Ideája

Ideája is a noun phrase in Hungarian that means “his/her idea.” It is formed from the borrowed noun idea and the third-person possessive suffix -ja, yielding a form that denotes ownership by a previously mentioned person. The word illustrates how Hungarian combines loanwords with its regular possessive morphology.

Usage and nuance

In everyday Hungarian, the native term for “idea” is often ötlet. Ideája tends to appear in more formal or written contexts, or in discussions where the loanword idea is preferred or repeated for stylistic reasons. The construction can also be used with other possessive suffixes to indicate different grammatical cases, such as ideájával (with his/her idea) or ideáját (his/her idea, accusative).

Etymology and related forms

Idea is a direct borrowing into Hungarian from Latin or Greek via various European languages. Ideája reflects Hungarian’s pattern of attaching possessive markers to borrowed nouns, and then inflecting the word through standard case endings as required by the sentence.

Examples

- Az ideája az volt, hogy több kutatást végezzenek. (His/her idea was to conduct more research.)

- Megkérdeztem az ideáját, de nem adott konkrét választ. (I asked him/her about his/her idea, but did not receive a concrete answer.)

- Az ideájával szemben inkább a gyakorlati megvalósítás mellett döntöttek. (Compared with his/her idea, they chose practical implementation.)

See also

Idea (loanword in Hungarian), ötlet, fogalom, ideológia.