Lectures by Ádám Nádasdy at our faculty
The name of Ádám Nádasdy lights up the eyes of literary scholars and linguists alike. As a poet, writer and literary translator, he is one of the most prominent figures in contemporary Hungarian literature. He was a lecturer at the Department of English Studies of the Eötvös Lóránd University in Budapest for several decades, and today he continues to dazzle professional and non-professional audiences with his linguistic works and lectures.
We, at the Faculty of Central European Studies had the chance to listen to two of his lectures on February 26th. During the morning lecture, we learned about an ongoing linguistic change in Hungarian from the linguist's point of view. Nádasdy gave a number of examples of this new change in Hungarian, which certainly excited the general public, as they could be heard chatting back and forth, examining their own language habits and savouring the examples.
During the afternoon lecture, we looked at some of the more interesting challenges of translating Madách's Tragedy of Man into modern Hungarian, now from the perspective of the literary translator. A lively discussion ensued among the audience of mostly Hungarian majors, who shared their experiences of reading the original text with high school students. What is more important, content or form? Is it necessary for the student to fully understand the whole text, or is it enough to infer certain things? These questions were discussed at the end of the lecture, and we are sure that our future teachers of Hungarian and our interpreting and translation students (but not only them!) left the event with a great deal of enthusiasm.
From a professional point of view, we can look back on a very useful and interesting day, which we would like to thank the Institute of the Hungarian Language and Literary Science, as well as the László A. Arany Civic Association for organising.
Anna Oros Bugár
