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Learn Slovak Online in Just 10 Minutes a Day
You can now learn both Slovak and Czech with Mondly. Find out more about the history of the Slovak language and start your first lesson right now.
Exciting news, language learning aficionados from around the world! Your voice has been heard. You can now learn Slovak with Mondly.
Consisting of super fun, efficient and accessible language lessons, the new Slovak course is now available on iOS, Android and web.
The Slovak language in a nutshell
Slovak or alternatively Slovakian, is a West Slavic language of the Czech–Slovak group closely related to Czech, Polish, and the Sorbian languages of eastern Germany. Slovak is the official language of Slovakia and one of the 24 official languages of the European Union.
Not be confused with Slovene (or Slovenian), which is a South Slavic language, the Slovak language has been extensively influenced by Latin, German and other Slavic languages. In fact, according to Encyclopædia Britannica, there are traces of the Slovak language in Latin documents as early as the 11th century.
However, the earliest-known attempts to increase the use of written Slovak came in the 17th and 18th centuries, when the language was standardized and the first important books in and about Slovak appeared. Probably the most important among these were The Czech Grammar (1603) and Romuald Hadvabný of Červený Kláštor’s Latin-Slovak Dictionary (1763).
Slovak vs Czech – how similar are they?
As you probably already know, the sister language of Slovak is Czech (also available to learn in Mondly) because of their very high degree of mutual intelligibility. Meaning, if you already know one language you will probably understand a great deal of the second.
Czech and Slovak had long historic ties well before the creation of Czechoslovakia in 1918, a state which existed until 1993. Literary Slovak shares significant orthographic features with Czech, as well as technical and professional terminology dating from the Czechoslovak period, but phonetic, grammatical and vocabulary differences do exist.
To give you a better idea of their intelligibility degree, we could roughly describe the differences between Czech and Slovak by making parallels with British English and American English: different vocabulary here and there, false cognates, varied syntax, localized idioms, and different vocabulary and slang.
Other languages that share history and vocabulary with Slovak are Latin, German, Czech, Hungarian, Polish and Greek.
10 basic Slovak phrases and words you can learn right now
Are you excited to learn Slovak yet? Did you know that Slovak uses the Latin script supplemented with diacritics and has a total of 46 letters? It is the longest Slavic and European alphabet!
But let’s not waste any more time and start with your first Slovak lesson right now. Here are the top 10 basic Slovak words and phrases that will come in handy in virtually any interaction with a fluent Slovak speaker:
- Ahoj! – Hello!
- áno – yes
- nie – no
- Vďaka. – Thanks.
- Prepáčte. – I’m sorry.
- Ako sa voláš? – What’s your name?
- Volám sa… – My name is…
- Ako sa máš? – How are you?
- Skvelé! – Great!
- Dovidenia! – Goodbye!
Start learning Slovak today
It can be really tricky to master Slovak pronunciation if you don’t actively live in Slovakia. But with Mondly, the award-winning language learning app, you’ll have access to a unique, fast and highly efficient learning method that allows you to learn Slovak naturally with practical topics, authentic conversations and bite-sized Daily Lessons.
Get Mondly now and speak your first Slovak phrases today!
