What is the Hungarian word for chopsticks?

Evőpálcika etikett Japánban: három fontos tabu

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A2 Hungarian listening practice · Standard Hungarian · Picked for people who know a little

💡 Did you know?
evőpálcika
Hungarian compound noun
Chopstick“ — literally an ”eating little-stick.

Hungarian doesn’t borrow “chopstick”; it builds the word from parts you can read. Evő is “eating” (from eszik, “to eat”), and pálcika is “little stick” — pálca, “rod/wand,” plus the diminutive -ika. Stick them together and you have evőpálcika, “eating-stick.” This transparent compounding is everywhere in Hungarian, so once you spot the pattern you can decode dozens of utensil and tool names without a dictionary.

Same recipe elsewhere: fogkefe (tooth-brush), hűtőszekrény (cooling-cabinet, fridge), and varázspálca (magic wand). The clip lists chopstick taboos in Japan — don’t stab food, don’t point, and never stand them upright in rice, since that mirrors a funeral rite (a hamvasztás, cremation, ritual). Diminutive -ka/-ke/-ika softens many nouns: pálca → pálcika.

How common are the words?

How common are the words in this A2 Hungarian listening practice video?

90.6%
of words are in the top 2,000 most common Hungarian words
Most of the words in this video are common Hungarian words.

How common in written Hungarian

85.4%
Top 1,000
90.6%
Top 2,000
97.9%
Top 5,000

How common in spoken Hungarian

91.9%
Top 1,000
96.5%
Top 2,000
100%
Top 5,000
👄 Words for talking
This video uses words people often say in Hungarian.

Harder words in this video

These words are harder than A2. Here is what they mean.

előfordulni
1×
Not in top 5,000
to occur
észreveszik
1×
Not in top 5,000
to notice
evőpálcik
1×
Not in top 5,000
(brand) Evőpálcika — chopsticks
valódi étkezési tabuk
1×
real eating taboos in Japan

Source: wordfreq 3.1.1 (general) · OpenSubtitles 2018 (HermitDave) (spoken). These numbers are close, not perfect.

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