Hyphenation
Hyphenation at the end of a line depends on whether there is an easily recognizable word boundary there. If the word is not a compound (or it is, but the boundary is not nearby) the word is hyphenated by syllables, otherwise by word elements (e.g. vas-út ‘railway’, lit. ‘iron-road,’ instead of *va-sút).
The number of syllables is defined by the number of vowels (i.e., every syllable must contain one and only one vowel) and the main rule can be summarized as follows: a syllable can begin with at most one consonant (except for the first syllable of a word, which may contain up to three initial consonants). It means that a syllable can only begin without a consonant if there is no consonant after the preceding vowel (e.g. di-ó-nyi ‘nut-sized’), and if there are multiple consonants between vowels, only one can go to the next syllable (e.g. lajst-rom ‘list’).
Hyphenation normally follows pronunciation, rather than the written form. If a word contains several vowel letters but they are pronounced as a single sound, it cannot be hyphenated (e.g. Soós ‘a surname’, blues ‘blues’). Pronunciation is respected in the case of ch, which is pronounced as a single sound so both its letters are kept together (e.g. pszi-chológia, züri-chi ‘from Zürich’). Hungarian surnames are also hyphenated by pronunciation, e.g. Beöthy > Beö-thy, Baloghék ‘the Balogh family’ > Ba-lo-ghék, móri-czos ‘typical of Móricz’ . The same principle applies to foreign common names and proper names, e.g. Ljub-lja-na, Gior-gio, Fi-scher for consonants (because lj, gi, and sch denote single sounds) and Baude-laire, Coo-per for vowels. Even acronyms can be hyphenated if they contain at least two vowels (e.g. NA-TO) or at the boundary of the acronym and the suffix, where a hyphen already exists (e.g. NATO-ért ‘for the NATO’).
On the other hand, x denotes two sounds, but it is not separated at the boundary of two syllables (e.g. ta-xi rather than *tak-szi, based on phonetics). Long double consonants are separated and their original forms are restored if they are at the boundary of two syllables (e.g. meggyes ‘cherry-flavoured’ > megy-gyes). Although not incorrect, it is not recommended to leave a single vowel at the end or the beginning of a line (e.g. Á-ron, Le-a). Double vowels can be separated (e.g. váku-um ‘vacuum’), and long consonants can also be separated (e.g. ton-na ‘ton’). Inflectional suffixes are not considered elements on their own (e.g. although the stem of pénzért ‘for money’ is pénz, its hyphenation is pén-zért rather than *pénz-ért).
Apart from the hyphenation based on pronunciation, foreign compounds may be hyphenated at their boundary, if the prefix or suffix is widely recognized, e.g. fotog-ráfia (by syllables) or foto-gráfia (by elements). The elements are also taken into consideration in compound names (e.g. Pálffy, hyphenated as Pál-ffy, rather than *Pálf-fy). Sometimes different ways of hyphenation reflect different words (e.g. me-gint ‘again,’ a single word hyphenated by syllables, cf. meg-int ‘admonish,’ a compound with a verbal prefix, hyphenated by elements). Hyphens are not to be repeated at the beginning of the next line, except in specialized textbooks, as a way of warning for the correct form.
Read more about this topic: Hungarian Orthography