Otthon, itthon or haza: how do you say "home" and "at home" in Hungarian?

"At home" in Hungarian is otthon or itthon. Say itthon when you are at home as you speak, and otthon when you are somewhere else. "Home" as a place you go to is always haza: Megyek haza, "I'm going home". "From home" is otthonról or hazulról.

What the three words are

English uses one word, "home", for three different questions. Where are you? Where are you going? Where are you coming from? Hungarian asks these questions with Hol?, Hová? and Honnan?, and it gives each one its own answer. The local cases page shows the same three questions behind the nine place endings.

All three home words are adverbs of place. An adverb of place is a word that already contains its own "where". It needs no case ending, the way English "here" needs no "at".

• otthon = at home, over there. Wiktionary builds it from ott, "there", and the old word honn, "at home". So it is literally "there at home".
• itthon = at home, right here. It is itt, "here", plus the same honn. Literally "here at home".
• haza = (to) home, homeward. Wiktionary traces it to haz, an old form of ház ("house"), plus an old "to" ending. Literally "to the house".

That old word honn is now archaic. Wiktionary quotes Petőfi using it in 1844: Ott vagyok honn, "There I am at home". Today it lives on only inside itthon and otthon. Once you see the itt and the ott, the rule almost explains itself.

The rule: where are you while you speak?

Wiktionary gives the same usage note under both otthon and itthon. If the speaker is away from home when speaking, use otthon. If the speaker is at home when speaking, use itthon. Its example pair is one sentence said in two places:

• A férjem otthon van. My husband is at home. (said at work, at the shop, anywhere else)
• A férjem itthon van. My husband is at home. (said at home)

Both sentences have the same English translation. The difference is not where the husband is. He is at home in both. The difference is where the speaker is. That is why the choice feels strange to English speakers: the word describes the speaker as much as the person at home.

It works like itt and ott, "here" and "there". If you are standing in the place, it is "here". If you are not, it is "there". The ez or az page shows the same here/there split in "this" and "that".

The grid: where, where to, where from

Put the three questions across the top and the speaker's position down the side. Each cell below is a ruling from the sections that follow.

Three things stand out once the grid is filled in.

• Only "at home" splits. Wiktionary draws the speaker line for otthon and itthon only. For "to home" it gives one word, haza, from either place.
• The verb carries the split instead. Haza stays the same, but the verb changes. Jön means moving toward the speaker and megy moving away, as the jön or megy page explains. So at home you ask Mikor jössz haza?, "When are you coming home?" Away from home you ask Mikor mész haza?, "When are you going home?"
• "From home" has two words. Wiktionary lists otthonról and hazulról as synonyms, both "from home", and gives them no speaker rule.

Compare itt / ide / innen ("here, to here, from here") and ott / oda / onnan ("there, to there, from there"). Home follows the same three-way plan. The questions page lists these sets side by side.

Worked example: one phone call, two words for one flat

Suppose Anna is at the office. Her husband Péter is at home. She calls him. Walk through the call one line at a time and ask, each time, where the speaker is.

1. Anna asks if he is home. Anna is away from home, so she says otthon: Otthon vagy?, "Are you at home?"
2. Péter answers. Péter is at home as he speaks, so he says itthon: Igen, itthon vagyok., "Yes, I'm at home." The same flat now has two names in two lines, because the speaker changed.
3. Péter asks when she will be back. She is coming toward him, so the verb is jön: Mikor jössz haza?, "When are you coming home?"
4. Anna answers. She is moving away from where she stands, toward Péter. Going toward the listener is normally megy: Hatkor megyek haza., "I'm going home at six." Haza itself does not change at all.
5. Anna tells a colleague. After the call she says A férjem otthon van, "My husband is at home". She is still away, so it is still otthon.

Now move Anna. Suppose she gets home at six and Péter has gone out. Walking in, she calls through the flat: Itthon vagy?, "Are you home?" She is at home, so it is itthon, even though she is asking about someone else. No answer. She texts him: Itthon vagyok. Te hol vagy?, "I'm home. Where are you?"

The one-line test from all of this: before you say "at home", check where your own feet are.

Otthon and itthon in sentences

Both words answer Hol?, "where?", so they go with verbs of being and staying: van, marad ("stay"), dolgozik ("work"). With van in the third person, the verb must stay in the sentence. Péter otthon van keeps its van, as the van and nincs page explains for all place expressions. The negative is nincs:

• Péter otthon van. Péter is at home. (Wiktionary's example)
• Péter nincs itthon. Péter isn't home. (said at home, where you can see he isn't)
• Ma itthon maradok. I'm staying home today. (said at home)
• Holnap otthon dolgozom. Tomorrow I'm working at home. (said at the office)

Two set phrases use otthon, and Wiktionary lists both:

• Érezd magad otthon! Make yourself at home!
• Mindenütt jó, de legjobb otthon. It's good everywhere, but home is best. (proverb)
• Ha nincs otthon a macska, cincognak az egerek. When the cat's not home, the mice squeak. (proverb: when the cat's away, the mice will play)

Otthon van valamiben: at home in a subject

Wiktionary gives otthon a second adverb sense. With van and the -ban/-ben ending, it means "to be familiar with some field". Its synonyms are jártas and járatos, "versed, experienced". English has the same picture in "at home in a subject".

• Otthon van a számítógépekben. He knows his way around computers.

Here the speaker rule does not apply. This is a fixed phrase, and the source gives it with otthon only.

Haza: (to) home, and how it moves

Haza answers Hová?, "where to?". Wiktionary glosses it "(to) home, homeward: to one's place of residence or one's customary or official location". So it goes with verbs of motion: megy, jön, visz ("take"), ér ("arrive"). Wiktionary's example is Megyek haza, "I'm going home."

Haza as a verbal prefix

Haza also works as a verbal prefix. A verbal prefix is a small word that sits in front of a verb and is written as one word with it. Wiktionary lists haza- as a verbal prefix meaning "home", with hazamegy, "to go home", as its example. Hazaér is "to get home". Like the other prefixes, it splits off the verb in negatives and questions. Wiktionary's note on haza says the word may be the split-off half of such a verb, to be read with the verb wherever it stands.

• Hazamegyek. I'm going home.
• Nem megyek haza. I'm not going home.
• Mikor jössz haza? When are you coming home?
• Haza kell mennem. I have to go home.
• Nyolcra hazaért. He got home by eight.

The rules for when the prefix splits are on the verbal prefixes and negation pages. Arriving with hazaér is also on the kap or vesz page, under "get home".

Hazafelé: on the way home

Hazafelé is haza plus felé, "towards". Wiktionary glosses it "homeward, towards home". Use it for the trip itself, not the arrival.

• Szótlanul mentünk hazafelé. We walked homeward in silence. (Wiktionary's example)
• Hazafelé veszek kenyeret. I'll buy bread on the way home.

From home: otthonról, hazulról

"From home" answers Honnan?. Wiktionary gives two words. Otthonról is otthon plus -ról, the "off, from" ending of the surface cases. Hazulról is the other. Wiktionary lists them as synonyms, both glossed "from home".

• Hétkor indulok otthonról. I leave home at seven.
• Hazulról hoztam az ebédet. I brought my lunch from home.

You will also hear itthonról, built from itthon in the same way. Neither English nor Hungarian Wiktionary defines it, so this page does not rule on when it is preferred. The two forms the dictionary gives, otthonról and hazulról, are safe from anywhere.

Otthon and haza as nouns: home and homeland

Two of the three words are also nouns, and the nouns do not mean the same thing.

Otthon: a home, a dwelling, a shelter

Wiktionary's first noun sense of otthon is "home: one's own dwelling place", the house where one lives with one's family. Its synonyms are lakás ("flat") and lakóhely ("place of residence"). As a noun it takes endings like any other: az otthonom is "my home".

The second sense, "mostly in compounds", is a place of rest or care: a hostel, a shelter, an institution. Two compounds from Wiktionary's list:

• gyermekotthon children's home
• diákotthon boarding house, dormitory (synonym: kollégium)

The adjective is otthoni, "home", as in az otthoni telefonszám, "the home phone number". Itthoni exists too. Wiktionary glosses it "relating to one's home or home country": az itthoni címünk, "our home address". If you live somewhere and need the verb, the él or lakik page has it.

Haza: homeland

As a noun, haza means "homeland, native land, fatherland". Wiktionary says the noun grew out of the adverb. Its synonym is szülőföld, "native land". It takes possessive endings like any noun ending in -a, lengthening it to -á-:

• a hazám my homeland
• a hazánk our homeland, our country
• a hazája his or her homeland

The full set of endings is on the possessive suffixes page. Words built on this sense include hazai ("native, domestic", the opposite of külföldi, "foreign"), hazafi ("patriot") and hazaárulás ("treason").

So the noun haza is your country, not your flat. For the flat, the noun is otthon.

What this page does not cover

The speaker rule is Wiktionary's usage note, and it covers "at home" with the speaker in one of two places. It names two situations and rules on those two. The rule for jön and megy also has a second layer. The centre of a conversation can shift to the listener. So a speaker heading home to someone may say jövök instead of megyek, and the jön or megy page explains when. Finally, this page does not rule on itthonról against otthonról, or on idehaza, which Wiktionary glosses simply "at home, here". The dictionaries used here give no usage note for them.

Common learner errors

1. *Megyek otthon. Otthon answers "where?", and going needs "where to?". Say Megyek haza or Hazamegyek.
2. *Hazában vagyok for "I'm at home". Hazában is the noun haza with "in", so it means "in the homeland". "I'm at home" is Otthon vagyok or Itthon vagyok.
3. *Haza vagyok. Haza is a direction, not a place. With vagyok use otthon or itthon.
4. Saying Otthon vagyok on the phone from your sofa. You are at home as you speak, so the default is Itthon vagyok.
5. *Mikor hazajössz? A question word pushes the prefix behind the verb: Mikor jössz haza?

More slips of this kind are on the common mistakes page.

Sources and further reading

• Wiktionary, "otthon" (Hungarian): etymology ott + honn, noun senses "home, dwelling" and "hostel, shelter" in compounds, adverb "at home" and "familiar with some field" (with van and -ban), usage note on otthon vs itthon, the two proverbs
• Wiktionary, "itthon" (Hungarian): etymology itt + honn, Itthon vagyok, the same usage note with A férjem otthon van / itthon van
• Wiktionary, "haza" (Hungarian): adverb "(to) home, homeward", Megyek haza, separated-prefix note, noun "homeland" with its possessive forms, hazai, hazafi, hazaárulás
• Wiktionary, "haza-", "hazamegy", "hazaér", "hazafelé", "otthonról" (synonym hazulról), "otthoni", "itthoni", "honn", "idehaza", "gyermekotthon", "diákotthon", "szülőföld"

Frequently asked questions