Slovene Lessons - Ucne ure slovenscine

[Klaivas]

1.
izdajaleca, izdajleca, izdajlece
izdajalko, izdajalki, izdajalke
drevo, drevi, dreva
avto, avti, avta

2.
videm, vide?, vide
videva, videta, videta
videmo, videte, videjo

vedem, vede?, vede
vedeva, vedesta, vedesta
vedemo, vedeste, vededo

jesem, jese?, jese
jeseva, jesesta, jesesta
jesemo, jeseste, jestedo

3.
dam jo konju
ne videm hi?o

4.
cerkev, cerkevi, cerkev
cerkevi, cerkevma, cerkevi
cerkevi, cerkevim, cerkevi

[jaanos]

cerkev ["ts)erk@u_^]

I thought you'd forgotten the /e/ -> /i/ (/_r/) rule, but this one confused me. I know this sound change might have gone the other way round in your dialect, but the standard pronunciation is ["ts)irk@u_^].

So, this is the rule: /e/ changes to /i/ before /r/ in stressed syllables. Note that this rule doesn't apply to /E/.

So:
mera ["mira]
but
berem ["bErEm]

There are surely exceptions to this rule (mostly loanwords), but I can't think of any since my dialect merges /e/ and /E/ to [E] (and /o/, /O/ -> [O]). But this rule still holds.

(Actually, as I was writing this post I was sure that there were examples when this rule could be applied to unstressed /e/. But I couldn't think of any. [mi"ritVw] for meritev sounds weird.)

[Cathbad]

cerkev ["ts)erk@u_^]

I thought you'd forgotten the /e/ -> /i/ (/_r/) rule, but this one confused me. I know this sound change might have gone the other way round in your dialect, but the standard pronunciation is ["ts)irk@u_^].

So, this is the rule: /e/ changes to /i/ before /r/ in stressed syllables. Note that this rule doesn't apply to /E/.

So:
mera ["mira]
but
berem ["bErEm]

There are surely exceptions to this rule (mostly loanwords), but I can't think of any since my dialect merges /e/ and /E/ to [E] (and /o/, /O/ -> [O]). But this rule still holds.

(Actually, as I was writing this post I was sure that there were examples when this rule could be applied to unstressed /e/. But I couldn't think of any. [mi"ritVw] for meritev sounds weird.)

???

What's your source on this? Maybe it centralises phonetically, but it's certainly not [ i ]... I'd go for a [@\] at most, or maybe even [1], but even that'd be pretty dialectal, in my opinion... The SSKJ states it as [e], inevitably.

And why would loanwords be exceptions? (They usually aren't, at least not when pronunciation is standardised.)

In katero ([ka"terO], I'm sure) narečje govori??

Okay, -Klaivas-, here're the correct answers.

izdajalca, izdajalca, izdajalce (lc is allowed, and the schwa disappears when declining)
izdajalko, izdajalki, izdajalke - Perfectly correct.
drevo, drevesi, drevesa (I think I mentioned the -s extension)
avto, avta, avte (the masculinity does not affect declining!)

2.
vidim, vidi?, vidi
vidiva, vidita, vidita
vidimo, vidite, vidijo (I mentioned the e>i transformation...)

vem, ve?, ve
veva, vesta, vesta
vedemo, veste, vejo

jem, je?, je
jeva, jesta, jesta
jemo, jeste, jejo - There's no way you could've figured out these two from the infinitive, but I mentioned the first person singular forms. An analogy with dam was expected to be made.

3.
dam ji konja - I guess I wasn't clear - I give the horse to here would've been a better phrase
ne vidim hi?o - the videti declension irregularity, together with the object, which is in the genitive due to the negation. Remember this.

4.
cerkev, cerkvi, cerkev
cerkvi, cerkvama, cerkvi
cerkve, cerkvam, cerkve - This was actually more or less of a teaser. This exceptional noun is feminine, ends in a consonant, but is still declined by the first feminine declension. Ending in a schwa, it is dropped when declining.

Good job, anyways!

[mike c]

Here are my answers to the lesson 3 exercises....


1. Decline (from nominative to accusative, in all three numbers of course):

izdajalec izdajalca izdajalcu izdajalca
izdajalca izdajalcev izdajalcema izdajalca
izdajalci izdajalcev izdajalcem izdajalce

izdajalka izdajalke izdajalki izdajalko
izdajalki izdajalk izdajalkama izdajalki
izdajalke izdajalk izdajalkam izdjalke

drev? drev?sa drev?su drevo
drev?si drev?s drev?soma drev?si
drev?sa drev?s drev?som drev?sa

avto avta avtu avto
avta avtov avtoma avto
avti avtov avtom avte

2. Conjugate:

videti
vidim vidi? vidi
vidiva vidita vidita
vidimo vidite vidijo


vedeti
vem ve? ve
veva vesta vesta
vemo veste vejo/vedo


jesti
jem je? je
jeva jesta jesta
jemo jeste jejo/jedo

What about the stressed e's in the last 2 verbs, I think I get those wrong sometimes, see rest of post.

3. Translate:

I give her a horse. Dam ji konja / Njej dam konja (????)

I don't see the house. Hi?e ne vidim


(4.) Decline:

cerkev cerkve cerkvi cerkev
cerkvi cerkev cerkvama cerkvi
cerkve cerkev cerkvam cerkve




Cathbad, what about pronunciation of stressed e in the root of the present tense, I think it's right to say j?va and j?jo isn't it but j?mo, j?ste are wrong, should have ? instead???

[jaanos]

???

What's your source on this? Maybe it centralises phonetically, but it's certainly not [ i ]... I'd go for a [@\] at most, or maybe even [1], but even that'd be pretty dialectal, in my opinion... The SSKJ states it as [e], inevitably.

And why would loanwords be exceptions? (They usually aren't, at least not when pronunciation is standardised.)

In katero ([ka"terO], I'm sure) narečje govori??

Well, it probably isn't [ i ], but [i@] or something similar in my idiolect. But I was under an impression that [ i ] was standard, as this is how we learned in school.

If a word with /er/ were borrowed, I wouldn't change those /e/ to /i/. Same with /l/ in loanwords - they are still [l], even when they should be [u_^].

Govorim pa primorsko. ?tudiram sicer v Ljubljani, tako da sli?im različna narečja. Bom poslu?al pozorneje, kdo reče [e] in kdo [ i ].

[Cathbad]

???

What's your source on this? Maybe it centralises phonetically, but it's certainly not [ i ]... I'd go for a [@\] at most, or maybe even [1], but even that'd be pretty dialectal, in my opinion... The SSKJ states it as [e], inevitably.

And why would loanwords be exceptions? (They usually aren't, at least not when pronunciation is standardised.)

In katero ([ka"terO], I'm sure) narečje govori??

Well, it probably isn't [ i ], but [i@] or something similar in my idiolect. But I was under an impression that [ i ] was standard, as this is how we learned in school.

If a word with /er/ were borrowed, I wouldn't change those /e/ to /i/. Same with /l/ in loanwords - they are still [l], even when they should be [u_^].

Govorim pa primorsko. ?tudiram sicer v Ljubljani, tako da sli?im različna narečja. Bom poslu?al pozorneje, kdo reče [e] in kdo [ i ].

Sem si kar mislil V na?em razredu je ena primorka... hmmm...

Kakorkoli ?e - zaključil sem, da je za potrebe teh učnih ur najbolje, da ne kompliciram(o) preveč. Vsaj zdi se mi, da bi nekoga zelo te?ko razumeli - vsaj v Ljubljani - če bi rekel ["cirk@u_^]. Bom pa jutri vpra?al učiteljico sloven?čine, kak?en je glede tega splo?ni slovenistični konsenz - ker tudi sam nisem bil pozoren na razne km?te in m@glo, preden sem bil na to opozorjen.

(Sorry for the lack of translation, but I don't really feel like it.)

Mike C, everything is perfectly correct. For the pronunciation, you should stick to ? [e] in stressed syllables, unless where otherwise noted. In j?sti, it's always ?, actually.

[Cathbad]

LESSON 4

4.1. The weird noun declensions

The masculine and feminine genders each have their own standard endings. The nouns that end in them are declined by the first declensions, which have already been covered. However, nouns that don't end in the standard endings have their own declensions.

THE SECOND MASCULINE DECLENSION

You'll be pleased to see that the endings are identical to the ones in the first feminine declension. So we have, to decline the noun v?jvoda 'duke':

SG: v?jvoda - v?jvode - v?jvodi - v?jvodo
DL: v?jvodi - v?jvod - v?jvodama - v?jvodi
PL: v?jvode - v?jvod - v?jvodam - v?jvode

Note, however, that the noun is still masculine, which is important for adjective agreement, as the next chapter shows.

THE SECOND FEMININE DECLENSION

All feminine nouns which don't end in -a decline by this declension.* A nice example is stvar 'thing':

SG: stvar - stvar? - stv?ri - stvar
DL: stvar? - stvar? - stvar?ma - stvar?
PL: stvar? - stvar? - stvar?m - stvar?

Note the accent changes. This happens nearly always, except for some exceptions like mi? 'mouse', where it is retained.

*Well, not all. First of all, you have nouns (wild exceptions, believe me) such as cerkev and breskev 'peach', which are actually declined by the first feminine declension (they behave simply as if they had a zero ending in the nominative), and others which are declined by the third feminine declension. But this rule still holds.

4.2. Adjective Agreement

Finally, we must touch upon the subject of Slovene adjectives.

Every adjective has a lexical form, which is the masculine nominative singular; like n?v 'new', or l?p 'beautiful', or velik 'big'. This is seen as having a zero ending. To get nominative feminine and neuter forms, you just tack on the endings -a and -o, respectively:
n?v - nova - novo**/***
l?p - l?pa - l?po

You'll be pleased to hear that this rule holds regardless of the actual declension of each noun. Thus, we have lep vojvoda 'a beautiful duke',**** and nova stvar 'a new thing'.
A notable thing happens when the final vowel (but not the final sound) in an adjective is a schwa, as in hiter ["hit@r] 'fast' or počasen [pO"tS)as@n] 'slow'. You should be aware by now that the schwa has a tendency to disappear when endings are attached, so the following forms shouldn't surprise you.

počasen - počasna - počasno
hiter - hitra - hitro

Adjectives, of course, are also declined for case and number. There's quite a large number of endings involved (thank God we've only covered four cases out of six until now), so take time to learn them. It might be helpful that most are similar across genders, and some are even the same. Most can be memorised by analogy with noun declensions.

MASCULINE agreement

SG: velik - vel?kega - vel?kemu - vel?kega/velik (!)
DL: velika - velikih - vel?kima - velika
PL: veliki - velikih - velikim - velike

Note that the accusative singular has the same animate/inanimate distinction I've already drawn attention to at noun declensions.
Note also that the accent is, when declining, always on the final vowel of the stem. (So, disregard the ending when doing so.)

FEMININE agreement

SG: velika - velike - veliki - veliko
DL: veliki - velikih - vel?kima - veliki
PL: velike - velikih - velikim - velike

NEUTER agreement

SG: veliko - vel?kega - vel?kemu - veliko
DL: veliki - velikih - vel?kima - veliki
PL: velika - velikih - velikim - velika

**As in Novo mesto, literally 'new city', one of the largest towns in Slovenia. It has around 15 000 inhabitants, I'd say.
***One of the most frequent Slovene surnames is Nov?k, which one could freely translate as 'Newman'; but its actual etymological origin is quite interesting. According to Pavle Merk?'s 1300 primorskih priimkov (1300 surnames of Primorska), this name was given to those farmers who used to burn down forest to gain arable land (which was, of course, 'new' - the Slovene term for land gained in such a way is novina). Needless to say that there were a lot of them. On a related note, it's interesting that Janez Novak (Janez being, at least traditionally, the most common given name - the English cognate is John) has become an expression almost equal in idiomatic meaning to the English 'John Doe'.
****You might be asking yourself why 'a', and not 'the'. The fact is that Slovene adjectives can express definiteness, with the ending -i, but only in the nominative, and only when the noun with which they are agreeing is masculine. This will be covered in a bit more depth later, once we get to demonstrative pronouns.

4.3. The past participle; the past and the future tense

A very useful verbal form in Slovene is the past participle (named past participle, although it's also used for the future and the conditional mood), also called the l-participle (dele?nik na -l).***** It does conjugate a bit, only for gender (of the subject) and number. You'll be glad to hear that the forms of the participle are generally more regular than that of the present - even the verb to be has a regular participle form (considering it is formed from the infinitive).

The masculine singular participle is formed by adding the ending -l to the stem of the verb. Thus we have, from the verbs you know already:
gradil, videl, dal, izdal - and, as was promised, bil.
Some verbs have slightly irregular forms, like odprl, but these are exceptions.

So, how is the participle conjugated? The endings are here, in the masculine, feminine, and neuter genders, respectively:

SG: [zero], -a, -o
DL: -a, -i, -i
PL: -i, -e, -a

Thus, we have:

bil - bil? - bil?
bil? - bil? - bil?
bil? - bil? - bil?

Note the accent on the ending, which only appears in the participle forms of certain verbs. In most, it remains where it very nicely should, on the penultimate syllable.

So, how to form the past tense? It's shockingly simple - just put together a form of the 'to be' verb in the appropriate person and number (of the present tense), the participle in the appropriate number and gender, and - vo?la! This even holds for the verb 'to be' itself - bil sem means 'I(m) was', which is ultra cool. (A short note on word order: participles tend to be the last words in a sentence, with the personal verb form of any compound tense taking the V place.)

And what's more - the future is formed exactly the same, except that the present forms of the 'to be' verb are replaced with the future forms you already know, of course.

Simple, eh?

*****It's named past participle primarily to distinguish it from the two other participles, which are both sorts of a passive. (Strictly speaking, there are three forms of passive in Slovene, despite the fact that Slovene linguists tend to stress that our language does not like passives all that much. You'll see them all eventually.)

Vocabulary:

voda - water
ogenj [Og@nj] - fire
zrak - air
stvar - thing (feminine)
luč - light (feminine)
p?t - path, way (feminine)
?arnica - lightbulb
v?jvoda - duke (masculine)
filoz?f - philosopher
igra - game
d?m - home
čaj - tea. (Can be used countable, but most often isn't.)

zamenjati - to replace, to swap (transitive)
igrati - to play
svetiti - to glow

d? - to, until (governs the genitive)

Learn these adjective opposites:
n?v - star (new - old)
majhen - velik [majh@n - vElik] (small - big)
mrzel - vroč [mrz@u_^ - WrotS] (cold - hot)
hiter - počasen (fast - slow)
svetel - temen Note the kickass pronunciation: [sv@t@u_^ - t@m@n] (bright/light - dark)
l?p - grd (beautiful - cosmetically challenged)

Tasks:

1. Translate and decline:

• (an) old car
• (an) ugly woman
• (a) beautiful city
• (a) bright light

2. Translate:

• The [two] old philosophers were playing a game.
• I replaced the old lightbulb.
• I gave the old man hot tea.

3. Conjugate in the past:

• dati
• videti
• igrati

(4.) Decline:

• the small duke

(5.) Translate:

• It's a long way home.

[Klaivas]

1.
staro avto
grda ?ena
lepo mesto
svetela luč

2.
stara filozofa igrala igro
jaz zamenjal staro ?arnico
jaz oddal starecu vroč taj

3.
dal, dala, dalo
dala, dali, dali
dali, dale, dala

videl, videla, videlo
videla, videli, videli
videli, videle, videla

igral, igrala, igralo
igrala, igrali, igrali
igrali, igrale, igrala

4.
majhen vojvoda, majhenega vojvoda, majhenemu vojvodu, majhenega vojvoda
majhena vojvoda, majhenih vojvodov, majhenima vojvoda, majhena vojvoda
majheni vojvodi, majhenih vojvodov, majhenim vojvodom, majhene vojvode

5.
pota do doma je velika (veliko?)

[Cathbad]

1.
star avto (masculine, remember?)
grda ?ena
lepo mesto
svetla luč - the schwa is dropped

2.
stara filozofa sta igrala igro
zamenjal semstaro ?arnico
dal sem starcu vroč čaj - again, the schwa is dropped. Also, note that you've forgotten to include the 'to be' forms. I'll correct the text so that it's clearer.

3.
dal, dala, dalo
dala, dali, dali
dali, dale, dala

videl, videla, videlo
videla, videli, videli
videli, videle, videla

igral, igrala, igralo
igrala, igrali, igrali
igrali, igrale, igrala

4.
majhen vojvoda, majhnega vojvode, majhnemu vojvodu, majhnega vojvode
majhni vojvodi, majhnih vojvod... and so on. The second masculine declension is, again, essentially the same as the first feminine - except that it's masculine. Also, schwa dropping.

5.
pot do doma je velika... Blimey - I guess I forgot to post the adjective 'long'. Still, it's more or less correct regarding the information you had. I'll add the adjective pair as well.


I have to correct the two 'mistakes' I made in lesson Four, but not yet. Now, I have to go get at least some sleep.

[mike c]

My answers to lesson 4:-

Tasks:

1. Translate and decline:



(an) old car
star avto starega avta staremu avtu star avto
stara avta starih avtov starima avtoma stara avta
stari avti starih avtov starim avtom stari avti

(an) ugly woman
grda ?ena grde ?ene grdi ?eni grdo ?eno
grdi ?eni grdih ?en grdima ?enama grdi ?eni
grde ?ene grdih ?en grdim ?enam grde ?ene

(a) beautiful city
lepo mesto lepega mesta lepemu mestu lepo mesto
lepi mesti lepih mest lepima mestoma lepi mesti
lepa mesta lepih mest lepim mestom lepa mesta

(a) bright light
svetla luč svetle luč? svetli luči svetlo luč
svetli luč? svetlih luč? svetlima luč?ma svetli luč?
svetle luč? svetlih luč? svetlim luč?m svetle luč?



2. Translate:



The [two] old philosophers were playing a game.
Stara filoz?fa igrata igro

I replaced the old lightbulb.
Staro ?arnico sem nadom?stil, (nadomest?la if I were female I think??)

I gave the old man hot tea.
Dal sem staremu mo?u vroč čaj
Vroč čaj sem dal staremu mo?u
Staremu mo?u sem dal vroč čaj
Staremu mo?u sem vroč čaj dal (this doesn't seem right to me though, or is as ok as the others,
could be "I *gave* him hot tea" I suppose)



3. Conjugate in the past:



dati
dal/dala sem dal/dala si dal/dala/dalo je
dala/dali sva dala/dali sta dala/dali sta
dali/dale smo dali/dale ste dali/dale/dala so

videti
videl/videla sem videl/videla si videl/videla je
videla/videli sva videla/videli sta videla/videli sta
videli/videle smo videli/videle ste videli/videle so

igrati
igral/igrala sem igral/igrala si igral/igrala je
igrala/igrali sva igrala/igrali sta igrala/igrati sta
igrali/igrale smo igrali/igrale ste igrali/igrale so

stress on the 1st syllable for the first 2, 2nd syllable for igrati?



(4.) Decline:



the small duke
mali voivoda malega voivode malemu voivodi malega voivodo (? well, it's a masc. animate noun, despite declining like feminine)
mala voivodi malih voivod malima voivodama mala voivodi
mali voivode malih voivod malim voivodam male voivode


(5.) Translate:



It's a long way home.

Do d?ma je dolga pot,

?e d?leč je do d?ma

Kakorkoli ?e - zaključil sem, da je za potrebe teh učnih ur najbolje, da ne kompliciram(o) preveč. Vsaj zdi se mi, da bi nekoga zelo te?ko razumeli - vsaj v Ljubljani - če bi rekel ["cirk@u_^]. Bom pa jutri vpra?al učiteljico sloven?čine, kak?en je glede tega splo?ni slovenistični konsenz - ker tudi sam nisem bil pozoren na razne km?te in m@glo, preden sem bil na to opozorjen.

razne km?te in m@glo ...peasants and fog? I think I see more or less what you're getting at here.

A question, what is the recommended way to pronounce the Slovene stressed 'U', closer to English bOOt or more like sUIt, lEWd, or even bOOk? I've got sources that say French 'tu' or Eng. 'rule', they're not really the same sounds for me.


NB Sorry my intro got posted into the wrong area, didn't realise I was starting a seperate thread.

[Cathbad]

razne km?te in m@glo ...peasants and fog? I think I see more or less what you're getting at here.

The trick here actually is the pronunciation. Firstly, the Ljubljana dialect tends to 'lengthen' vowels (or so we were taught) - so [m@gla] becomes [mEgla]. Secondly, the vowel in the noun kmet [kmEt] is, in standard Slovene, 'narrowed' when declined (genitive ["kmeta]) - most dialects, however, by analogy, pronounce the vowel as in the nominative form ([kmEta]). These are the two probably greatest mistakes in vowel prounciation made by native Slovene speakers.

A question, what is the recommended way to pronounce the Slovene stressed 'U', closer to English bOOt or more like sUIt, lEWd, or even bOOk? I've got sources that say French 'tu' or Eng. 'rule', they're not really the same sounds for me.

It should be as 'clear' a as possible... so probably more like in 'boot', but shorter.

As for the exercises:


The declining is correct.

nadomestil sounds really weird without an instrumental adverb... a better choice of words would be zamenjal. Which is more like 'change', but with a 'replace' meaning. And so on...
For the old man (well, I actually meant people to use starec to practice schwa dropping, but anyways...), the third form is incorrect. Wildly.

For the verbal conjugations: the stress in videl is indeed non-standard for forms with more than one syllable.

The duke is vojvoda. Otherwise, correct, except for a typo in the dual. It should be mali vojvodi.

Well done, anyways.


Just to inform those Interested that this thread will lie dormant for about a week, until I return from my exchange in Germany. Till then, practice those declensions.

[Anotae]

I've also been lying dormant for a while, because life is keeping me busy, but I just wanted to let you know I'm still interested and will resume to active studying when I have the time, ie. in April

[Klaivas]

Cathbad: Enjoy Germany!
Anotae: Enjoy life!

For the moment, I'll just revise and learn the various declensions by heart (including locative, instrumental, etc)... then it'll just be verbs, syntax, vocab and learning to speak it verbally (not just writing )

[Anotae]

Anotae: Enjoy life!

I wish I could. It's too bad that what I originally wrote was quite an euphemism for having loads of schoolwork to do while trying to maintain some life beside the books. But I'll try to enjoy what I have.

For the moment, I'll just revise and learn the various declensions by heart (including locative, instrumental, etc)... then it'll just be verbs, syntax, vocab and learning to speak it verbally (not just writing )

Wow, you make it sound loke you're very close to fluency already

[Klaivas]

Fluency? No... fluency requires vocab (which I'm not very fast at learning)... but this is helping me:
http://www.freelang.net/dictionary/slovene.html

Edit:
I've been looking round some Slovene websites and I found a forum on one, in which I saw lots of people saying "tenkju" and "tenkju veri mač"... is this common?

[Xonen]

Phew? I finally managed to plough my way through the lessons. A couple of comments, if you don't mind. First of all, I think you might be putting a bit too much information per lesson. I know, this is a language geek forum, not grade school, but two cases, in three numbers and three genders, in one lesson? What's the rush? OTOH, if other people are happy with this pace, then whatever, I guess. It's just that I have quite a bit of other stuff I should do as well, so keeping up with this might be a bit difficult.

Another small thing:

jem, je?, je
jeva, jesta, jesta
jemo, jeste, jejo - There's no way you could've figured out these two from the infinitive, but I mentioned the first person singular forms. An analogy with dam was expected to be made.

You can't really expect people who know nothing except what you've specifically told them to make such analogies. If you say that this one form is irregular, and then don't mention anything at all about the other forms, people will assume that the rest of them are completely regular. And just adding a verb with a fully irregular paradigm on top of that, without any real explanation, doesn't necessarily help; it's quite logical to conclude that you've provided this one verb that's completely irregular, but the rest of them are only irregular in one form.

Okay, I'll quit whining about trivialities now. Mainly, great job!

[Cathbad]

Edit:
I've been looking round some Slovene websites and I found a forum on one, in which I saw lots of people saying "tenkju" and "tenkju veri mač"... is this common?

It's a slang rendering of

thank you (very much)

and quite common, also in spoken slang. Looks horrible when written, though, like all Slovene slang, except in special environments, like Slovene language fora.

Another loaned sweetie:

ful kul - very cool

As for the dictionary, it's quite basic, IMO at least...

You can't really expect people who know nothing except what you've specifically told them to make such analogies. If you say that this one form is irregular, and then don't mention anything at all about the other forms, people will assume that the rest of them are completely regular. And just adding a verb with a fully irregular paradigm on top of that, without any real explanation, doesn't necessarily help; it's quite logical to conclude that you've provided this one verb that's completely irregular, but the rest of them are only irregular in one form.

I expect the wording in

The verbs that decline the same are the verbs jesti 'to eat', vedeti 'to know', iti 'to go', and the future form of the verb 'to be'. The first person masculine singular forms of these verbs are quite irregular if we regard the infinitive: they are jem, vem, grem, bom. For the moment, you should rather memorise them than the infinitive forms (which, however, are also important to know with regard to participle formation).

was not clear enough for your taste...

Mainly, yes, I also think my pace is a bit too fast, but I think it's not quite smart to make a greater number of lessons just for the sake of introducing less information per one. I'll make the time periods between them greater from now on (minimally, a week), so that anybody trying to follow them won't be frustrated (too much). Anyways, I'd make a rough guess that 50% of what any foreign student of Slovene must learn is nominal morphology...

[Xonen]

I expect the wording in

The verbs that decline the same are the verbs jesti 'to eat', vedeti 'to know', iti 'to go', and the future form of the verb 'to be'. The first person masculine singular forms of these verbs are quite irregular if we regard the infinitive: they are jem, vem, grem, bom. For the moment, you should rather memorise them than the infinitive forms (which, however, are also important to know with regard to participle formation).

was not clear enough for your taste...

Actually, now that I reread it (especially the first bolded part), it does make more sense; what confused me was the specific reference to "masculine singular forms". (And why "masculine" singular, BTW? These forms don't have any gender distinction, or do they?)

Mainly, yes, I also think my pace is a bit too fast, but I think it's not quite smart to make a greater number of lessons just for the sake of introducing less information per one. I'll make the time periods between them greater from now on (minimally, a week), so that anybody trying to follow them won't be frustrated (too much). Anyways, I'd make a rough guess that 50% of what any foreign student of Slovene must learn is nominal morphology...

Well, this is a matter of taste. Personally, I prefer having less information per lesson, and the time between lessons shorter. That way, the information sort of automatically breaks up into manageable units. But I can understand it if you feel it's easier to write less lessons with more information per lesson, and, as long as you hold on to that week or so, it's not a problem. I'll just do the breaking up myself.

[Cathbad]

I expect the wording in

The verbs that decline the same are the verbs jesti 'to eat', vedeti 'to know', iti 'to go', and the future form of the verb 'to be'. The first person masculine singular forms of these verbs are quite irregular if we regard the infinitive: they are jem, vem, grem, bom. For the moment, you should rather memorise them than the infinitive forms (which, however, are also important to know with regard to participle formation).

was not clear enough for your taste...

Actually, now that I reread it (especially the first bolded part), it does make more sense; what confused me was the specific reference to "masculine singular forms". (And why "masculine" singular, BTW? These forms don't have any gender distinction, or do they?)

You are correct. They don't, and it was a mistake, which I will correct once I find some time to reword the last two lessons a bit.

Also, due to the tremendous amount of schoolwork, and some other, rather more personal matters, I probably won't have time for posting the next lesson until the next weekend. Stay tuned, please.

[Klaivas]

This thread seems to be 'sleeping' as it were, but I've come to wake it up

[Cathbad]

Thank you, -Klaivas-. Be reminded that I haven't forgotten about my duties.

However, the last few weeks were pretty hectic for me, so. I'll have to take myself a little bit of time this weekend and take a look at what I've written already and compose another lesson.

However, this week, there are Germans around, so I' won't have much time anyways [exchange matters].

Cheers.

[Klaivas]

Good to hear. Don't feel pressured into doing them when you can't, though - I just didn't want this thread to die.

[Cathbad]

Keeping my promises...

LESSON 5

5.1. The Locative Case

The fifth case in Slovene nominal morphology is the locative case. It is used after prepositions that govern the locative case, and essentially nowhere else.
The forms are given in the singular/dual/plural, respectively.

First Masculine: koraku – korakih – korakih
First Feminine: lipi – lipah – lipah
Neuter: mestu – mestih – mestih
Second Masculine: vojvodi – vojvodah – vojvodah
Second Feminine: miši – miših – miših

Nothing complicated there. The forms of the adjectives are as follows:

Masculine: velikem – velikih – velikih
Feminine: veliki – velikih – velikih
Neuter: velikem – velikih – velikih

The forms of the personal pronouns will be covered in the next lesson, together with a full review of the nominal morphology.

5.2. Cardinal numerals 1-20

Now, it's finally time to introduce the cardinal numerals of Slovene to you. There are some weird quirks related to them; this is the main fact I've put them off for so long.

The numerals from one to twenty are usually listed as follows:
1 – êna
2 – dve
3 – tri
4 – štiri
5 – pet
6 – šest
7 – sedem ["sed@m]
8 – osem ["os@m]
9 – devét
10 – desét
11 – enájst
12 – dvanajst*
13 – trinajst
14 – štirinajst
15 – petnajst
16 – šestnajst
17 – sédemnajst
18 – ósemnajst
19 – devetnajst
20 – dvajset

There are three things one must note about the usage of cardinal numerals in Slovene:

1. The numerals ena and dve are declined as normal adjectives – ena as an adjective in the singular, dve as an adjective in the dual. This, of course, also means gender agreement distinctions: en trg 'one market', ena cerkev 'one church', eno mesto 'one town'. The forms listed above are thus feminine.

2. All numerals from tri onwards are declined as well, but without gender distinctions. They are usually formed by adding the standard plural adjective endings, extended with i, with tri displaying some irregularities:
NOM: tri, štiri, pet
GEN: treh, štirih, petih
DAT: trem, štirim, petim
ACC: tri, štiri, pet
LOC: treh, štirih, petih
Note that, as you should be able to predict by now, the schwa is dropped when tacking the endings onto sedem and osem: sedmim trgom, osmim cerkvam.

3. When occuring after a plural numeral other than tri or štiri, a noun is used in its genitive form when it should be in the nominative or accusative; thus pet jabolk 'five apples', not *pet jabolka, and vidim pet jabolk 'I see five apples', not *vidim pet jabolka.

* In colloquial usage, you will often hear all numerals from 11 to 19 accentuated on the -najst affix. In the standardised forms, however, this is only true for enajst.

5.3. Some Preliminary Notes on Aspect

Slovene is a Slavic language, so it's no wonder its verbs display a grammatical category called aspect.
There are two possible aspects; perfective and imperfective. Any verb can have either perfective or imperfective aspect, but only one of them. As soon as the aspect changes, by adding a prefix for example, it is – lexically – a different verb. This is often difficult to grasp for speakers of English. If we consider the following pair of Slovene verbs:

plačati – plačevati

The first verb is translated to English as 'I pay', and the second as 'I am paying'. In English, it is the same verb in two different 'tenses' – in Slovene, they are two different verbs, with different present tense roots:

plačati: plačam, plačaš, plača
plačevati: plačujem, plačuješ, plačuje

This is perhaps one of the most difficult features of the Slovene verbal system a foreign learner of the language should grasp.

5.4. A general overview of verb tenses and their usage

You have learned the morphological aspects of the three verb tenses of Slovene; now, I will provide a general overview of their usage as well, with connection to aspects (as a grammatical category, of course).

The Present Tense

The present is used to express actions that are happening at the moment, habitual actions (almost exclusively with verbs with the imperfective aspect), recurring actions (verbs in these can have the perfective or imperfective aspect, although if perfective ones are used, they tend to have disambiguative adverbs next to them), or actions that will happen at a certain point of time in the future. (For habitual future actions and predictions, the proper future tense must be used.)

The present is formed by conjugating the verb in the present tense, which isn't all that surprising.

The Past Tense

The past tense is used to express anything that has happened in the past. Distinctions between perfective and imperfective verbs are as in the present tense.

A verb in the past tense always has two components:
- the auxilliary verb. This is, without exception, the verb 'to be' in the present conjugation, conjugated normally.
- the past participle. This is the past participle of the verb one wants to express in the past. It agrees with the subject of the verb in gender. The past tense of the verb 'to be' is also expressed in this way.

The Future Tense

The future tense is used to express anything that will or shall happen in the future. For habitual future actions and predictions, the future tense proper is the only possibility – you can't get away with the present, no matter how much 'context' you tack onto it.

A verb in the future tense always has two components:
- the auxilliary verb. This is, without exception, the verb 'to be' in the future conjugation.
- the past participle. Essentially the same as with the past tense.

A note on the future tense: here, the verb 'to be' is used without the participle to express future existence – although you will sometimes hear forms such as *bom bil in colloquial usage. They are analogous with the past forms of the verb 'to be' – and also grammatically incorrect.

Vocabulary:

ôkno – window
vrata – door. Note that this noun is in the neuter plural, and always used in this way.
svinčnik – pencil. No epenthetic schwas in there, I’m afraid.
jabolko – apple
pošta – post office
restavrácija – restaurant
trg – market, square, place. For ‘market’, you’ll often also see tržnica, accentuated on the first syllable.
trgovina – shop, store

kupiti – to buy
prodati – to sell
prodajati – to ‘be selling’

prazen – empty

Learn these weather terms:
sonce – sun
dež [d@S] – rain. The declension of this noun is a bit irregular; the root is extended with -j- when an ending is added, which leads to any o that appears in the endings to be transformed into e. (This is a general phonological rule, which will be explained at a later point.)
sneg – snow
veter [vet@r] – wind
toča – hail
nevihta – storm

Learn these locative prepositions:
v – in(side). This preposition is always phonetically attached to the noun or adjective following it. It should never be pronounced [v@] (although it often is by people trying to sound educated).
pri – at, near
pod – under
na – on
za – behind
pred – in front of
med – between

zdaj – now
danes – today
jutri – tomorrow
včeraj – yesterday
pojútrišnjem – the day after tomorrow
predvčérajšnjim – the day before yesterday

A short note on the adverbs: they tend to occur at the beginning on a sentence, rather than at the end.

Tasks:

1. Translate:

• There was a dog in the house.
• It is raining (‘there is rain’) today.
• It is sunny (‘there is sun’) now.
• She bought eleven pencils at the store (literally 'in the store') the day before yesterday.
• The restaurant on the big square is empty.

2. Decline, in the five cases you are currently familiar with:

• three windows
• seventeen doors

[Klaivas]

I'm going to try this, but first I need to know how to say 'there is' - I don't know Have I missed something?

[Cathbad]

For 'there is', just use je.

V avtu je mačka. There is a cat in the car.

Et cetera.