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Original image altered to better reflect reality.
I’ve decided to devote some attention to the WMD that is the Slovenian language. Other bloggers, like cookie and Alcessa, have already written up Slovenian lessons on their sites. I want to try a different approach: To focus on the horrors that prevent almost every foreigner from mastering it.
I say “almost every” because apparently there was one lady who learned it once. I don’t know her name but people sometimes tell me about her. She’s like a Slovenian version of bigfoot: some mythical creature that arrived here and now speaks flawless, perfectly accented Slovene. But Slovenian sasquatches aside, most foreigners here are lousy with the language. They either speak a few rudimentary phrases despite years of living here (”One beer please”) or (like me) they butcher the language with incorrect grammar and then taint it even further with a local dialect. (The last time I was in Ljubljana, David laughed a lot at my Styrian-corroded Slovene.)
At any rate, here’s my first installment of why you will never learn Slovene.
#1) Singular and Plural
And no, this isn’t going to be what you think. Slovene is famously difficult for its “dual” case, but I don’t have any major problem with it. Basically, if there are two objects they take a different verb and the nouns conjugate differently. It’s a lot of work, but fine. Let’s do some counting and see where the problem is:
Tukaj je stol.
(Here’s a chair)
Tukaj sta dva stola.
(Here are two chairs — Note that we’ve added an “a” at the end of stol (chair) because there are two. The verb has also changed to sta a dual form of “are”. So far so good, yes?)
Tukaj so trije stoli
(Here are three chairs — Now we’re into plural. Note again that the chairs now have an “i” ending to reflect plural. The verb has also gone to plural: so is used for “are”)
But this is where things get interesting, because even if you don’t speak Slovene you should have a pretty decent chance of continuing. Especially if I reveal this to you:
Tukaj so Å¡tirje stoli
(Here are four chairs)
Now. If I told you that the word for five is pet, what would you guess is next? Maybe this?
Tukaj so petje stoli
(Here are five chairs)
That’s what I would guess. That’s what any sane person would guess. But of course that’s not the case, because for reasons that are beyond comprehension: while three and four are plural, five and above suddenly and inexplicably revert to singular! Correct is this:
Tukaj je pet stolov
(Here is five chairs — Note the new ending, too: it’s now -ov)
So, here’s a very simplified summary:
| Amount | Slovenian verb | Slovenian noun ending | English verb | English noun ending |
| 1 | je | x | is | x |
| 2 | sta | -a | are | -s |
| 3 | so | -i | are | -s |
| 4 | so | -i | are | -s |
| 5 | je | -ov | are | -s |
Oh, the horror. The horror.
But keep this in mind: This goes for masculine Slovene nouns only. And there are various cases as well. There are also feminine and neutral nouns, each with their own endings. And each of them boast their own endings for any preceding adjectives. Unlike in English, where “five” is always “five” — in Slovene nouns are always altered. Even proper names. A movie with Jack Nicholson is “z Jackom Nicholsonom.” Don’t even ask me what it would be if the movie starred five Jack Nicholsons. Because all I know is that I will never know.
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To what should WMD refer? Wiki gives at least to possibilities: Weapon of mass destruction or World Movement for Democracy. According to your text it must be the second one!
Don’t look at what you still don’t know, but at what you have already accomplished. I have to admit that this is the only approach to learning Slo that is keeping me from quitting. Not the worst one, though.
I also have to admit, that after a weekend in Belgium I thought about going for Dutch/Flemish instead and a quick success …
That’s a cute post.
And several of us agree that Slovenian language can cause severe headaches. 
The ones that boggle even me are: predvÄ?erajÅ¡njIm & pojutriÅ¡njEm. No sane foreigner would expect that. 
Poor, poor Michael :->
Do you know that at 100 it all starts anew? “je sto stolov”, “je stoen stol”, “sta stodva stola”, “so stotrije stoli”, “so stoÅ¡tirje stoli”, “je stopet stolov”?
Oh, BTW, “s petimi Jacki Nicholsoni”, of course
I started with good will, to teach Spaniards the few Slovene I knew back then… 1 2 3
… one year later I’m still far from knowing it. Problem is, the Slovene I was taught -aka formal- no one speaks, so after all that time learning how to compose the dual female in dative with a continuous tense, you hear Slovenes saying things like “Midva smo” everyday. So you’ve got to forget and relearn anew. It’s a bit frustrating and the image reflects it quite nicely.
I prefer your version of the pic
But regarding the five chairs: as far as I know, it’s only the verb (biti) that is singular, the noun itself is plural, but second case (this is five “from” chairs). Anyone correct me if I’m wrong…
I’m one of the few morons who started to learn Slovenian without any real reason. You can actually meet some of that lot on language course in Ljubljana or Portorož. It’s always a pleasure to see, you’re not alone. But what language courses don’t mention is, what happens, when a foreigner orders a beer, for example. Best example: Ljubljana. Thoughts are in brackets.
me: Eno Laško, prosim.
waiter: (what, a foreigner talking Slovene??) A bik von or a litel von?
me: (come on, my Slovene isn’t that bad) veliko
waiter: Hir ju ar.
According to a Slovene who grew up in Germany it’s simply too much for some Slovenians to deal with the fact, that there could be a (non-slavic) foreigner who talks Slovene.
And: I still think, that some grammatical things in Slovene were only invented to confuse and irritate foreigners
Michael, Novala is right: kudos for everything you already know and use!
BTW, I know a lady with a perfect command of Slovenian personally… She has a certain “fire in her eyes” - it must be this special insanity that is necessary to just step over the difficulties and learn it and use it. To feel Slovenian.
BTW No. 2: In my little private theory people who speak and like Slovenian and /or German may have difficulties using the lovely play of words that is English. I do remember the times when mine was proficient and up-to-date: it has since been replaced by difficult Slo. and Ger. structures cramming my working memory and I now find English difficult
I have to agree with novala as well. Your improvement can be heard even from your pronunciation of names of places and people. You have made a great step forward in the time I’m listening to you on RSI.
Nice post, this one; not to mention the referral about the lessons Alcessa and Cookie have on their blogs. When I was in LJ last week, I was looking for an English book about Slovene grammar when I just should have mailed you, Michael.
@Novala : if you need any help mastering Dutch and Flemish (even though they may seem the same, they are much different) just let me know.
Why, ARF: you can buy some Slovenian lessons with a native speaker with some …liquid currency. I happen to know someone willing…
The secret to mastering Slovene (or any other foreign language) is to have an intimate long-term relationship with a Slovene who does not know your mother tongue (in this case, English). My Slovene used to draw oohs and ahs of admiration (I think I may once have been that legendary bigfoot lady Michael refers to), but since splitting up with my husband and sharing a household with my English-speaking daughter and dogs, my Slovene proficiency has gone all to hell.
@disablez: I don’t think a Slovenian would ever use the subject in the dual and the verb in the plural, maybe you were thinking of the Styrian dialect, where they say “midva sma”? (Although it is true that the spoken Slovene is very different from the formal one.)
@dietmar: you’re right the chairs are in the plural second case (genetive), only the verb is singular.
Sorry, I’m a linguist.
Liquid currency, Alcessa? Why, you’re on! So, which crate of what beer shall it be?
As Pengovsky now knows, I’m good for my word on delivering the goods… 
I love this post!
But you needn’t worry. It looks as if Slovene will soon drop the dual and the genitive case altogether - at least if you look at today’s electronic media where presenters say things like “dva vpraÅ¡anja” instead of “dve vpraÅ¡anji”.
ARF: as I said before, I don’t dare steal Pengovsky’s dealer
But I can’t help poking a bit
As for the dual and the plural: I would seriously recommend anyone on the verge of giving up learning SLO to use only singular and plural first. I have met many Slovenians using plural where they should be using dual and I think it is more useful to know singular and plural first and to add dual as a new level of sophistication. AFTER ALL: one would think (with the remaining tiny bits of logic after having learned some Slovenian) that we use dual to refer to our eyes, ears, arms, legs. We don’t. We don’t want to make it easy for amyone, so we use plural instead: Noge me bolijo.
I don’t know about “mythical” ladies with perfect Slovene, but I happened to really know two of them. The first one is American who once totally confused a Slovenian guy, who, hearing her speak asked her, if she was from Prekmurje (not that she had Prekmurje or any other accent, the guy just couldn’t quite place her and went for the most unusual option) She calmly nodded and said, Yes, I am from Preko Morje (accross the sea). The other one is, get that, a Japanese! She even taught Slovenian language at an University in Germany, since they couldn’t find a native speaker. Her Slovenian is probably better than mine!
So, don’t give up,one day we might talk about you in the same way!
Michael, if it’s any consolation: the majority of people I know who took the official test to become translators at the EU Institutions failed due to “insufficient knowledge of Slovene”. It goes without saying that they were all Slovene, most had studied translation and had many years of experience in the field. Go figure.
I’m sure that nobody really cares about this but still…
@Pengovsky: the dual forms of nouns and adjectives might be disappearing but not the dual forms of verbs. Do you ever use the plural (e.g. gremo) when there’s only you and another person? I don’t think people do that. And as far as the genitive is concerned - I suppose you were thinking of negations? It’s true that the genetive in negations is disappearing but not elsewhere.
SO funny!
To be honest, your Slovene is better than most of the other foreign “versions” (So I guess you’re something like v2.1 BETA, hah). And its good to see that you at least try, some just think “One more beer” is all they need to survive here. But its only 95 %
Mali, I care
I do know people tending to use plural verb forms when refering to two people. Maybe all this expressive duality (We two did this and that) does not feel friendly enough or something?
Possessive genitive is also not disappearing in German - maybe this is its most basic function that cannot be replaced by anything else, while accusative with negations is (Warning: sacrilege) not too bad or really ilogical.
@mali: “Do you ever use the plural (e.g. gremo) when there’s only you and another person?”
Of course I do.
If I’m speaking to that other person directly, I’m using dual. Definitely.
But if I’m speaking to the invisible broader audience, then I’ll use plural even if there are only two of ‘us’. An example would be yelling at one of my kids: “Ale, gremo!” (let’s go).
@mali, re: “Do you ever use the plural (e.g. gremo) when there’s only you and another person? I don’t think people do that.”
I hear it in the Karst (including from my ex, while he was still alive and we were together).
@slovon: yes, my dad does that too.
But that’s an exception I think. You would never use the plural in the past tense when talking of only two people (VÄ?eraj smo Å¡li…) would you? I wouldn’t and it doesn’t sound right to me, but maybe it’s just me.
). But it’s an interesting point you make about it not being friendly enough. That would be a good topic for some linguistic research. 
And as to the genetive in negations - it does seem to be disappearing. The eternal question is - should we do something about it or should we just let the language change take its course. What do you (guys) think?
@alcessa: interesting. I honestly don’t know anyone who would use dual instead of plural (except in the case of “Ale, gremo!”
Mali: I love using genitive in negations, it makes my language sophisticated in a way other languages may not be. But I still “forget” it sometimes. I write pages of stuff in Slovenian daily and every now and then I find out I have used the accusative again. Subconsciously? I take it as a sign that genitive in negations has (under the influence of other languages?) acquired the quality of being clumsy or not necessary and that it may disappear. Though I would be among the first to bemoan the loss. Crazy, this.
(I should have added “sometimes” when talking about people using plural instead of dual)
Michael: there was an article in Mladina once about Janis Salnajs, who is German and lives in Prekmurje. They said it was “interesting” interviewing him, because the only version of Slovenian he can speak is the Prekmurje dialect
This site and columns like this are my bastion of strength amongst the sea of Slovene-drenched insanity that is/will continue to be my life.
@mali: “You would never use the plural in the past tense when talking of only two people (VÄ?eraj smo Å¡li…) would you?”
I wouldn’t, but my father-in-law would. In the area near the Italian border, dual form is almost extinct already.
Before answering that, I’d really like to know in detail how much Slovene has changed over the years. Without having to go to univ, if possible
For me Slovene looks more a language of exceptions and not of rules. Main complication is the terrible abundance of cases*genders*numbers, plus the fact that the suffixes for those overlap, therefore I can see “punca” and I don’t know wheter is femenine singular, neuter plural, masc dual, or a declension of any. Therefore we rely too much on “the context”.
A long long time ago, one of the purposes of langs was to differentiate, by the way people talked, and their accent you could tell native from foreigner, friend or foe. Right now, I think that purpose is not so necessary, and -tradition values apart- languages should serve their primary function, to communicate, and do it in the easiest and most precise way possible, therefore maintaining a steady evolution which so far I don’t see in Slovene. -That’s why I want to know how wrong I am bout that.-
About the midva smo thing.. I swear! Young people mostly, so I don’t know the line between evolution and slang…
@mali: “Sorry, I’m a linguist.”
no need to apologise
a) with a little knowledge of the logic behind it, it’s easier to understand how it works
b) if everything goes well, I might become a linguist aswell by the start of winter term 2007
What we did in my very first Slovene course was completely ignoring grammar rules. We just learnt how to say this and that and were corrected every now and then. The good thing: you get in touch with the language and get used to it. The bad thing: I didn’t understand when and why the endings change. I’d have to ask a neighbour who attended the courses of the teacher who succeeded the one I had, how they did it, and how it was. However, that teacher wasn’t paid with beer
(as far as I know).
After a course in Ljubljana, I made myself an overview (pdf) from what I found in our textbook. If anyone finds it useful: enjoy! If anyone finds a mistake in that overview: let me know!
Michael, there is this very basic rule with slovenian language that i sincerely think you don’t comply to. In order to speak reasonably decent slovene, you need to hate your neighbours. There’s no way around it.
So, sometime in the future, when you see that kind old lady next door and you thing “curse her, old bat, i hope she dies soon”, you will probably realize that your grammar has improved significantly.
@Dietmar: “S SlovenÅ¡Ä?ino nimam težav!”
There is no capital S in that case. Adjectives ending in -ski or -Å¡ki are all lowercase.
Disablez: your idea sounds very good, but the question is: HOW do we want to communicate? If you want to be very accurate in your communication, you need a certain degree of abundance. It does not explain most of the irrationality, of course.
Let us have an example where Slovenian is really much simpler than English, shall we?
The Slovenian sentence:
Spali smo means in English (depending on the context, of course):
1. We have slept.
2. We slept.
3. We were sleeping.
4. We used to sleep.
5. We would sleep.
6. We used to be sleeping.
7. We would be sleeping.
8. We had slept.
9. We had been sleeping.
As a Slovenian trying to be a proficient speaker of English, you need to learn to use each one of them.
Feeling any better?
@slovon:
thanks, I’ll fix it as soon as possible. It was the motto of the language course back then (probably without misspellings).
Adjectives ending in…
does that mean, when talking about languages it is a female adjective turned into a noun?
oh, and regarding: You would never use the plural in the past tense when talking of only two people
I think a friend of mine uses phrases like “vÄ?eraj sva s prijateljico…” in her emails. The unusual thing for me is that this doesn’t mean two people plus the friend, but including the friend…
Actually, languages are always written in lowercase. ‘Slovenija’ but ’slovenÅ¡Ä?ina’, ‘NemÄ?ija’ but ‘nemÅ¡Ä?ina’.
It’s the best if you go to the market … Do you count thisone or not?
Your brave to post s.th. about slovene grammar …
Exactly that I complain about, and I agree with you
But let me explain…
For me, on one side Slovene lacks precision in verbs, which is the most important part of a sentence. By being made so “easy” (using a different verb for -ing modes is a bit painful), you lose the relative ability to allocate things in time precisely. Sometimes I tried to use pluscuamperfect, as I’m really used to needed to express what I want to say, and people looked so terribly strange at me, like I was talking medieval style
-BTW, wouldn’t the “would” forms use “bi” somewhere?-
On the other part, it gets so complex in trivial things. I can agree that dual might be something important, though it’s discrimination for “trial” “tetral” “pental” etc etc.
I can also cope with the mixed preposition + declension system (which is two ways of doing the same). I could learn all the suffixes. But, the ones chosen are confusing, in the way that they are the same in completely unrelated cases. As such, if I see “punca” for the first time in my life, I can have a hard time finding out in the context which declension it is, which gender, number, and which is the original word. Sometimes it’s easy, sometimes, borderly impossible.
In Spanish, for example you see “perros”, and you know inmediately that is masculine, plural and most probably the original word is “perro”. Conversion in both ways (original to derivated and derivated to original) is equally easy.
However in slovene original to derivated is fairly more complex (due to increased number, gender and then declension) -and the only precision benefit is knowing that it was two people instead of more-, and the derivated->original is far more complicated.
Apart from that, if in a same sentence all words have to chain together in gender and number, why to complicate even more and say “ne govorim tvoj(ega) jezik(a)”, using different suffixes depending on type of word? That doesn’t give you extra info. Why to use 2nd case for negation? I think the “ne” leaves clear that the sentence is negated
Sorry for the solata, just my point is that sometimes that extra effort doesn’t add precision, and in such cases it should be given a thought if it really shouldn’t evolve to simpler syntax, as many people actually does in spoken language. As I said, always balancing with the tradition.
@dietmar: “slovenÅ¡Ä?ina” is a noun of female gender, meaning Slovenian language. You can say “UÄ?im se slovenÅ¡Ä?ino.” for example. But you can also say (as I’m sure you know) “UÄ?im se slovensko.”, where “slovensko” is an adverb, derived from the adjective “slovenski”, meaning Slovenian. There are two general rules here:
Do you study linguistics too? If so, where?
1. adjectives ending in -ski/-Å¡ki (and adverbs derived from them) never start with a capital letter (even when you’re not talking about a language, e.g. To je tipiÄ?na gorenjska hiÅ¡a.)
2. whenever you ARE talking about a language (using the noun or the adverb) you never use the capital letters.
Hope you can make some sense out of this.
@everyone else: this has turned into a very interesting linguistic discussion. Cool!
@alcessa
>Spali smo
Prav imaš!
Disablez:
We do precision of the verb system simply by means of adverbs and related expressions. I omitted them above for the point’s sake. (BTW: “bi” in “would sleep” as an expression of a past habit is the Croatian version (”bi spavali”). Slovenians simply say “smo spali” BUT we add the word “usually” (”ponavadi”) to express the habit).
Which is more than precise, in my opinion. And of course this is also where this precious precision ends: you still need to learn special verbs which denote continuation, accomplishment, beginning, end… all those lovely things English does with the use of tenses.
One point for me, one for you then
As to the gender in nouns: Yes, you need to think quick there. But tell me: if you know the meaning of the word punca, surely you know the gender?
And if you don’t know the meaning, you still have to find it out first to be able to use the word?
I am NOT making fun of you, the fact is, there are often telltale signals WTF is going on, you just need to know and to observe them. Let us stay with the ending -a. If someone says: “Okna so lepa” and the only word you don’t know and thus worry about is “okna” (feminin?) all you have to do is to look at the verb: plural. And you do know already -a is the plural ending for neutral nouns, don’t you? Of course it is not always that easy, the prerequisite for guessing the form is knowing the meaning of as many words as possible.
And so on. One point for you here. It is indeed complicated.
I often feel the Slovenian vocabulary is not large enough to say things other languages are able to say. We could do with more vocabulary and less grammar.
Another point for you
Phew… Deconstructing Slovene can apparently be a real pain in the rit.
Now, is “rit” of masculine, feminine or neutral gender?
Doesn’t that depend on who the ‘rit’ in question belongs to?
Good one
:D…. But if we think of “rit” as such - das ding an sich, so to speak, then the gender remains the same, regardless of the owner 
Common, Pengovsky, you have all said this sentence at least once in your life (I know men!
):
Moja punca ima lepo rit.
And I am sure the envious answers of your friends went along the lines of:
Maš pa res lepo punco.
Any gender questions remaining?
About das Ding an sich? 
:-D
Well, personally I would go for joÅ¡ke, however, logic dictates that I would first have to have a punca to comment on her rit… But this debate is getting out of hand
It was a serious question, though…
Well, you assume that the person speaks correctly, which, in the “midva smo” case, is not that. There you don’t know, you guess it’s dual.
Let’s see the famous example of “the two towers”. (Stolpa, if I remember). You can imagine it’s nominative, but is it one female stolpa, two male stolp or many neutral stolpo? Not only for knowing what a stolp is, but just for saying “I went to see “The two towers”", which if im not wrong is 4th case, and would be different sentence if I understood stolpa or stolpo.
What I meant is, there’s not always context. In other languages, the meaning is packed in the suffix itself.
Of course, the easiest solution is… “ask, you lazy ***”. But not always you have patient company nor liquid money, same way as not always you got context.
@pengovsky: perut, peruti = rit, riti = 2nd feminine declension…ccc didn’t they teach you ANYTHING in primary school?
I absolutely agree with you - it is NOT easy.
Still, there are often many signals to interpret the thing - if you have enough time to do so, that is.
Logical conclusions for “I went to see The Two Towers”:
Number 2 tells us it must be dual.
The verb suggests accusative.
It cannot be a neutral accusative noun (-i) and also not feminin (-i)
It must be masculine then.
But you do need to know the endings first, of course….
It changes the *case* after the 4th, to the 2nd case, rodilnik.
Ni enega stola.
Ni dveh stolov.
Ni treh stolov.
Ni Å¡tirih stolov.
Ni petih stolov.
Ni Å¡estih stolov.
…
Ne ne ne, that wasn’t it
You just see “Stolpa” in the poster of the movie. You know the suffixes and all the grammar stuff but you don’t know what does that word mean, at all.
How you say “I have seen stolpa”?. Sem videl stolp…
Let’s leave it in a tie, lunchtime!
Oh, OK. In that case I would have a look at the picture. And if there is nothing to help me there, I’d forget it for a while.
In that case, the so-called “knowledge of the world” applies - if you know which film it is, you also know how many towers.
Or do you mean Tolkien’s Two Towers?
I don’t want to torture you with details, it is just that the debate about how to find out what on Earth the words are is often more relevant than other things… And I also wanted to offer some support
Dober tek!
@mali:
I’m not studying yet, as I’ll get my “matura” in two months or so (second-chance education can be pain…), but from all what I’ve read and heard, Tübingen sounds very interesting. I hope, they take me
@Christian:
fortunately you don’t need other verbs to say: “trenutno sploh ne spim…”, but accusative singular male, persons and animals would be: “…pa res rad imam svoja sina” (hope, I didn’t make a mistake here)
@dietmar: svojega sina. Good luck with matura and the studies!
ok, at least it seems like I messed up the HTML syntax - I wanted the endings svoj-A sin-A to be bold….
@ Dietmar: A few things I noticed when skimming through your notes:
p. 4: z brezplacnimi nocitvijami -> nocitvami
p. 3: kam sel peljes -> se peljes
p. 3: Peter je pomegal -> pomagal
p. 3: Grem h gospudu -> gospodu
p. 2: razlicnih restavraciji -> restavracij
+ the capitalisation of slovenscina as noted above. Also, according to the Pravopis, you should have a space before an ellipsis (…) except if it follows an unfinished WORD (not sentence). But most people ignore that ‘rule’ anyway, so it’s not really a mistake.
You haven’t got any second masculine declension examples - do you just know that it’s the same declension as the first feminine (eg vodja (leader) is declined exactly the same as lipa (lime tree))? Or do you simply decline all masculine nouns according to the first declension (which is also OK)?
@mali: I know about second feminine declination, of course… I was only trying to point out the fact that not everything feminine ends with an “-a”.
@pengovsky: I see, so you meant for one of the non-native speakers to answer your question…ups, sorry.
@Alex:
to be honest, I took the textbook used in the course and typed everything into OpenOffice, because it is more handy to have two sheets printed on both sides.
I’ll definetely fix the stuff you mentioned, most of it seems to have happened during typing it around 2003 or so.
What do you mean with the “ellipsis”? The “instrumental” table? In this case, the omitted (or not) letter is in the middle of a word I think, bot I don’t know when to omit it or not. I would have to search that textbook, to see how they did it. But further explanations and corrections are welcome, since the overview is meant to help me (and others) to do it right…
You haven’t got any second (…) do you just know that (…) Or do you (…)?
- dunno - I’d probably use the first declension, but with pretty much guessing. To be honest: I know neither of the second declensions. So I’d probably do it wrong if I tried to translate Pengovsky’s example with the pain into Slovene…
erm
@Slovene grammar: Sanskrit (some other Proto-Indoeuropean Language actually) is the source of all trouble. Check this link en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanskrit#Grammar
You can find almost everything there any IE language has: duals, 8 cases including vocative, 11 tenses and modes all flexed with endings (2 futures, perfect, aorist, imperfect) and a lot more…
Apparently Slovene is conservative in the noun forms, pronouns, but the verbal structure was almost completely lost. On the other hand Macedonian and Bulgarian show exactly the opposite development - they have lost all cases and retained almost all tenses.
@vpraÅ¡anje: It seems that neuter nouns became masculine in certain dialects (Ljubljana and to the south?). So instead of ‘eno okno’ there is ‘en oken’. And if ‘oken’ is masculine, then ‘dva okna’ (dva vpraÅ¡anja) is perfectly good dual.
@Styrian: I suppose you have all alreary seen the Styrian dictionary?
www.motosvet.com/tabla/lofiversion/index.php/t3519.html
Why stop at just Tukaj so trije stoli? What about Tukaj je troje stolov? Or maybe Tukaj so troji stoli?
Hm… Tukaj so trojni stoli… i suppose that doesn’t really mean anything, does it? 
But it is theoretically possible, right? 
It’s not only theoretically possible, there are languages that actually make that distinction.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grammatical_number#Trial_number
Remember that game you posted sometime last year, ‘Chat and Play in Slovenia’? I go there on occasion and usually just use my imperfect Bosnian, and the Slovenes ask me how I learned Slovenian! I tell them I don’t speak Slovenian, I’m using my very imperfect Bosnian, and they STILL want to know how it is I speak Slovenian! It’s really pretty cute and funny of them!
They also never believe I’m as old as I say I am, I guess the charmingly plump figures in the game make that happen, everyone looks like a cute, eager, happy 5 year old who gets way too much of the good things in life!
Michael, one more thing: if you don’t feel like using all these different plurals, just omit the number:
To je miza.
To sta mizi.
To so mize. (tables: 3, 4, 5, 6 milllion, bilion…)
ok, thanks a lot for the corrections so far. The updated file is uploaded and should be available under the same address as above. As already said: if anyone still sees a mistake or has a suggestion, tell me.
@ Dietmar: If you need an example of the second masculine declension:
1. On je pismonoša.
2. Ne vidim pismonoše.
3. Pismo je oddal pismonoši.
4. Pes je ogrizel pismonošo.
5. O pismonoši ni ne duha ne sluha.
6. Vsak dan se pogovarjam z našim pismonošo.
I think this noun in particular would sound very awkward when declined by the first declension. To me, only masculine names and men’s surnames nominally in the second declension don’t sound bizarre declined using the first declension (eg Miha, Jaka, Luka etc).
You DO actually have examples of the second feminine declension in your sumarry (ie stvar, jed etc).
By ellipsis I mean ‘…’, three dots (tropiÄ?je in Slovene). For example, p. 3: Ä?uditi se, pomagati … (notice the space)
(Also NB: RABA 3. Sklona -> sklona)
As for the instrumental table, I would write ‘moznostma’, but I suspect both forms could be correct. There are other options as well: ’stvar’, for example, has ’stvarema’ in that place (with an inserted ‘e’, which is ‘narrow’ and stressed).
There’s a common saying in German, “Deutsche Sprache, schwere Sprache”, isn’t there? I’ve heard it quite a few times, anyway. I wonder how the second bit would go for Slovene …?
@alex
>eg Miha, Jaka, Luka etc
… or Josia
>second masculine declension
… sounds nasty if you think of second feminin declension … but it’s just like first feminin, right? Or is there something more about it?
Question:
Why have more than 4 chairs? Seems life just gets more complicated. Four is the divine number (unless, of course, it’s Three), so be happy with four and leave it at that.
Darko, your post reminds me of something I got during a language course - “krave in ekonomia”:
RUSKA: Prestejes krave in ugotovis, da imas dve. Prestejes ju znova in
izves, da jih imas pet. Pri ponovnem stetju jih nastejes 42. Prenehas
se ukvarjati s tem in odpres naslednjo steklenico vodke.
@Alex
I do have such examples?
Well, I haven’t had time to deal with that for quite some time now. I don’t know the Slovene equivalent of “deutsche Sprache…”, but can you imagine how the first encounter with a Slavic language at all feels, when someone is standing in front of you and trying to make you repeat:
“popoklicusemraÄ?unalniÅ¡kiadministrator”
- “popo - gnmpf - what????”
To round the number of comments up to 70.
Dietmar, I just wanted to say - I took a look at your site and there are some mistakes but your Slovene is (in my oppinion) really good. Keep it up! 
and there are some mistakes
so let me know where, then…
this is funny. I find that my biggest problem with learning slovene is that not a single slovene speaks it. they all have their own valleys version of it and when i ask about something that confuses me, people around me seem more confused than me.. but slowly more words and endings creep into my life.
Ah, the memories of learning Slovene. When I moved to Slovenia 8 years ago, I spent the first couple of months in language school studying the 6 cases really hard. Then when I finally thought I had the hang of it, they introduced me to “druga zenska sklanjatev” and other such horrors. I think that’s when I started to lose my motivation… Also, as gandalf said above, nobody I knew spoke the Slovene I was learning. It was all Ljubljana slang, and as I learnt from them, I started to sound really ridiculous.
There is usually a clear logic to it all, though, which isn’t the case with my language (Swedish), where you often have to learn word by word what is correct. And, from my experience, Slovenes usually understand you pretty well even when you speak poor grammar (or at least they appreciate the effort and try to understand you). It’s a beautiful language, and it’s a real shame I’ve forgotten so much since moving back to Sweden (I only return once or twice a year nowadays).
Well, I must admit that Slovenian language is very hard. Even for us, Slovenians, is hard to know all the grammar(I mean, all the grammar that we need to know in High School)…I can’t even imagine how much more there is… If you have problems in learning Slovenian language, then just talk with people…If you will learn only from books, then you’ll probably wanna kill yourself
Pat of SE. seriously, there is other swedes than me that tried slovenian?? Har du några tips?
exactly Pat of SE., jag behöver ocksÃ¥ tips… I find swedish pretty logical, whereas slovene is just, I don’t know… hard. I do understand some, but structuring a sentence is a totally different thing, which is why I’m going there to study slovene…
My grandfather used to use the word “kamotska”, which I believe is a Slovenian word. Can anyone confirm?