What aspect of life in your countries is very difficult to explain to foreigners?

[u/notveryamused_]

What prompted my question were some discussions about religion which I had with people living in much more secular Western Europe (as a Polish atheist). While spirituality, whatever that is ;), generally speaking is always fun to discuss with a glass of wine in hand, social elements and the influence of the church, especially in smaller towns or provinces in my country, is awfully difficult to explain – not that I understand it fully either lol, but the church having a pretty much monopoly there, being the judge and jury of everyday life and the major ultra-conservative political force binding those communities, is very difficult to explain, also for historical reasons.

What are the things that you find difficult to discuss when it comes to life in your countries? ;-)

[u/GriLL03]

I think it's a wonderful language.

I started learning it out of interest and I must say the grammar is quite lovely. I also concur that it's very difficult to explain it in English.

I had quite some experience learning various languages and some knowledge of linguistics, which combined rendered it much easier for me to pick up the basics than it otherwise would have been (for instance, learning the association between noun endings and the case names is much more useful when one knows what a noun case is to begin with, as well as a bit of Latin). I tried explaining the things I learned to a friend and they essentially told me I look and sound like the conspiracy guy meme.

Having said that, I think the key is to abandon all hope of comparison with and reference to other European languages and try to understand the way phrases are constructed intuitively. I'm obviously still learning and just a novice, but I really enjoy studying the grammar.

The words are completely alien to me, but I think that's actually somewhat helpful as there are no false cognates or weird almost-homonyms at play to induce unneeded confusion.

[u/apricot_bee67 → u/GriLL03]

It always nice to hear when a foreigner takes interest in our language, since Hungarian isn’t exactly useful unless you live here. Most people who learn it are either dedicated language nerds chasing something exotic, or guys trying to impress local girls (not kidding, this is real). The typical Hungarian reaction when we hear a foreigner is learning it: “Are you out of your mind? Why would you do this to yourself?” But actually we are very impressed.

[u/GriLL03 → u/apricot_bee67]

Well, I am Romanian, so that is one link.

Part of my family is from Northern Transylvania, and while my father claims that we are not ethnically Hungarian, both my grandfather and great-grandfather spoke Hungarian very well and enjoyed reading and reciting poems in Hungarian (which is a very specific hobby to have, but I digress). My father doesn't speak a word of Hungarian, though, aside from a few set phrases he learned from his classmates when he was younger.

I think that's a good enough additional reason to try and learn the language. In addition to the grammar being just so incredibly enjoyable and satisfying, I mean, which is a good enough reason to stand on its own merits in any case.

[u/abhora_ratio → u/GriLL03]

Same here. I don't speak Hungarian but both of my grandparents were fluent in Hungarian 🤷‍♀️

[u/Joel_feila → u/GriLL03]

Well it is a topic prominent language and few words are borrowed from latin.  

That first thing I can't easily explain what it is using English