Slovak language

Slovak is the official language spoken in Slovakia, a country in Central Europe. It is a language from Slavic language family. It is very similar to Czech, and Czechs and Slovaks understand each other quite well when they speak their own language. Polish and Sorbian are also quite similar. All of them belong to the western branch of Slavic languages. Slovak is spoken by more than 5 million people.

 Pronunciation 
Slovak is written using the Latin alphabet, but some letters have special signs (called diacritics).

The letters č, š, ž and dž are like the English sounds in chin, shin, vision and juice.

The letters ď, ľ, ň, and ť are called “soft consonants” and are pronounced with the blade of the tongue at the roof of the mouth.

The letters c, dz and j are also soft, like ts in bats, ds in rods, and y in yes.

Signs over a vowel show that the vowel is pronounced long: á, é, í, ó, ý ú. A long vowel is never followed in the next syllable by a short vowel.

The letter ô is like English woman, and ä is the same as the letter e.

The letter ch is like ch in Scottish loch. V is more like English w.

The letters b, d, ď, dz, dž, g, h, z, ž are voiceless when they are at the end of a word (for example, 'd' will sound like 't').

The accent is generally on the first syllable of the word. That is different from Russian, for example, in which the stress can be anywhere.

Like other Slavic languages, Slovak is difficult for English-speakers to pronounce., especially because several consonants often come together. In the sentence: “Strč prst skrz krk!” there is not one single vowel (it means: “Stick a finger through your neck!”)!

 Grammar 
The grammar is similar to Russian as it belongs to Slavic languages, but there are some differences, the main difference is the Slovak language uses Latin alphabet, unlike Russian which uses Cyrillic alphabet, Slovak language has a separate word for “to be”:
 Ja som Angličan (I am English).

Unlike English, Slovak does not have articles (such as “the” and “a”).

There are three genders in Slovak, therefore it is important to know whether a noun is masculine, feminine or neuter. There is no article to make it obvious (unlike in German), but it changes the adjective's ending.

Like many other European languages, Slovak verbs agree with the person, and there are different forms for 'I', 'you', 'he', etc. Verbs have different aspects to show whether or not the action is complete. There are also different cases that show how a word is used in a sentence. Different prepositions use different cases. All of that makes grammar quite complicated for English-speakers.

 Sample words and phrases 
The numbers from 1 to 10 are .

Use the familiar form when talking to a child, and the polite form when talking to an adult.
 –Hello
 –Good morning
 –Good day (Used during the day)
 –Good evening
 –Good night
 –Welcome! (familiar form)
 –Welcome! (polite form)
  - My name is John (Literally: I call myself John)
 –What is your name? (Familiar form)
 –What is your name? (Polite form)
 –I am American (If speaker is male)
 –I am American (If speaker is female)
 –How are you? (familiar form)
 –How are you (polite form)
 –Thank you, I am well
 –Not too bad
 –Bad!
 –Please
 –Thank you
 – You are welcome (this is a reply to “Ďakujem”)
  - Enjoy your meal

References

 Other websites 

 slovake.eu – website for learning Slovak language (in many languages)

Category:West Slavic languages
Category:Slovak culture