Date and time notation in Hungary

Date

In Hungary date is traditionally expressed in big-endian form, like ISO 8601. Numeric date elements are followed by a dot. The format yyyy. month d. is commonly used, the name of the month can be abbreviated (standard are ‘jan.’, ‘febr.’, ‘márc.’, ‘ápr.’, ‘máj.’, ‘jún.’, ‘júl.’, ‘aug.’, ‘szept.’, ‘okt.’, ‘nov.’, ‘dec.’^[1]). Months can also be written using Roman or Arabic numerals.^[2] Examples:

• 1999. augusztus 1.
• 1999. aug. 1.
• 1999. VIII. 1.
• 1999. 08. 01. or recently 1999-08-01

As year and day elements in Hungarian are ordinal numbers, they are followed by a dot. However, unless a suffix is added, they are said as cardinal numbers. Also note that stacking of symbols when writing in Hungarian is considered a bad practice, therefore when a suffix is attached to the date using a hyphen, the dot is omitted.

• 1999. augusztus 1-jén (on August 1, 1999)

A single year is followed by a dot unless it is

• followed with a suffix ‘1999-ben’ (in 1999)
• the object of the sentence ‘1999 szép év volt.’ (1999 was a nice year.)
• followed with a postposition ‘1999 után’ (after 1999)
• a genitive ‘1999 tele’ (winter of 1999)
• in parentheses ‘születésének éve (1999)…’ (the year of his/her birth (1999)…).

Monday is the first day of the week.

Time

Like in most countries, the 24-hour clock is used in formal and 12-hour clock in informal contexts. The time format is “hh óra mm perc”, but the numeric form hh.mm can also be used.^[2] Example:

• 10.35

The following are commonly accepted divisions of the day that can be said before the time:

• hajnal (dawn) – 1–5 a.m.
• reggel (morning) – 6–9 a.m.
• délelőtt (before noon) – 10–11 a.m.
• délután (afternoon) – 1–5 p.m.
• este (evening) – 6–11 p.m.

Additionally, dél (noon) and éjfél (midnight) may be used.

Each hour is divided into four equal periods and are verbally referred to as in the following examples:

• negyed 8 (quarter 8) – 7:15
• fél 8 (half 8) – 7:30
• háromnegyed 8 (three-quarter 8) – 7:45

Combining the above with 5 perc múlva (5 minutes before) or 5 perccel múlt (5 minutes after) is commonly used when asked for the time. Example:

• 5 perc múlva háromnegyed 8 – 7:40
• 3 perccel múlt 7 – 7:03

References

1. ^ Osiris Helyesírás, 2006 (ISBN 963-389-541-3)
2. ^ ^{a b} A magyar helyesírás szabályai, 2005 (ISBN 963-218-980-9)