maga alatt vágja a fát

Hungarian edit

Etymology edit

maga (“oneself”) +‎ alatt (“under”) +‎ vág (“to cut”) +‎ -ja (personal suffix) +‎ a (“the”) +‎ fa (“tree”) +‎ -t (accusative suffix), literally “to cut the tree under oneself”

Pronunciation edit

IPA^(key): [ˈmɒɡɒɒlɒtː ˈvaːɡjɒ ɒ ˈfaːt]

Verb edit

maga alatt vágja a fát

(idiomatic) to saw off the branch one is sitting on, to shoot oneself in the foot (to act against one's own interests, to act self-destructively)

Conjugation edit

For the verb, see the definite conjugation of vág.
The inflected noun fát remains unchanged.
The postpositional phrase maga alatt takes the appropriate personal suffix according to the subject of the sentence: magam alatt, magad alatt, maga alatt, magunk alatt, magatok alatt, maguk alatt.