Hord, visel or van rajta: how do you say "wear" in Hungarian?

To say what someone is wearing right now, Hungarian usually says it is on them. Zöld póló van rajta is "She's wearing a green T-shirt", literally "a green T-shirt is on her". To say what someone wears as a habit, use hord: Zöld pólót hord, "She wears green T-shirts". Visel is a slightly formal "wear". And the act of putting clothes on is a different verb again, felvesz.

Van rajta, hord and visel, defined

Van rajta means "is on him or her". Van is "is", and rajta is the pronoun "on him, on her, on it". Wiktionary's first example for rajta is Új ruha van rajta, "She has a new dress on". Its usage note says that wearing "certain items of clothing" is often expressed this way. The piece of clothing is the subject of van. The person wearing it is only the place where it is. So there is no verb "to wear" in this sentence at all.

Rajta belongs to a set: rajtam (on me), rajtad (on you), rajta, rajtunk, rajtatok, rajtuk. These are the personal forms of the "on" case, -on/-en/-ön, from the surface cases. Hungarian does not put that ending on the pronoun itself. It uses these special forms instead, listed with the others on personal pronouns.

Hord means "wear regularly". Wiktionary gives two senses. The first is "to carry (repeatedly, regularly, and/or continuously)". The second is "to wear (regularly)", for clothes. Both are about something done again and again. That is the key to the verb.

Visel means "wear, have on". Wiktionary's example is Kalapot visel, "He is wearing a hat". The thing worn is in the accusative, the object case. Its usage note sends the reader to rajta for the everyday ways to say it.

Five ways to say "She's wearing a green T-shirt"

The usage note under rajta gives five sentences about one green T-shirt (zöld póló). It splits them into two groups. Three describe what she has on now. Two describe a habitual outfit, and the note says to compare szokott, the verb for "usually".

Right now

• Zöld póló van rajta. She's wearing a green T-shirt. (a green T-shirt is on her)
• Zöld pólóban van. She's wearing a green T-shirt. (she is in a green T-shirt)
• Zöld pólót visel. She's wearing a green T-shirt. (slightly formal)

As a habit

• Zöld pólót hord. She wears green T-shirts.
• Zöld pólóban jár. She goes around in green T-shirts.

The split is the same one English makes with "is wearing" and "wears". The difference is that Hungarian uses different words for it, not different tenses. All five sentences are in the present tense.

The grid: now, habit and action, with case frames

Each verb puts the person and the clothes in a different case. This table lines them up. Every row is explained in a section below, with its source.

Read down the "clothes" column and two patterns appear. The -ban/-ben frames go with van and jár, verbs that never take an object. The object frames go with visel, hord, felvesz and levesz. Mixing them is a typical learner error, covered further down.

Worked case: glasses

Take a woman called Kata, who has needed glasses (szemüveg) for years. Suppose you want to say four things about her. The Hungarian Wiktionary labels szemüveg as clothing, so the clothing frames above apply to it. Here is how each sentence sorts.

1. "Kata wears glasses." This is a fact about her, true every day. That is a habit, so hord: Kata szemüveget hord. There is also an adjective for it. Szemüveges means "bespectacled, wearing glasses": Kata szemüveges.
2. "She puts her glasses on to read." This is the action, so felvesz: Felveszi a szemüvegét. The object is her own glasses, a definite object, so the verb is in the definite conjugation (felveszi, not felvesz).
3. "Right now she's wearing them." This is the state, so van rajta: Most szemüveg van rajta. The glasses are the subject. Kata is only where they are.
4. "Then she takes them off." The reverse action is levesz: Aztán leveszi a szemüvegét.

Worked through, one pair of glasses has needed three different verbs and one construction with no verb of its own. A learner who translates every "wear" as hord gets line 1 right and the rest wrong. Where a slightly formal tone fits, visel would do for line 3. The Hungarian Wiktionary itself uses it for glasses: it defines szemüveg as a device that, viselésekor, "when worn", improves sight or protects the eyes.

Worked case: a watch

Now take Bence and his wristwatch, a karóra (kar "arm" + óra "watch, clock"). A watch is not clothing, so the question is which frames still fit.

1. "Bence wears a watch." A habit again, and hord fits: Bence karórát hord. The Hungarian Wiktionary defines karóra with this very verb: karon hordható időjelző óra, "a timepiece that can be worn on the arm". The English Wiktionary agrees from the other side. It lists hord as the Hungarian for "wear" in the sense "to have on (clothes or accessories)".
2. "Have you got a watch on you?" Here English is asking about what you carry, not what you have on. Hungarian uses nála, "on him, on her", the personal form of the "at" case. Wiktionary's example is Van pénz nála?, "Does he have any cash on him?". So: Van nálad óra?
3. "He winds his watch." A trap. Felhúz can mean "put on" for clothes or shoes, as a synonym of felvesz. But with a clock or watch, Wiktionary gives it a sense of its own: "to wind". So Felhúzza az óráját means "He winds his watch".

The watch shows where van rajta stops. The usage note limits it to "certain items of clothing", and none of the sources fetched for this page use it with a watch. Hord covers the watch as a habit, and nála covers having one on you.

Van rajta and -ban van: the state right now

In van rajta, the clothes are the subject, so they stay in the plain dictionary form. The wearer changes with the person:

• Új ruha van rajtam. I have a new dress on. (Wiktionary's example)
• Mi van rajtad? What are you wearing? (what is on you?)
• Kabát van rajtuk. They have coats on.

Because the clothes are the subject, you never add the object ending -t here. Zöld póló van rajta is right. *Zöld pólót van rajta is wrong. And because van is "is", the negative follows the rules on van and nincs: Nincs rajta kabát, "He isn't wearing a coat".

With a name or a noun instead of a pronoun, the "on" case goes on that word. Wiktionary files rajta among the suppletive pronouns, forms that replace a regular ending, and links it to -on/-en/-ön. So with a name, the ending comes back: Péteren zöld póló van, "Péter has a green T-shirt on".

The other "now" frame turns it round. The person is the subject of van. The clothes take -ban/-ben, "in", from the inner local cases: Zöld pólóban van, "She is in a green T-shirt". English does the same with "in": "a man in a grey suit". The usage note gives both as phrases "with a similar meaning" and does not rank them.

Hord and -ban jár: the habit

Hord is an ordinary transitive verb. The clothes are its object, so they take -t, and a definite object takes definite endings:

• Zöld pólót hord. She wears green T-shirts.
• Mindig hordja a kék sálját. She always wears her blue scarf.

Wiktionary's entry for hord sets the habit against the moment in so many words. Next to "wear (regularly)" it lists visel and van rajta, glossed "at the moment". So hord answers "What does she wear?", and van rajta answers "What is she wearing?".

The second habit frame uses jár. Among its senses, Wiktionary lists "to dress in a certain manner, to habitually wear". Its quotation puts the clothes in -ban. It is from Gyula Pekár, 1898: A lapp asszonyok szintén nadrágban járnak, mint a férfiak, "Lapp women wear trousers the same as men". The megy or jár page explains why jár is the verb of routines in general.

Visel: the slightly formal "wear"

The rajta note labels Zöld pólót visel "slightly formal" and groups it with the "right now" forms. So visel is correct, but it is a step more formal than van rajta, which the note calls the way wearing is "often expressed".

The verb has two other senses. One is "to bear, endure": Jól viselte a fájdalmat, "He endured the pain well". The other, with magát, is "to behave", which Wiktionary marks dated and formal: Jól viselte magát?, "Did he behave well?". The noun viselet means "wearing (of clothing)" and also "costume, dress, attire".

Putting on, taking off, changing

Getting into clothes is an action, not a state, so it needs a verb with a verbal prefix. Wiktionary gives felvesz (fel- "up" + vesz "take") the sense "to put on, don", for clothing. Its example: Felvettem a kabátomat, "I put on my jacket". The opposite, listed as its antonym, is levesz, "to take off".

• Vedd fel a sapkádat! Put your hat on!
• Vedd le a cipődet! Take your shoes off!

In a command the prefix moves behind the verb, as it normally does. Felhúz, "pull up", is listed as a synonym for clothes and shoes: Húzd fel a cipődet!. Note that felvesz has other senses too, such as "pick up the phone" and "admit, hire". Those are on kap, vesz or szerez.

Three more verbs take no object at all, because the person dresses or undresses themselves:

• Átöltözöm, és mehetünk. I'll get changed and we can go. (átöltözik, "to change one's clothing")
• Felöltöztél már? Are you dressed yet? (felöltözik, "to get dressed")
• Levetkőzött. He undressed. (levetkőzik, "to undress")

All three are -ik verbs. Wiktionary's English entry for "change" gives átöltözik for "to replace one's own clothing". Changing someone else, such as a child, is átöltöztet.

Hord's other job: carrying, again and again

The first sense of hord is not about clothes at all. It is "to carry", but only "repeatedly, regularly, and/or continuously". For one trip, Wiktionary points to visz or szállít instead, glossed "at the moment".

• Viszek egy kosár fát. I'm taking a basket of wood (one trip).
• Egész délután fát hordtunk. We carried wood all afternoon (load after load).

This is the same split as megy and jár. Megy is one trip and jár is going regularly. Visz is one load and hord is many. Even the "wear" senses line up: hord and -ban jár are the habit forms. For the direction of visz, away from the speaker, see jön or megy, hoz or visz.

Wiktionary also lists hordoz, "to carry (repeatedly or for a longer time or here and there)" and "to bear (the weight of something)". And one idiom with hord has a full entry: vizet hord a Dunába, "to carry water to the Danube", the Hungarian for "carry coals to Newcastle".

Five mistakes learners make

1. *Zöld pólót van rajta. With van rajta, the clothes are the subject, so no -t: Zöld póló van rajta.
2. Hord for what someone has on today. Hord means "wear regularly". For "Today she's wearing a red hat", say Ma piros sapka van rajta.
3. *Zöld pólóban hord or *zöld pólót jár. Hord takes the object, jár takes -ban/-ben. Keep each verb with its own frame.
4. Felvesz for the state. Felvette a kabátját says he put his coat on. If you mean he is wearing it, say Kabát van rajta.
5. *Átöltözöm a ruhámat. Átöltözik has no object. Átöltözöm alone means "I'm getting changed".

What this page does not settle

The rajta note says "certain items of clothing" and does not list which ones. This page uses van rajta for ordinary garments and for glasses, which the Hungarian Wiktionary labels as clothing. It makes no ruling on jewellery, make-up, perfume or a watch with van rajta, because no fetched source covers them. The sources also do not say whether visel works for a habit. Wiktionary groups it only with the "right now" forms, so the grid does too. Between van rajta and -ban van, and between hord and -ban jár, no source says one is more common, so this page does not rank them. Finally, "wear" in the sense "wear out" or "wear down" is a different set of verbs, not covered here.

Sources and further reading

• Wiktionary, "rajta": the usage note with all five ways to say "wearing a green T-shirt", the "slightly formal" label on visel, the habitual group with hord and jár, and the examples Új ruha van rajta; "rajtam" for the first-person form
• Wiktionary, "hord": the senses "carry (repeatedly, regularly)" and "wear (regularly)", the contrast with visz, szállít, visel and van rajta "at the moment", and the etymology; "hordoz" and "vizet hord a Dunába"
• Wiktionary, "visel" and "viselet": "wear, have on" with the accusative, "bear, endure", viseli magát, and the etymology from visz
• Wiktionary, "jár": the sense "to dress in a certain manner, to habitually wear" and the Pekár quotation
• Wiktionary, "felvesz", "levesz" and "felhúz": put on, take off, pull on, and wind a clock
• Wiktionary, "átöltözik", "felöltözik", "levetkőzik" and "change": changing, dressing and undressing
• Wiktionary, "wear" (hord for "to have on (clothes or accessories)"), "szemüveges", "nála", "visz" and "szállít"
• Hungarian Wiktionary, "szemüveg" (labelled clothing, defined with viselésekor) and "karóra" (karon hordható időjelző óra)

Frequently asked questions