Slovenian, or the Slovene language, is part of the group of South Slavic languages. So, if you want to learn Slovenian and already speak a Slavic language, you will most likely find the language easier to acquire than someone how has no experience with the language family. Another player is previous experience learning languages. Generally, polygots have developed a process for picking up a new language, consciously or unconsciously which makes adding further languages to their tally easier.
In short, on a subjective scale of language learning difficult, I rank Slovenian as pretty difficult, 7 out of 10 on my imaginary scale.
Reasons it can be challenging to learn Slovenian
The Slovene language has some features uncommon to most other languages. These are cases and the grammatical number dual.
Cracking the ‘Cases’
In Slovenian there are six cases. This means noun endings change, usually depending on the preceding preposition. Russian is an example of another language which features cases.
Here is an example of all six cases, and the three grammatical numbers, for the word ‘frog’.
| Case | Singular | Dual | Plural |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1st | žaba | žabi | žabe |
| 2nd | žabe | žab | žab |
| 3rd | žabi | žabama | žabam |
| 4th | žabo | žabi | žabe |
| 5th | pri žabi | pri žabah | pri žabah |
| 6th | z žabo | z žabama | z žabami |
That is 18 variations for 1 noun, which, especially for an English speaker completely unfamiliar which the concept of cases, is intimidating.
Image Credit: Bill Collins
Singular, Plural, Dual
In addition to singular and plural, Slovenian uses the grammatical number dual. This can be explained as follows.
| Grammatical Number | Use |
|---|---|
| Singular | Used for one person |
| Dual | Used for two people; both male, both female, or male and female |
| Plural | Used for more than two people |
I would be interested in hearing thoughts from native speakers and anyone trying to learn Slovenian, or who has already learnt the language. What was your experience like, what approach did you take, and how difficult a language do you think it is to learn?
The content for this post is created using samples from our self-study program Learn Slovenian Online.
