Slovak A 0

In case you are wondering, the title reflects the language level that I am presently taking here in Slovakia. It certainly has been an interesting 2 weeks as I have attempted to learn this language.

Friday began with yet another morning of intense Slovak. The pace is extremely fast and words and verbs and phrases are being thrown at us left and right. I spent most of the 3 hour travel time on the bus Thursday, reviewing flash cards that I had made up that list the Slovak word on the one side and the English on the other. You know how that goes....one never remembers the word that the teacher asks you about. Or at least that seems to be my fate.

In addition to memorizing the words, we have to keep in mind that there are three genders: male, feminine and neuter, each having a different ending when used in a sentence. Also, each verb has a different ending depending on the 1^st, 2^nd, and 3^rd singular and plural. So, there are 6 different forms of the same verb in the same tense.

The possessive pronouns are also dependent upon gender. For instance, if I want to say “My son”. I say “Moj syn” ; My mother: Moja mama; My child = Moje diet'ca.. Feminine words generally end in a, but child is an exception and is a neuter word.

Your (singular) son: 'Tvoj syn'; Your mother: 'T'voja mama'; Your child: ' Tvoje diet'ca'.

“His” is “jeho” for all genders and “ her's” is “jej”.

The word changes for “Our” and “Your” (pl), similarly to the singular.

The verb ending change depending on the ending of the infinitive. If the verb ends in “at”, then one changes the ending to “am”. So, to play “hrat'” becomes (without the diacritical marks): hram (I play), hras (you play), hra (they play); hrame (we play), hrate (you, pl, play) and hraju (they, pl, play).

Cestovat' means to travel. It becomes cestujem, cestujes, cestuje; cestujeme, cestujete, cestuju.

I have to remember that “c” is pronounced “ts” c with a diacritic is “ch”. “j” is pronounced as “ya”.

So “I travel” would sound like “Tsest oo yem.”

So, just a simple sentence like 'My son travels' would be “ Moj syn cestuje”.

My daughter travels would be: Moja dcera cestuje.

I travel would be “cestujem”. My son and My daughter travel: Moj syn a moja dcera cestuju.

My intent here was not to give you a Slovak lesson, but to show you that in order to form a simple sentence, there are many variables to take into account. So, you not only have to know the vocabulary, you need to know the gender, think about which possessive pronoun to use, and what verb ending to use where.

So, I'll admit that my brain takes a few minutes to process all of this. When the teacher asks me a question, I don't always answer right away, because my brain is attempting to figure out the word, but she is ready to move on, and in the process of rushing me, I get flustered.

Yesterday, she wrote a sentence on the board and used the word “zo” instead of “z”. “Z” means 'from' in Slovak. She wrote the Slovak equivalent of 'someone from Sweden' first writing “z Svednsky” then she changed the z to “zo”.

Well, I asked “Preco zo?” (Why “zo”,......I keep my questions simple.) She told me, in English, that I knew the answer. (do you really think that I would have asked had I already known?.) Then, she asks Amy if she knew the answer, and Amy nodded. (Amy took a Slovak class before) Then she asked Albert (again, who knew more Slovak walking in than I will probably know walking out), and he said yes.

At this point, in my younger days, I would have been rather embarrassed. But, I just looked at her and said “Well, apparently I'm the only one here who doesn't know” which probably isn't the case because no one was offering to tell me why.

Simple answer. It is too difficult to say “z Svedsky”, so the say “zo Svedsky”. But they can say zmrlzlina without any problem. Go figure.

In any event, it has become obvious to me that this course is merely a stepping stone to speaking Slovak. I am getting the basics explained to me, with many exceptions to all of the rules. I can read it fairly well, if I know the vocabulary. And I can write it somewhat. But I am terrible at speaking the language, because I have to figure out which word to use. My understanding is better, but I must say “pomaly” which means slowly, in order to comprehend what is being said because Slovaks say “Co je to?” Which means 'what is that'? Pronounced (Cho yae toe) which, when said quickly, sounds like Choe yatoe, which really could be an entirely different word for all I know.

So one good thing that might come out of this is that I might just be talking slower, which will make Marty happier since he says that I talk to fast for him to understand me.

We have one more week of classes, but with that great winery down the street, I'm not sure how much time I'll be putting into studying.......Just kidding!