Learning Slovak language as a Slovenian

The challenges of learning your neighbour’s tongue

Marjan Krebelj
EVROPA

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Two years ago, I decided to learn the Slovak language. As a native Slovenian, I thought this would be easy. After all, we are so close, and the languages are similar enough to be mutually understandable at about 20% without even trying. Little did I know, the challenge proved to be much tougher than I expected.

Slovenia and Slovakia are often confused, even in Europe, let alone outside of it. Slovenia is nestled between the Alps and the Adriatic Sea (I often introduce it by saying that if you travel between Venice and Vienna, you’d pass right through it), while Slovakia is landlocked in Central Europe.

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We share quite a lot of cultural and linguistic traits, both having our origins within the Slavic tribes. However, modern Slovenian is part of the Southern Slavic branch, while Slovak belongs to the Western Slavic family of languages, alongside Czech and Polish, for example.

If you take Slovenia as a starting point and travel north, the difficulty of understanding languages increases with distance. First, you encounter Slovakia, and their language is somewhat intelligible — you can guess the gist of what they’re saying but can’t respond much.

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