Ül or leül, áll or feláll: how do you say sit, sit down, stand up and lie down in Hungarian?

Use ül, áll and fekszik for being in a position (sitting, standing, lying) and leül, feláll and lefekszik for getting into it (sitting down, standing up, lying down). The place follows the same split: a széken ül, "is sitting on the chair", but leül a székre, "sits down onto the chair". In a command the prefix goes behind the verb: Ülj le!, "Sit down!".

The rule: a state, or a change into it

English uses one verb for both jobs and adds "down" or "up" only sometimes: "she sat on the bench" can mean she was sitting there or she took a seat. Hungarian always separates them. Wiktionary's usage note on ül says it outright: the verb "implies ongoing state", and a change of state needs a derived verb, leül for standing to sitting or felül for lying or slouching to sitting.

A sentence from the Hungarian National Corpus, quoted by Beatrix Oszkó in her study of Hungarian posture verbs, uses both in one breath:

• Az asszony leül, s amint ül, mozdulatlan. The woman sits down, and as she sits, she is motionless.

The first verb is the moment she takes a seat; the second is the time she spends there.

The grid: three positions, state and change

No dictionary entry puts these verbs side by side, so here they are in one table. The case in each column is the part learners leave out.

Two things the grid shows that a word list does not. First, the three columns of place are the three directions of the Hungarian local cases: where, where to, where from. A state verb takes the first, a verb of getting into a position takes the second, and a verb of leaving it takes the third. Second, the prefixes are not mirror images of English. "Sit down" is leül, but "sit up" in bed is felül, and "get up" in the morning is felkel, which Wiktionary defines as "to rise from one's bed after sleeping".

Which case: leül a székre, not *leül a széken

Because leül is a movement, the thing you end up on answers "where to?". That means -ra/-re for surfaces and -ba/-be for things you sit inside, the same choice of surface or interior described on the surface cases and inner cases pages. The state verb takes the matching "where" form.

The last two rows are postpositions, and they split the same way: mellett "beside" against mellé "to beside". Wiktionary's examples are Leült mellém, "He sat down beside me", and, in a quotation, Leült az íróasztala elé, "He sat down in front of his desk". A Tolstoy translation quoted in Wiktionary has Pahom lefeküdt a puha párnákra, "Pahom lay down on the soft cushions".

This is the same rule that makes tesz, "put", take a where-to case (Tedd a hűtőbe!), covered on the csinál or tesz page.

The case can change the meaning

With feláll, the case decides which way you went:

• Felállt a székről. He got up from the chair.
• Felállt a székre, hogy elérje a polcot. He climbed up and stood on the chair to reach the shelf.

Commands: Ülj le! Állj fel! Feküdj le!

In a positive command the prefix leaves the front of the verb and follows it, the pattern explained on the verbal prefixes page. So leül becomes Ülj le!, not *Leülj!, even though Wiktionary's conjugation of leül lists the joined form leülj; that form is what you get in a clause such as Azt akarom, hogy leülj, "I want you to sit down".

The forms themselves are regular for ül and áll (ülj or üljél, állj or álljál); the full mood is on the imperative and subjunctive page. Watch the bare form Állj!: without fel it means "Halt!", Wiktionary's example being a guard's shout, "Állj!" kiáltotta az őr.

Fekszik: the irregular one

Ül and áll are short, regular verbs. Fekszik is an -ik verb with three stems, and Wiktionary's entry for the suffix -szik puts it in a small family with alszik (sleep) and haragszik (be angry): fekszik in the present, feküd- in the past, infinitive and imperative, fekv- in the participle and the noun.

Lefekszik conjugates the same way: lefeküdt, lefeküdni, Feküdj le!. The adverbs describe the position you do something in: A lovak állva alszanak, "Horses sleep standing up" (Wiktionary).

Wiktionary gives lefekszik three senses: "to lie down", "to go to bed", and, with -val/-vel, the euphemism "to go to bed with". The third is why Lefeküdtem vele is not a neutral way to say you had a lie-down near someone.

Things: áll or fekszik, never ül

English lets a car sit in the garage. Hungarian does not. For things, choose by shape: áll for something upright, fekszik for something flat or spread out. Oszkó describes the difference as fekszik assuming a horizontal subject that often covers a large area, and áll suggesting a vertical position, with these examples:

• Budapest a Duna két partján fekszik. Budapest lies on both banks of the Danube.
• A fogas a sarokban áll. The coat stand is in the corner.
• A könyv az asztalon fekszik. The book is lying on the table.
• A könyvek a polcon állnak. The books are standing on the shelf.

Wiktionary marks áll for movable objects such as books as "slightly literary", and Oszkó notes that posture verbs can in many cases be swapped for the verb "to be". So in everyday speech A könyv az asztalon van is always correct, and is the safe choice when you are not sure.

What you cannot do is translate the English "sit". Newman's English sentence "The new car is sitting in the garage" appears in Oszkó's paper translated as A kocsi a garázsban áll. Her corpus study (a random sample of 500 from 30,629 third-person forms of ül in the Hungarian National Corpus) found ül with lifeless subjects, but none used simply to say where a thing is. Those were set phrases such as Köd ül a tájon, "Fog lies over the landscape", and feelings on a face (Mosoly ül az arcán), not a pattern to copy.

Animals are different: in Oszkó's sample, dogs, cats, frogs and birds all ül.

Putting someone or something in position

Each posture verb has a causative partner for making someone or something sit, stand or lie.

Wiktionary notes that leültet can colloquially also mean "make someone go to jail". The suffix is covered on the causative page.

Beyond the body: what else they mean

• Tíz évet ült gyilkosságért. He served ten years for murder.
• Ez a ruha jól áll neked. This dress suits you. (áll + -nak/-nek)
• A verseny két részből áll. The competition consists of two parts.

"Stop" is a prefixed form: megáll is "come to a stop", leáll "stall, come to a standstill". Felül also means "get on" a tram or a horse (Felültek a villamosra) and "fall for" a trick.

Six mistakes learners make

1. *Ülj! for "Sit down!" Taking a seat is a change, so the command is Ülj le! Plain ülj asks someone to stay in the state, to keep sitting.
2. *Leültem a széken. Getting onto the chair takes where to: Leültem a székre.
3. *A széken ülök le. If you mean "I'm sitting on the chair", drop the prefix: A széken ülök.
4. *Fekszett, *fekszni. The past and infinitive use the feküd- stem: feküdt, feküdni.
5. *Leállok for "I'll stand up". Leáll means "stall, stop working"; standing up is felállok.
6. *Az autó a garázsban ül. Things do not sit: Az autó a garázsban áll, or simply van.

Where the rule stops working

The rule has three edges.

A where case can still appear with a change verb when it names the setting rather than the seat. Wiktionary's example for felül is felül az ágyban, "sit up in bed": you start in the bed and stay in it, so the bed is where, not where to. In the same way Leültünk a parkban egy padra is "In the park, we sat down on a bench": the park is the setting (-ban), the bench is the destination (-ra).

The plain verbs can describe a movement too, when they take a where-to case. The Magyar értelmező kéziszótár definitions quoted by Oszkó include A földre ül, "sits down on the ground", and autóba, lóra ül, "gets into a car, onto a horse"; Wiktionary gives a tükör elé áll, "steps in front of the mirror". Use the prefixed verbs yourself, but do not "correct" these.

And set phrases do not always follow the grid. Wiktionary translates "stay up late" as későn fekszik (le), with the prefix in brackets: optional, though it is a change of position.

Sources and further reading

• Wiktionary, "ül", "leül" and "felül": the usage note on ongoing state, senses, conjugation, Tíz évet ült, felül az ágyban, Felültek a villamosra, and the causative note on leültet
• Wiktionary, "áll", "feláll", "megáll", "leáll" and "állít": senses (suit, consist of, say, stop, step somewhere), the books-on-the-shelf and lamp examples, "Állj!" kiáltotta az őr, and conjugation
• Wiktionary, "fekszik", "lefekszik", "felkel", "-szik", "fektet" and "ültet": the full conjugation of fekszik, its stem family, the three senses of lefekszik, and the causatives
• Wiktionary, "mellém", "álom jön a szemére" (the Tolstoy quotation) and "stay up late": examples and translations
• Beatrix Oszkó, "Testtartásigék a magyarban: Grammatikalizálódik-e az ül?", Hungarológiai Közlemények 23/4 (2022), 77 to 89, doi:10.19090/hk.2022.4.77-89 (open access): fekszik and áll for location, the corpus sample, lifeless and animal subjects of ül, and the Magyar értelmező kéziszótár senses it quotes

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