Nagyon or sok: how do you say very, much, many and a lot in Hungarian?

Nagyon answers "how much, to what degree?" and sok answers "how much, how many, what amount?". So "very nice" is nagyon szép, "many people" is sok ember, "I like it a lot" is Nagyon tetszik, and "she works a lot" is Sokat dolgozik. The one place both words feel wrong is "much bigger": that is sokkal nagyobb.

The rule: degree or amount?

English blurs the two ideas. "Very much" and "a lot" can mean either an intense feeling (I like it a lot) or a large quantity (I eat a lot). Hungarian always keeps them apart.

• Degree: nagyon. Wiktionary defines it as "very (to a high degree)". It is an adverb, built from nagy ("big, great") with the adverb ending -on, the same ending you meet on the adverbs page. Its opposite is egy kicsit, "a little".
• Amount: sok. Wiktionary glosses it "much, many", with kevés ("few, little") as its opposite. It is an adjective, so it stands in front of a noun and takes case endings like one: sokat, sokkal, sokan.

English needs "much" for uncountables and "many" for countables. Hungarian sok covers both, so sok víz ("much water") and sok ház ("many houses") use the same word.

Which word goes where

Find the word you are modifying in the left column. This is the whole system on one screen.

The last row shows how the two combine: nagyon intensifies sok the same way it intensifies any other adjective.

Sok with nouns: the noun stays singular

After sok, as after any number, the noun has no plural -k and the verb is singular. The quantity word already says "more than one", so Hungarian does not mark it twice. The plural page lists the other words that behave this way.

• Sok ember volt a koncerten. There were a lot of people at the concert.
• Nincs sok időm. I don't have much time.
• Nagyon sok turista jön ide nyáron. Very many tourists come here in summer.
• Sok szerencsét! Good luck! (literally "much luck")

*Sok emberek and *sok turisták jönnek are wrong for the same reason as *két almák. The same holds for the stronger rengeteg ("loads of, a great many"): rengeteg munka, "a huge amount of work".

Many people: sok ember or sokan

For people you have two options with the same meaning. Sok ember is a noun phrase with a singular verb. Sokan is an adverb meaning "many people" (Wiktionary), and the verb goes into the plural:

• Sok ember jött el. Many people came.
• Sokan jöttek el. Many people came.
• Sokan voltunk. There were a lot of us.

Sokan voltunk is something sok ember cannot do: the plural verb can be first or second person, so the speaker is part of the crowd. This works like ketten, hárman on the numbers page, and the opposite is kevesen, "few people".

For "many things" without a noun, Wiktionary's usage note points to sok minden: Sok minden történt. "A lot has happened." The plain plural sokak refers to people, not things.

With verbs: nagyon or sokat?

This is the pair learners mix up, because English "a lot" works for both. Ask what the "a lot" is measuring.

• How strongly? Feelings, liking, wanting, hurting, waiting: nagyon.
• How much or how often? Eating, working, reading, travelling, talking: sokat, the accusative of sok used as an adverb. Wiktionary glosses it "many times, frequently, often, a lot", with sokszor and gyakran as synonyms.

• Nagyon szeretlek. I love you very much.
• Nagyon tetszik ez a város. I really like this city.
• Nagyon fáj a fejem. My head hurts a lot.
• Sokat dolgozik. She works a lot.
• Sokat kirándulok. I go hiking a lot.
• Sokat beszél. He talks a lot.

The two can sit side by side in one sentence because they answer different questions: Nagyon szeret olvasni, ezért sokat olvas. "She loves reading, so she reads a lot." For the difference between szeret and tetszik themselves, see szeret or tetszik.

The test: what would "more" be?

Both words have irregular comparatives, and the comparatives settle any doubt. Wiktionary gives jobban as the comparative of nagyon, and többet as the comparative of the adverb sokat. Turn your sentence into "more" and see which form sounds right:

If the "more" version takes jobban, the plain version takes nagyon. If it takes többet, the plain version takes sokat. Note that jobban is also the comparative of jól ("well"), so jobban beszél can mean "speaks better". Context separates the two. The comparative page covers the full -bb system, including több.

"Much bigger": sokkal, not nagyon

English puts "much" or "far" in front of a comparative. Hungarian uses sokkal, the instrumental of sok: literally "bigger by much". Wiktionary's usage note is blunt: sokkal must be followed by a comparative form.

• Ez a ház sokkal nagyobb. This house is much bigger.
• Sokkal jobban beszélsz angolul. You speak English much better.
• A munkatársaik sokkal idősebbek náluk. Their colleagues are much older than they are.

So the three words split cleanly: nagyon nagy = "very big", sokkal nagyobb = "much bigger", and *nagyon nagyobb does not exist. Wiktionary lists jóval as a synonym of sokkal, and you can be exact with a multiplier: ötször nagyobb, "five times bigger".

Too, too much, a little, not much

Each word has a partner for "too" and an opposite, and they follow the same degree versus amount split.

• Túl nagy ez a ház. This house is too big.
• Egy kicsit türelmetlen vagy. You are a little impatient.
• Kevés ember tudja. Few people know it.

Túl on its own is "too"; "too much" needs túl sok or túl sokat. Egy kicsit has two senses in Wiktionary, "to a little degree" and "a little amount", so it works on both sides (beszélgethetünk egy kicsit, "we can talk a little"). Kevés without egy stresses scarcity, "not as many or as much as expected"; with egy and an uncountable noun it is a neutral "a little".

Negation does not change the choice: Nincs sok időm ("I don't have much time"), Nem eszik sokat ("He doesn't eat much"). Where nem goes in those sentences is set out on the nem, ne and sem page.

Thank you very much

The phrase every visitor needs shows that "very much" is not always nagyon. Wiktionary lists three versions:

• Köszönöm szépen. Thank you very much. (literally "I thank you nicely")
• Nagyon köszönöm. Many thanks.
• Nagyon szépen köszönöm. Thank you very, very much.

English "many thanks" does not carry over as *sok köszönöm: köszönöm is a verb ("I thank"), so it takes nagyon or szépen, never sok.

Typical learner errors

• *sok szép for "very beautiful". An adjective takes nagyon: nagyon szép.
• *nagyon ember or *nagyon pénz. A noun takes sok: sok pénz, or nagyon sok pénz for "a great deal of money".
• *sok emberek. The noun stays singular: sok ember.
• *nagyon nagyobb for "much bigger". Use sokkal nagyobb.
• *Sok dolgozik. Before a verb the adverb form is needed: sokat dolgozik.
• *Sokat szeretlek for "I love you a lot". Love is a degree: Nagyon szeretlek.
• *Több szeretem for "I like it more". The comparative of degree is jobban: Jobban szeretem.

Most of these come from the same source: English "a lot" and "very much" hide the degree versus amount question, and Hungarian makes you answer it every time.

Where the simple rule stops

• nagyon as a case form. Wiktionary records a second nagyon: the superessive case form of the adjective nagy ("on the big one"). It is a different word that happens to share the spelling.
• Other intensifiers. nagyon is the everyday "very", but not the only one. Wiktionary lists rendkívül ("extremely") and the literary igen, módfelett, szerfelett, and eléggé means "fairly, quite" (Eléggé elfáradtam, "I'm pretty tired").
• több without comparison. Több also means "several": több ember can be "several people" with no "than" in sight.

Sources and further reading

• Wiktionary, "nagyon" and "sok" (Hungarian): senses, antonyms, comparatives and the usage note on sok minden
• Wiktionary, "sokat", "sokkal", "sokan", "sokszor", "jobban", "több" and "rengeteg"
• Wiktionary, "túl", "kicsit", "kevés", "eléggé", "köszönöm szépen" and "nagyon köszönöm"
• Wikipedia, "Hungarian language" (singular noun after a numeral)
• Wikipedia (Hungarian), "Számnév" (sok and kevés as indefinite quantity words; ötször nagyobb)

Frequently asked questions