Hunglish.orgTime, as Albert Einstein's equations famously found, is relative. And if you think the phenomena only affects light-speed travel, consider the differences in temporal perception exhibited by Americans and Hungarians...
Written by Scott Savoie
One of the things you notice upon arriving in Hungary from North America is the difference in pace.
Hungarians have a somewhat more lackadaisical attitude towards time than Americans.
In the ’States, people tend to arrive more or less exactly on time. In Hungary, a few minutes late seems to be the norm. Even theater performances and concerts tend to start a bit behind schedule.
Many Americans tend to think of time as money. They find wasting one as offensive as wasting the other.
Americans are often impatient. They want jobs to be performed quickly and on schedule.
In Hungary, too many people depend on BKV and public transportation to expect things to perform like clockwork.
Public transport works but in a fashion that seems to have been designed like a Rube Goldberg contraption. Counting on the system’s accuracy is absurd.
In Hungary, to show up *exactly* on time for a dinner engagement might even seem a bit rude.
This difference in time perception is also expressed in the language: Hungarian is spoken with a kind of lilt, while American English is very short and clipped.
Hungarian, in the ideal, is a very flowery language and in Hungary, poets are revered. American is a very curt langauge and poets there are despised alongside performance artitsts and mimes.