What does “unokatestvér” mean in Hungarian?

Unokatestvér, “cousin,” is built from two pieces: unoka (“grandchild”) and testvér (“sibling”). Put together, it reads almost like a small equation — the “sibling” relation one generation removed through a shared grandparent. Hungarian builds most of its extended-family words this way, stacking a handful of core kinship roots into new compounds rather than inventing a brand-new word for every relation.

In this A2 birthday-party story, “unokatestvérei” shows up on the guest list right alongside “szülei” and “nagyszülei” (parents, grandparents) — a reminder that Hungarian family gatherings get described with the same handful of root words, stacked differently each time. Learn unoka and testvér once, and other Hungarian family-word compounds get much easier to guess.