Animals, Is, Has

Animals

Cow is Krava. (Kra-va) – Imagine a COW wearing a CRA-VAt.
Dog is Pes. (Pes) – Imagine being told “Don't PESter the DOG.”
Tiger is Tiger. (Ti-ger) – Image pulling a trigger on a Slovak TIGER.
Elephant is Slon. (Slon) – Imagine taking your pet ELEPHANT to a S'LON for a pedicure.
Goose is Hus. (Hoos) – Imagine your GOOSE is guarding a prisoner in the HOOSEgaw.
Mouse is Myŝ. (Mish) – Imagine that you MISH your MOUSE when you're on vacation.

How do you say the following in English?
Kava
Pes
Tiger
Slon
Hus
Myŝ

How do you say the following in Slovak?
Cow
Dog
Tiger
Elephant
Goose
Mouse

Some Verbs in 3rd person singular
“It is” is “Je” (Ye)
“He/She/It has” is “Má” (Maa)

Grammar note: Slovak doesn't have the articles “a” or “the”.

Simple sentences
“It is a cow.” or “It is the cow.” you say “Je krava.”
“He has a dog.” is “Má pes.”

How would you say the following in Slovak?
1. It is an elephant.
2. He has a goose.

Approximate Pronunciation of short vowels in Slovak
a sounds like u in puck
e sounds like e in peck
I and y sound like I in pick
o sounds like o in pock
u sounds like oo in pook

Some short words
“To” means “that, this or it”.
“Tu” means “here”.

Examples:
“To je kava.” is “This is a cow.”
“Tu je slon.” is “Here is a elephant.”

How would you say in Slovak?
3. This is a dog.
4. Here is a tiger.

Answers:
1. Je slon.
2. Má hus.
3. To je pes.
4. Tu je tiger.

Review:

How do you say the following in English?
Krava
Pes
Tiger
Slon
Hus
Myŝ
Je
Má
Je slon.
Má hus.
To
Tu
To je pes.
Tu je tiger.

How do you say the following in Slovak?
Cow
Dog
Tiger
Elephant
Goose
Mouse
It is
He/She/It is
It is an elephant.
He has a goose.
that, this, it
here
This is a dog.
Here is a tiger.

The same words in Polish
krowa
pies
tygrys
sloń
gęś
mysz
Jest
Ma
Jest sloń.
Ma gęś
To
Tu
To jest pies.
Tu jest tygrys.

Until next time, Do videnia.

© y1htak 2008

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Greetings, Polite Expressions and useful phrases

I was talking to my sister-in-law (ŝvagriná) and she said she'd really like to know how to greet people in Slovak. So this page is for her.

I've put in approximate pronunciation guides in parenthesis after the word. I also put in for myself a sentence to imagine in my head to help me remember the word. (I don't usually remember the sentence but for some reason it helps me remember the word) If you can think of any sentence that works for you, let me know and I'll be glad to put them in. Also any mistakes, let me know.

Greetings

• Hello, Good Day is Dobrý deń (Du-bree denyuh) Image that you DUB REE a DEN You'll love.
• Good Night is Dobrú noc (Du-broo nots) Image brewing beer and that DUH BREW NOT'S done yet.

1. OK, so what do you think Dobre (Du breh) means?
2. Zle (Zleh) is the opposite of Dobre, So what does Zle mean?

• See you later, Good bye is Do videnia (Du vee deh nya)

Polite expressions

• When you bump into someone you say Prepáćte (Preh paach teh) which means Excuse me. Excuse me, are you telling me that you PRE-PATCH TEa bags before using them?
  
• When making a request use Prosím (Pro seem) which means Please, one of the magic words your Mom made you use. The golf PRO SEEMS upset that his friend didn't say please before asking to borrow his expensive clubs.
• When someone does something nice for you, say Ďakujem (Dya koo yem) which means Thank you. Your loved ones gives you a real cool gem and you thank them over and over while saying YAAH, thats a COOL GEM.

Other useful words

Your mom has been feeling poorly so you ask her “Ako sa máte?” (Ah ko sa maa teh) and she answers, “Zle.”

3. What do you think “Ako sa máte?” means?

Sometimes you think that a two year olds' favorite word is Nie (Nye) which means No.

4. The opposite of Nie is Áno. What do you think Áno means?


Answers:
1. Dobre means Good, Fine.
2. Zle means Bad.
3. “Ako sa máte?” means “How are you?”
4. Áno means Yes.

A quick quiz to see what you remember

How do you say the following in English?

1. Dobrý deń
2. Dobrú noc
3. Dobre
4. Zle
5. Do videnia
6. Prepáćte
7. Prosím
8. Ďakujem
9. Ako sa máte?
10. Nie
11. Áno

How do you say the following in Slovak?

1. Good day, hello
2. Good night
3. Good
4. Bad
5. See you later, good-bye
6. excuse me
7. please
8. thank you
9. How are you?
10. No
11. Yes

Here's the same words in Polish. (Somewhat similar.)

1. Dzień dobry
2. Dobranoc
3. Dobry
4. Zły
5. Do widzenia
6. Przepraszam
7. Proszę
8. Dziękuję
9. Jak się masz?
10. Nie
11. Tak

Until next time, Do videnia.

© y1htak 2008

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Simply Slovak Introduction and Bibliography

I was browsing in Half Price books when I found “Beginner's Slovak” by Elena Letnanova. Immediately I thought it would great fun to learn a little Slovak since it has similarities to Polish. (Probably about the same as Spanish to French to Italian). Plus I thought my husband's family would enjoy it.

Currently I own the following books:

• Hippocrene Beginner's Series, Beginner's Slovak by Elena Letnanova, ISBN: 0-7818-08154
• Slovak-English/ English-Slovak Dictionary by Hippocrene Books by Nina Trnka, ISBN: 0-87052-115-2
• Colloquial Slovak by James Naughton ISBN: 0-415-11540-X

Then I checked out the following books from the library:

• Beginning Slovak by Oscar E. Swan and Sylvia Gálová-Lorinc, ISBN: 0-89357-214-4
• Slovak Phrase Book by Sylvia Gálová-Lorinc and Stephen R Hoferka, Jr., no ISBN ©1991 Lorhof
• Slovak Language Laboratory Course by Rev. Bonaventure S. Buc, O.F.M., Ph.D., no ISBN, Jednota Printery 1968
• Slovak Beginner by Štefan Blaško 1964 printed by author
• Slovak for you by Ada Böhmerová, ISBN: 0-86516-331-6

I also found the following sites on the internet

• http://www.slovak.com/language/
• http://www.heartofeurope.co.uk/dictionary.htm
• http://www.omniglot.com/writing/slovak.htm
• http://www.slovensko.com/about/is-slovak-difficult
• http://www.lonweb.org/link-slovak.htm
• http://www.answers.com/topic/slovak-language
• http://travel.spectator.sk/ss2006/01_lenguage.html
• http://www.slovakiatravels.com/slovaklanguage/learnSlovak-en.php
• http://www.infomobil.org/slovakia/country-profile/i/3397/7458/language
• http://www.mylanguageexchange.com/Search.asp?selCountry=103&selX13=true

Slovak like Polish is pretty much pronounced the way it it spelled although typing is slow going due to having to insert special characters. Also some of the words are the same and the grammar appears similar so far. (I haven't figured out how to add a foreign keyboard to the open office text document program like I used to be able to with Microsoft. Also I had to save the Open Office Document as a Microsoft .doc document to be able to copy & paste it into this blog.)

The whole objective of this blog is to help learn a lot of words quickly, along with a little pronunciation and grammar. So tomorrow we'll start with some words and I hope everyone has fun! If you notice any errors, feel free let me know so I can correct them.

© y1htak 2008

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