Mert, hiszen or ugyanis: how do you say "because" in Hungarian?

The everyday word for "because" is mert: Becsuktam az ablakot, mert fáztam, "I closed the window because I was cold". It is the word that answers miért? ("why?"), and when in doubt it is never wrong. Hiszen gives a reason the speaker treats as obvious ("after all, as you know"), and ugyanis points out a cause the listener may not expect ("you see, the thing is").

The rule: plain, obvious, or worth pointing out?

All three translate as "because", and Wiktionary lists mivel, ugyanis, minthogy, merthogy, hiszen and miután as only "partially synonymous" with mert. What separates them is how the speaker presents the reason.

• A plain reason: mert. You state the cause without comment. This is the default, in speech and in writing.
• An obvious reason: hiszen. Wiktionary's label is "said if something follows obviously for the speaker". The English is "after all", "of course", "as you know".
• A reason you draw attention to: ugyanis. Wiktionary: used "usually if wanting to draw attention to the cause, e.g. because it is surprising". The English is "you see", "the thing is", "as it happens".

The same fact, said four ways, shows the difference:

• Nem jövök, mert holnap dolgozom. I'm not coming because I'm working tomorrow. (just the reason)
• Nem jövök, hiszen holnap dolgozom. I'm not coming; I'm working tomorrow, after all. (you knew that)
• Nem jövök. Holnap ugyanis dolgozom. I'm not coming. The thing is, I'm working tomorrow. (here is the explanation)
• Mivel holnap dolgozom, nem jövök. As I'm working tomorrow, I'm not coming. (the reason as background)

The "because" words in one table

The grammar column combines two sources: the Hungarian Wikipedia article on conjunctions, which classes mert as the conjunction of causal subordinate clauses and ugyanis as an explanatory coordinator, and the Universal Dependencies Hungarian-Szeged treebank, a corpus of newspaper text, which tags hiszen as coordinating and mert and mivel as subordinating.

The treebank's frequency lists show which words a reader meets. Its ten most frequent subordinating conjunctions are, in order, hogy, ha, mint, mert, miután, ugyan, bár, mivel, jóllehet, merthogy: mert is fourth, mivel eighth. Among coordinating conjunctions, hiszen is seventh, ahead of hanem and vagy (the full list is on the de or hanem page). Ugyanis is in neither top ten.

Mert: the neutral "because", and the answer to miért?

Mert is the reply to Miért?, and its history says so: Wiktionary, following Zaicz's etymological dictionary, derives it from meret, an obsolete variant of miért ("why"). The question word and its answer are the same word worn down.

• Miért nem jöttél? Mert beteg voltam. Why didn't you come? Because I was ill.
• Becsuktam az ablakot, mert fáztam. I closed the window because I was cold.
• Sár van, mert esik az eső. It's muddy because it's raining.

How to ask the miért? question itself, with the question word right before the verb, is on the questions page.

Azért ... mert: "the reason ... is that"

To stress the reason, put azért ("for that") into the main clause. Wiktionary notes that it goes in the focus position, directly before the verb, so a verbal prefix moves behind the verb:

• Azért csuktam be az ablakot, mert fáztam. The reason I closed the window was that I was cold.
• Sár van (azért), mert esik az eső. It's muddy because it's raining. (Hungarian Wikipedia brackets the optional azért)

That is the same focus slot that pushes be out of becsuktam, explained on the word order and focus page. Azért is built on az ("that") just as miért is built on mi ("what").

Mert can also explain, not just give a cause

Hungarian Wikipedia gives mert two jobs. In Sár van, mert esik az eső it introduces the cause (a subordinate clause of reason). In Fölveszem az új ruhám, mert van ám nekem új ruhám is ("I'll put on my new dress, because I do have a new dress, you know") it adds an explanation of why the speaker says the first clause, and Wikipedia classes that use as explanatory coordination, the same family as ugyanis. This is why mert can stand in for the other words: it covers both kinds of "because".

Hiszen: "after all, as you know"

Hiszen is first attested in 1519 and comes from hiszem, "I believe" (the definite first person of hisz), with the final m turned into n. Wiktionary gives two senses.

Sense 1: a reason the speaker finds obvious

• Itt vagyok, hiszen megígértem, hogy eljövök! Here I am; I promised I'd come, after all!
• Vigyél esernyőt, hiszen esik. Take an umbrella; it's raining, after all.

The reason is not news. The listener knows it, or should, and hiszen reminds them. That is the difference from ugyanis, which offers the cause as something to notice.

Sense 2: "why, but": realising something

At the start of a sentence, with no reason clause in sight, hiszen is what you say when something dawns on you, or when you want someone else to see it. Wiktionary's glosses are "hey, but, why".

• Hiszen ez nem is nehéz! Why, this isn't even difficult!
• De hiszen ott voltam! But I was there, for sure!

The first sense links two clauses; the second stands alone and works like the sentence-initial particles on the what does hát mean page.

Hisz and iszen

Wiktionary lists two shorter forms: hisz, labelled "slightly literary or folksy", and iszen, labelled "folksy". Hisz carries both senses (Itt vagyok, hisz megígértem...; Hisz ez nem is nehéz!) and is spelled like the verb hisz, "believes". Use hiszen until you hear which one the people around you say.

Ugyanis: "you see, the thing is"

Ugyanis is ugyan + is, the same is as in én is, and Wiktionary records its written abbreviation, ui. Hungarian Wikipedia puts it with azaz ("that is") and mégpedig ("namely") among the explanatory conjunctions, whose job is to signal that what follows is the cause of what came before, or spells it out.

• Tavasszal alaposan fel kell újítani a töltéseket. Az őszi árvizek ugyanis megrongálták a gátakat. The embankments must be thoroughly repaired in spring. The autumn floods, you see, damaged the dams.
• Elkéstem. A busz ugyanis húsz percet késett. I was late. The bus, as it happens, was twenty minutes late.
• Egy könnyű, ugyanis egyszerű feladatot oldott meg. He solved an easy task, easy because it was simple.

Two things in these examples set ugyanis apart from mert.

• It can start a new sentence's worth of explanation. Wikipedia's first example is two separate sentences, and it cites the view that coordinating conjunctions work as connectors above the level of the compound sentence. The explanation can follow a full stop.
• It does not have to open its clause. The same article's section on conjunction position gives the general rule that a conjunction joining clauses is the first word of its clause. In the clause examples above, and in the one sentence with ugyanis quoted on the treebank's statistics page, it comes after the subject instead: Az őszi árvizek ugyanis..., ...miniszterelnök ugyanis kilátásba helyezte. Mert and hiszen open their clause.

The "surprising" part of Wiktionary's definition matters for tone: ugyanis suits an explanation the listener did not see coming.

Mivel: "as, since"

Mivel is literally mi + -vel, "with what", the instrumental case of the question word, and it still has that meaning: Mivel festették le a házat?, "What did they paint the house with?" As a conjunction Wiktionary glosses it "as (because)", gives minthogy as its synonym and mivelhogy as a derived form.

• Mivel az előző levelemre nem érkezett válasz, most újra írok. As I did not get any response to my previous letter, I am writing again now.

Wiktionary's example puts the reason first, the way English opens with "As..." or "Since...". If you want to begin with the reason and then state the result, mivel is the word to reach for.

Where the distinctions stop

• They overlap. Wiktionary's "partially synonymous" is accurate. In many sentences mert could replace hiszen or ugyanis and only the colour would change. The azért ... mert frame and the one-word answer to miért? are where mert stays.
• Ugyan is a different word. The treebank counts it separately among the subordinating conjunctions. Dropping the is does not give a shorter ugyanis.

Common learner errors

1. Answering Miért? with Hiszen... or Ugyanis... The one-word answer to "why?" is Mert...: Miért nem jöttél? Mert beteg voltam. Hiszen would tell the person who asked that the reason was obvious.
2. *Azért becsuktam az ablakot... With azért in focus, the prefix moves: Azért csuktam be...
3. Using hiszen for news. If the listener cannot know the reason, hiszen sounds as if they should. Use mert, or ugyanis to flag that this is the explanation.
4. Reading Mivel? as "because?" As a question it is "with what?". The conjunction only means "as" when a clause follows.

"If" and "when" clauses, the other common subordinate clauses, are on the ha or amikor page.

Sources and further reading

• Wiktionary, "mert" (Hungarian): sense, synonyms, the azért collocation and etymology from meret (after Zaicz 2006)
• Wiktionary, "hiszen" and "hisz" (Hungarian): both senses, alternative forms, etymology
• Wiktionary, "ugyanis" and "mivel" (Hungarian)
• Wikipedia (Hungarian), "Kötőszó": explanatory coordinators, causal subordinators, the two uses of mert, conjunction position
• Universal Dependencies, "UD_Hungarian-Szeged: SCONJ" and "CCONJ"

Frequently asked questions