Ami, amely or amelyik: which is correct after a noun?

After a noun that names a thing, write amely in formal Hungarian and say ami in conversation; use amelyik only when you pick one out of several, and aki for people. After a whole clause, or after a pronoun with no noun (azt, valami, minden), the only correct word is ami, in every register. That second rule is the one people break when they try to sound formal.

The decision table

Find what the relative clause points back to (the antecedent) in the first column, then read across for the register you are writing or speaking in.

Two rows never vary: a clause or a bare pronoun always takes ami, a person always takes aki. The debate is only about the first row.

The school rule: amely after a named noun

The rule taught in Hungarian schools, and still applied by editors of formal texts, is stated by the Bárczi Géza Kiejtési Alapítvány's language column like this: a thing not named by a noun is referred back to with ami, a thing named by a noun with amely. Its paired example:

• Az idegenvezető ne beszéljen olyasmiről, amit nem látnak az utasok. The guide shouldn't talk about something the passengers can't see.
• Az idegenvezető arról az épületről beszél, amely előtt megállt a busz. The guide is talking about the building the bus stopped in front of.

olyasmi ("something like that") is a pronoun, so it takes ami; épület is a noun, so it takes amely. Kálmán László, writing in Nyelv és Tudomány, gives the same rule a sharper edge: in the literary norm, amely is used in exactly one construction, where the antecedent is not a person and is expressed by a noun phrase. Everywhere else a different relative pronoun is used.

What people actually say: ami after nouns

In conversation, amely barely exists. Kálmán puts it bluntly: mely and amely are "completely unknown" (teljesen ismeretlenek) in everyday language, apart from the elevated register. A Hungarian telling you about a book says:

• Ez az a könyv, amit tegnap vettem. This is the book I bought yesterday.

Saying amelyet in that sentence at a café table would sound like reading from a document. Written usage has partly followed. The e-nyelv.hu advice service of the Hungarian Research Centre for Linguistics notes that the literary language traditionally uses amely after a noun, but that major writers have used ami there too, especially in the common language (köznyelv). The Bárczi column accepts ami after a named noun even in polished style when the clause is a side remark rather than a description that identifies the noun:

• Újabban szemüveget is viselt, amit időnként a homlokára tolt. Lately she had also been wearing glasses, which she pushed up onto her forehead now and then.

The same column ranks the two possible mistakes, and the ranking is the most useful thing on this page: ami in place of amely is "only mildly sloppy (or regional)", while amely in place of ami is an error. If you are unsure, ami is the safer bet for anything except a person.

Where only ami is correct

These rules hold in every register, including the strictest written norm. e-nyelv.hu names two cases, and Kálmán adds a third.

After a pronoun with no noun

• Én is azt keresem, amit te. I'm looking for the same thing as you.
• Valamit látok, ami nem illik oda. I can see something that doesn't belong there.
• Azt tették, amit jónak láttak. They did what they thought right.

After a whole clause

When the relative clause comments on an event, not on a thing, it must be ami. The e-nyelv pair shows how the choice changes the meaning:

• Elolvasta a levelet, amelyet küldtem. He read the letter I had sent. (the letter)
• Elolvasta a levelet, ami felháborított. He read the letter, which outraged me. (the fact that he read it)
• Csökkent a kőolaj ára, ami pánikot okozott. The price of oil fell, which caused panic.

With no antecedent at all

• Megtettek értünk, amit csak tudtak. They did whatever they could for us.

The hypercorrect amely

Because teachers and style guides push learners away from ami, writers who want to sound formal sometimes swap in amely or mely where the norm itself demands ami. Kálmán's article starts from a reader's letter quoting a statement by the Hungarian tax and customs authority: excise tax refunds would lower hauliers' costs, "mely" could then have a positive effect on prices. The mely points back to the fall in costs, a whole clause, not a noun, so even the literary norm requires ami. Linguists call this hypercorrection (hiperkorrekció), and Kálmán agrees with his reader that it turns up often these days.

Amelyik: one out of several

amelyik is built from melyik, the question word "which one?" (see asking questions), and it keeps that meaning of selection. The Bárczi column describes it as marking an emphatic choice from among several similar things:

• Azzal a vonattal megyek, amelyik 8-kor indul a Keletiből. I'm taking the train that leaves Keleti at 8 (not the other trains).
• Azt a CD-t add ide, amelyiket a múltkor is kértem. Give me the CD I asked for last time.

Notice the demonstrative azzal a, azt a before the noun. It announces "one specific item out of a set", and that is the typical frame for amelyik. Two details that most summaries miss:

• amelyik can refer to people when you pick one from a group: Arról a játékosról beszélek, amelyik éppen most kapta el a labdát. "I mean the player who has just caught the ball." aki is also correct here; amelyik stresses "that one, not the others".
• A demonstrative standing in for a noun still counts as the noun. Kálmán's example: Nem a legjobb ajánlatot választották, hanem azt, amelyik a legolcsóbb volt. Here azt means "that offer", so the literary norm wants amely or amelyik, not the ami that azt would otherwise trigger. He calls this the one case where it is hard to decide.

When the clause identifies one item, Kálmán allows amelyik alongside amely in the written norm, while the Bárczi column observes that folk speech knows only amelyik. So in speech, when you are choosing, say amelyik. It also changes the verb: amelyiket takes the definite conjugation (amelyiket kértem), just as melyiket does, while amit and amelyet take the indefinite (a könyv, amit olvasok). See definite and indefinite conjugation.

Aki: people, and where it stops

aki is the person counterpart of ami, like the question words ki? and mi?. amely has no person form, so after a noun naming a person it is always aki:

• Fogadták az elnököt, aki rövid látogatásra érkezett. They welcomed the president, who had come for a short visit.

*az elnök, amely is wrong in every variety. Kálmán extends aki to personified things and animals close to people, which is why a family dog gets aki. The limit is groups: for nouns like társaság (company), páros (pair) or nép (people, nation), e-nyelv.hu advises the traditional amely or ami, not akik, and an earlier e-nyelv answer calls aki for non-persons a genuinely new phenomenon. The same person/thing split runs through the personal pronouns, where ő is for people and az for things.

Case forms: amit, amiben, amelyet, amelyikkel

All four pronouns take the ordinary case endings with front-vowel harmony. The only spelling trap is amellyel: the v of -vel assimilates to ly and is written doubled, lly.

Plurals: amik, amiket; amelyek, amelyeket; akik, akiket. As a possessor, a relative pronoun takes -nak/-nek: az a ház, aminek a teteje beázik (the house whose roof leaks), as explained in possession with -nak and -é. The relative clause is always set off with a comma, and the pronoun usually opens it, though a postposition can follow: amely előtt, ami miatt.

Typical learner errors

1. *az ember, ami → az ember, aki. Persons never take ami or amely.
2. *minden, amely, *azt, amelyet (with no noun meant) → minden, ami; azt, amit.
3. *Nem jött el, amely nagyon bántott. → ami: what hurt was the fact that he didn't come, a whole clause.
4. *amelyel → amellyel.
5. amelyik where there is no choice: a születésnapom, amelyik... sounds as if you had several birthdays. Use ami or amely.
6. Indefinite verb after amelyiket: *a könyv, amelyiket olvasok → a könyv, amelyiket olvasom.

For more mistakes of this kind, see common mistakes in Hungarian. The relative pronoun always opens its clause; the rest of the clause follows the usual topic and focus rules described in word order and focus.

Where this advice stops applying

• Sources disagree at the edges. The Bárczi column treats ami after a noun as slightly sloppy; Kálmán treats it as simply the everyday norm. Both agree on the table's fixed rows.
• Legal and official Hungarian still expects amely after nouns. If an editor or a style sheet asks for it, follow it.

Sources and further reading

• Buvári Márta, "Ami, amely és társaik", Bárczi Géza Kiejtési Alapítvány, nyelvmuveles.hu
• Kálmán László, "Ami és amely", Nyelv és Tudomány, 26 January 2011
• e-nyelv.hu (HUN-REN Hungarian Research Centre for Linguistics), "Vonatkozó névmások", 22 January 2012
• e-nyelv.hu, "Aki, amely", 17 December 2014
• Wiktionary entries amely, amelyik and ami, for usage notes and declension tables

Frequently asked questions