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Zdravo in dobrodošli.
(Good healthy hello to you and welcome. )
Nothing compares to the thrill of being able to speak with locals in their own language when you visit their country.
You are in luck. You can now experience this amazing feeling too.
My name is Matevž and I’ve been teaching and consulting soft and technical subjects to locals and foreigners for over a decade.
Languages are my passion: I love learning new ones and teaching ones I mastered.
Zdravo in dobrodošli.
(Good healthy hello to you and welcome. )
Nothing compares to the thrill of being able to speak with locals in their own language when you visit their country.
You are in luck. You can now experience this amazing feeling too.
My name is Matevž and I’ve been teaching and consulting soft and technical subjects to locals and foreigners for over a decade.
Languages are my passion: I love learning new ones and teaching ones I mastered.
Together with my partner Farnaz, we created Slovenian for Exchange Students, our mission to make learning Slovenian easier than ever and accessible, especially to those who tried before and failed.
Our course is perfect for the complete beginner as we chop down the Slovenian language into bits that we teach you how to bring together again in an easy to understand way.
You can go from knowing no Slovenian at all to putting together your own sentences in minutes.
If nothing else, we want you to see how easy it is to learn Slovenian.
Each lesson in this course is short, most last only 2 minutes with only a few taking up to 10 minutes.
In each lesson you will learn a tiny bit of Slovenian.
You can use all these bits to start building spoken sentences in Slovenian.
As you work through the course you catch more and more bits and your sentences will start getting longer.
Everything you learn in the first lessons carries throughout the course.
Therefore you don't have to worry about remembering everything.
With so much opportunity for practice, the phrases will be easy to remember.
Every lesson in this course is focused on the practical and effective ways of building your language skills that you can apply immediately.
You will end up speaking Slovenian with comfort and zest whenever you are in a Slovenian speaking country.
When starting something new, as human beings, we tend to get very excited and driven.
You might spend hours learning the first day, but the next day, you can only manage one hour.
... and then that goes down 30 minutes, and then you get bored and stop completely.
The reason behind our brief lessons is simple: they help you stay motivated. This in turn means your learning is more consistent.
True success with any learning related mission lies in consistency. And we build that with habits.
By ensuring your learning takes place in short bits, something wonderful happens:
1. Your enthusiasm endures
The key to learning starts with zeal and zest to get it done - your own true enthusiasm.
If you allow yourself a beset study time of just a few minutes, you'll keep your Slovenian sharp and shiny.
Your excitement and eagerness to learn will show more and results will be self-evident.
Forcing yourself to spend hours sitting and staring at a screen studying, will only get you bored and it'll just be another chore.
We hate that. So instead, we designed all lessons brief, concise; each has a fun, quick worksheet and a recap.
2. You will study with much more consistency
It’s much better to study for just five minutes once a day than to study for three hours but only once a week.
One can always find five minutes, even on the busiest of schedules.
If you ensure you complete at least one lesson every day, it’ll quickly become a habit that you’ll do without ever thinking.
It’s much easier to fit in a daily five-minute habit than a weekly one-hour chore.
With just doing this, you’ll become an incredibly consistent learner and consistency is the key to success.
You will become a success and learn to speak Slovenian.
3. Your memory will improve
This is the best reason to why it is a good idea to limit daily study routines into small bits.
Studying smaller bits is a mind trick that allows you to memorise information faster and better than if you look at it for hours on end.
"Here is stuff I see daily, it must be important but I don't get to see it for too long... I should hold on to it and turn it into memory quickly. "
Things will tend to stay in your brain with more ease if you limit yourself to just five minutes a day.
... and that is why we choose to keep our lessons brief.
So. If you want a course that teaches you to speak the Slovenian you can use daily and even uses this fun and simple approach, then enroll in Slovenian For Exchange Students today.
Hvala.
Matevž and Farnaz
A brief course introduction where you will learn about what to expect learning Slovenian with us.
All of Lesson 1 is kept open for preview free of charge as it serves as an example and template for the quality standard we uphold.
This video will introduce the course structure and general layout.
You will also learn about the Slovenian Alphabet, how to pronounce the letters and a bit about their origins.
In the attached worksheet you can find links to additional study resources.
We recommend you start with the alphabet and spend at least 20' practicing speaking out loud the 25 letters.
Use the enclosed wikipedia derived approximate sounds for the letters from English equivalent sounds.
Check out the links below for a lot of useful information as well as sites made to help you make learning Slovenian simpler.
We will use some of these later on in the course to help us further our studies and give new emphasis to our speaking and reading skills.
Before we delve deeper into Slovenian, you should understand that if you're ever in trouble or you don't know what to say then this lesson is perfect for you.
If you try to say something but get lost, remember these few key phrases:
"I don't understand." | "Ne razumem."
"How do I say this?" | "Kako rečem to?" [phonetic: Caa-co ra-ch-am t-oh?]
"I need help." | "Rabim pomoč." [phonetic: Raa-beem poh-moh-ch.]
Solve the worksheet to recap this lesson as well, it will greatly improve your understanding of the topic.
Vital phrases to remember when learning a new language - now in Slovenian and easily accessible!
A few phrases for emergency situations.
UPDATE FOR LESSON 2 SCHEDULED FRI OCT 23rd 2020, 8pm GMT+1.
In this lesson you will learn how to introduce yourself, a bit of etiquette and time of day dependent greetings, like:
good morning | dobro jutro and
good afternoon | dober večer
Use the attached worksheet with the last lecture to recap what we talk about, go back to the video and try to pronounce each statement again.
Don't be shy or afraid of mispronouncing the terms. It doesn't matter if you mispronounce them. The only thing you should concern yourself with is to remember what they sound like, how to say them and say them well enough that you can communicate what you want. So if they sound off, it's of no importance to us at this stage whatsoever!
Do enjoy the puzzle in the worksheet, all in all this whole section should take you about 45 minutes to complete, including recaps and a short study revision.
Basic means "osnovno", greetings "pozdravi" (plural).
In this section we discuss greetings.
The basic kind, the appropriate ones, the suitable ones depending on the hour of the day and we finish with a few building blocks for introducing ourselves.
There's a secret set of rules to Slovenian:
Endings of words change, they adapt and adopt a spelling most suitable for their use.
Most fascinating!
Etiquette | Bonton; it means to have manners / rules regarding manners.
Here we discuss common expressions in relation to manners:
what to say when you like someone, when you wish someone well, before you start a meal and so forth.
You will also learn more tips on pronouncing č and š sounds.
Remember!
š = [sh(-ow)]
č = [ch(-eck)]
Lastly, we talk about how to excuse ourselves.
How might one say good day in Slovenian?
When is it appropriate?
Note: you can say "dober dan" in the afternoon, but in late afternoon it makes more sense to say "dober večer".
Do note how much we reuse certain word roots - and yet their endings adapt to the use case.
We continue building basic intuition for this principle in this lecture.
It's time to cover the basic expressions when introducing yourself!
Listed a few alternative words below.
Where are you from? Where am I from? | Od kje ste? Od kje sem
are you - ste
am I - sem
What is your name? What is my name? | Kako vam je ime? Kako mi je ime?
your - vam, vaše
my - moje, mi
I am doing this... I am doing that... | Jaz delam to... Jaz delam tisto...
to - tisto
this - that
Pay attention, we are building intuition for all this complicated concepts slowly.
Time to face facts here: we take a deeper dive into what's what and inch forward a bit more towards understanding what this adaptive word ending stuff is about.
And it's fun: it's a set of rules in Slovenian that helps encapsulate, include into words we communicate information both on what is going on, or what is going on with what as well as the gender of the item or person in questions.
We take a look at the example: student | študent
For a student whose gender is masculine, in Slovenian we say "študent"
Yet for a student whose gender is feminine, we say "študentka"
It's the same root word: "študent"!
We merely added the ending "/-ka" to the root word.
This means if someone says "študent" they mean the person studying is masculine, however the root word could also be neutral if used in literature - it would mean either masculine or feminine if in general context.
Every single word - nouns especially has these strange rules applied to them.
Fear not, despite there being literally thousands of variations possible, we will learn them all in a nutshell at least with a trick.
We will first understand the intuitive notions that led to them existing in the first place.
A lovely brain teaser and exercise for the mind!
Well done completing your second section; your second step towards learning Slovenian!
Use the attached worksheet with the last lecture to recap what we talk about, go back to the video and try to pronounce each statement again.
Do enjoy the puzzle in the worksheet.
As a short study revision, solving the worksheet will not take long yet will benefit you greatly!
We hope you enjoy it and do leave any questions you have so far with the course.
Zdravo!
Recap the Basic Greetings.
The couple is lost in the Alps while hiking!
This conversation draws content from Lesson 5: Asking for directions.
Follow the conversation video activity for Lesson 8 then consult the attached custom prepared worksheet.
The instructions are to find the right words to fill in the blanks.
To accomplish this exercise go back to the video and pause whenever relevant.
As you are writing all the words in Slovenian, you automatically start to learn them and better remember their meaning.
Our couple wanders to the local restaurant. The conversation involves vocabulary from Lesson 3.
Follow the conversation video activity for Lesson 8 then consult the attached custom prepared worksheet.
The instructions are to find the right words to fill in the blanks.
To accomplish this exercise go back to the video and pause whenever relevant.
As you are writing all the words in Slovenian, you automatically start to learn them and better remember their meaning.
Section 10 overview & disclaimer.
Make sure you pay attention to the attached checklist in resources!
This lecture provides a step by step walkthrough and answers many questions with regard to applying and receiving a Temporary Residence Permit in Slovenia or abroad.
Make sure you pay attention to the attached checklist in resources!
This lecture provides a step by step walkthrough and answers many questions with regard to applying for a Slovenian visa from abroad.
Make sure you pay attention to the attached checklist in resources!
This lecture provides a step by step walkthrough and answers many questions about getting your car registered.
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