For some friends in Brazil  here is my rough translation of a review of the book "Az igazi" by Sándor Márai:

There is more than one "ars poetica" that can be read from the works of Márai. We see the same in his work "Az igazi". This is also why Márai is such a well-liked author, naturally, in addition to his clear and philosophical style. Readers are happy to escape to reading Márai books, often they are not really seeking answers, rather they expect questions, problems, complications and worries that they have to face in their own lives, too, whether we are talking about identity, home, motherland or even men, women or perhaps, love. Naturally, you need a reader for that, a reader who does not only skim through the book and quickly puts together the major lines of events, but one who really reads, tastes the words.

This novel is also a very complex work of the forty-one-year old author. Two participants of a broken marriage are telling their stories in that book. The junctions are small details of their relationship are presented from their long monologues. They recall the nice moments and the moments signifying quiet separation without tragic moments.

You can read a practical philophy from the "Az igazi". Probably, many readers will interpret it in many ways, but probably, the main thing is that all of them would find those specific interpretations that we can adopt as ours, that we can taste, by which we can act as real readers, the same way as the writer would expect, perhaps would not expect, rather just propose. The relevancy of the book overcomes all kinds of constraints in time and space, and in addition to the seemingly classical man-woman relationship, it contains many layers, dimensions, which is one of the reasons why we should read it over and over again. It contains not so much advice that should be accepted unconditionally, rather everyday problems that should be contemplated. Between the lines the author is contemplating together with us on loneliness, love and death, and the existence of "The Right One." As the protagonist tells to a friend: "I only live and think, and that is all I can do."

Why learn Portuguese?
I keep getting the question, why do you want to learn Portuguese? And of course, it is a good question.

Deixa me ver...

I have learned several languages, including Russian, Latin, Turkish, French, Arabic, German. Now this does not mean that I know as many languages. Far from it. Besides English, I have a decent understanding of German, can learn French and know a bit of Latin. That's about it. But if I want to make comparison, all I can say is that Portuguese is the most beautiful, playful, funny and expressive language that I have come across so far. So when I set out to expand my language skills, Portuguese was a natural choice. Spanish is also nice, but for me it does not even come close to the beauty of Portuguese. And of course, culture comes with language, and the culture of Portuguese-speaking people is also a rich field to study.

I have no expectation for financial or business benefits from learning Portuguese, but that is OK. Friends, culture, fun and human connections - that is all I hope for.

Learning words...
I'm using a nice little application called Supermemo for memorizing words.
It uses the concept of "leech". A leech is a word you cannot memorize, it keeps nagging you as you fail to recognize it over and over again.

Here are some my leeches, i.e. Portuguese words or expressions that keep eluding me:

- afastar
- dar-se por
- colher f (I'm mystified about this one)
- foragir-se
- devido a
 - aproveite
- amedrontador
- pelo que me toca
- quadra coberta
- importar-se com algo
- tocar á campainha
- sítio m

This is my Dirty Dozen. As you can see, there is no logic whatsoever in why I find it difficult to learn these words. Perhaps, now that I have written them down, it will help.

The Hungarian alphabet is pretty funny. There are many letters with diacritical marks (sometimes incorrectly called accent marks. There are no accent marks in Hungarian, as the stress always falls on the first syllable, without exception). Some of the marks also exist in Portuguese, others can be found in German or French.

Here are two words that contain every diacritical marks in Hungarian:

árvíztűrő tükörfúrógép

It's basically nonsensical, but literally it means: "flood resistant mirror drilling machine" (I told you it doesn't make sense...)

Hungarian is an agglutinative language, i.e. affixes are used to represent meaning. Other agglutinative languages include, for example, Japanese, Turkish, Finnish, Eskimo, Quechua and Aymara. Finnish is the closest relative to Hungarian, but this does not mean that if you speak Finnish, you will understand Hungarian, even slightly. The relationship is purely linguistic (and some people doubt even that).  

Sometimes long words are created, cramming a lot of meaning into a little space. Like "Letartóztathattatnálak" is a perfectly regular Hungarian word, meaning "I could get you arrested." 

Just a few things about me

My first name (as we call it: Christian name) is Zoltán, which is the Hungarian version of the Arab word “Sultan”. It is not considered a Muslim name, though, there are not many Muslims in Hungary, and the few thousand Muslims that live here are mainly immigrants.

Hungarians place the family name first, and the “first name” second, similarly to the Japanese, the Chinese, the Koreans and the Cambodians. When writing in foreign languages, we usually switch the order. This sometimes causes confusion.