Seth’s Thoughts from First Grade in Hungarian School
Sunday, September 14th, 2008Here are some of Seth’s thoughts from his first two weeks in the first grade at Dr. Szent-Györgyi Albert Általános Iskola.
“Hi, this is Seth. I am in first grade. I have some letters and words that I am learning how to write and read in Hungarian. For example, ‘kék’ means ‘blue,’ and ‘faházak’ means ‘tree houses.’ Some of the letters I am learning to write are V, Á, A, Z, í, K, F, É, E, H, and I. Everyday I have házifeladat (homework). I have a magic box with magic sticks and beans in it. What I do with it is I use it to spell words (see the picture). The magic box in Hungarian is called a ‘varázsdoboz.’
“In the morning, I go to the closet in the hallway, and I hang my hat up, and I get my inside shoes on, and I go sit at my desk in the classroom. Then the teacher comes in, and all my friends arrive. My teacher tells me what to do. First I have Hungarian class and then math. We also have torna (phys. ed.), an English class, and drawing. We go to the play ground and come back to eat a snack. Mom and Dad pick me up from school.
“My favorite parts of the day is when I have torna, drawing, swimming, and snack time. I also like lunch, math and Hungarian class. When I go to Hungarian school, everybody speaks Hungarian. I speak Hungarian to them too. I have some friends who I talk to. We talk in Hungarian about things like animals. Some of my favorite animal names are kutya (dog), hal (fish), and technősbéka (turtle). In class I understand everything, but some things I don’t.
“I have some friends in class. There names are Kinga, Bendegusz, Jenő, Dani, Márk, Benedet, Patrik, and there are a couple others, but I can’t remember their names.”
-Seth Whitfield Newell
