general; megír means 'to finish writing' a specific thing.
You've been using prefixed verbs for a while without a name for what they were doing: felkelek ('I get up'), bemegyek ('I'm going in'), felmegyünk ('we're going up'), leülhetek ('may I sit down?') — fel-, be-, and le- are exactly the prefixes this lesson names.
By the end you can:
- recognise the six most common verb prefixes: meg-, el-, ki-, be-, fel-, le-
- understand that meg- and el- often signal a completed action, not direction
- connect fixed phrases you already know (elmentem, bemegyek, üljön le) to this system
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