Welcome to the first chapter of our journey into learning Slovenian (Slovene)! This chapter serves as an essential overview, providing you with foundational knowledge about the Slovene alphabet, pronunciation, grammatical concepts, and the language's unique characteristics. We will cover several key topics, including the alphabet and pronunciation in detail, while introducing concepts like grammatical cases, gender, and number. Rest assured, these topics will be explored in greater depth in the subsequent chapters, allowing for a thorough understanding as you progress.
The Slovene alphabet consists of 25 letters, closely following the Latin script. However, it includes several letters and sounds that are unique to Slovene, as well as differences in pronunciation compared to English. The good news is that Slovene is nearly 100% phonetic. You won't strugle with phonetics as learners of French or English might.
The Slovene language has five vowels: A, E, I, O, and U. Each vowel has a consistent pronunciation, making them relatively straightforward to learn. They are also not dipthongal. A letter being dipthongal means its pitch or tone rises or falls. When english speak say the letter 'A', they say it dipthongally. One tell is that your jaw moves when pronouncing the letter.
A: Pronounced like the "a" in "father".
E: Similar to the "e" in "met". There are different ways to pronounce the E which we will discuss later.
I: Pronounced like the "ee" in "see".
O: Similar to the "o" in "broke".
U: Pronounced like the "oo" in "food".
In some cases, different pronunciation of the vowels can affect meaning. This will be discussed later.
The Slovene alphabet contains several letters that are not found in the standard English alphabet.
Č: Pronounced like "ch" in "chocolate".
Š: Pronounced like "sh" in "shoe".
Ž: Pronounced like the "s" in "measure".
J: Pronounced like the English "y" in "yes", In Slovene, it serves as a consonant.
While many letters in the Slovene alphabet are similar to their English counterparts, some have different pronunciations or usages.
C: In Slovene, "C" is pronounced like "ts" in "cats".
G: The letter "G" is always hard in Slovene, pronounced like the "g" in "go," unlike in English, where it can be soft (as in "giant") or hard (as in "go").
H: The letter "H" is pronounced more strongly in Slovene than in English. To pronounce the H correctly, use it as you would in English but constrict airflow with your tongue till air almost hisses out.
R: The letter "R" is sharper in Slovene but not rolled or trilled, as in Spanish. Rather, it is a dental R. Practice by saying 'broke" as if you're syaing 'bdoke'. Spead it up and you'll begin to hear it.
In Slovene, like other slavic languages, nouns, pronouns, and adjectives change their suffixes/endings based on six grammatical cases.
Nominative: Subject of the sentence. EX. I love my dog. 'I' is the direct object
Genitive: Indicates possession, among other things. Will explain later.
Dative: Used for the indirect object, mostly. I gave my dog to my BROTHER. 'Brother' is the indirect object.
Accusative: Direct object of the sentence. EX. I love my DOG. 'Dog' is the direct object.
Locative: Used to indicate location. I am in a HOUSE. The ending of 'house' would change because it is a location.
Instrumental: Indicates the means by which an action is performed, among other things. I run with my DOG. The ending of 'dog' would change, the clue is 'with'.
Understanding these cases is essential as they help convey meaning and relationships between words in a sentence. While we will delve deeper into each case in future chapters, grasping this foundational concept is critical for your language journey.
Slovene nouns are categorized into four genders: masculine, feminine, second (or funny) feminine, and neuter. Gender affects the forms of nouns and their corresponding adjectives and pronouns.
Masculine: stol (chair). Masculine nouns end with consonants.
Feminine: miza (table). Feminine nouns ends with 'a'.
Second Feminine: kost (bone). Feminine nouns that look like masculine nouns but behave as if it was feminine.
Neuter: okno (window). Neuter nouns end in 'o' or 'e'.
In Slovene, nouns have three grammatical numbers: singular, dual, and plural.
Singular refers to one item (EX., knjiga - book).
Dual refers to exactly two items (EX., knjigi - two books).
Plural refers to three or more items (EX., knjige - books).
The inclusion of dual forms is a unique feature in Slovene, allowing for more nuanced expression. Not only do nouns have a count of 2, you can also conjugate in the dual. This allows for expresions like this: "Greva videt filma nocoj" - "We (two) are going to see 2 movies tonight"