You will never learn Slovene

I've been reading Michael Manski's blog which is quiet amusing. As he is an expat in Slovenia he faces some everyday-life difficulties. One of the major problems is the Slovene language. I must admit its grammar is different and more complicated from that of most other languages. Especially English seems a lot easier to learn. To quote Michael: Learning Slovene is a long, hard road into Hell. I’ll tell you what’s tough: six cases, endless gender declensions, formal and informal divisions, the dual grammatical form — all of it spoken in 32 dialects that are further divided into 76 sub-groups. That’s my definition of tough.

To give you an Idea of what he meant he chose for an example the sentence:

Did you eat anything? - which pretty much covers every imaginable scenario. You can say that to a woman, to a man, to your pet hamster, to your boss, to a group of circus clowns, etc…

In a language like German (usually considered difficult to learn) you have three possibilities to express the same idea. You would say:

1. Hast du was gegessen? (informal)
2. Haben Sie was gegessen? (formal)
3. Habt ihr was gegessen? (plural)

In other words, German requires triple the possibilities to express the same idea. But note that the verb “to eat” (gegessen) remains the same in all three cases.

Now let’s take a look at Slovene, in which everything changes depending on the number of people you’re asking, as well as their gender AND if you’re using formal or not. Behold the possibilities:

1. Si kaj jedel? (one male, informal)
2. Si kaj jedla? (one female, informal)
3. Si kaj jedlo? (neuter form, informal)
4. Sta kaj jedla? (two males, informal or formal)
5. Sta kaj jedli? (two females, informal or formal)
6. Sta kaj jedla? (one male and one female, informal or formal)
7. Ste kaj jedli? (plural, as long as at least one male is present)
8. Ste kaj jedle? (plural, females only)
9. Ste kaj jedla? (plural, neuter form)
10. Ste kaj jedli? (formal, singular form, gender unimportant)

Nerd's eye view

Finally, the name has a face. I was very amused by this photo contest and I am curios if she will win.

I envy her for being in the US right now. The pictures of the low tide were absolutely stunning. I enjoy spending time outside and if such scenery is waiting for you almost in front of your doorstep even better. I believe she is rather there than here in Austria.

Expat blogs

I prefer to read a newspaper to discover some new private details of lives of strangers (mainly celebrities) to satisfy my curiosity. But blogging will do it also and the authors stories are probably more genuine anyway.

I will briefly present you the blogs- the people- I will follow:


http://www.drakkart.com/eire2/

Krystian Kozerawski is a polish emigrant who lives and works in Ireland. He is an all-around man having gained some experience as a foreign correspondent writing articles for a newspapers, in Computer Graphics and Web Design and as a TV Fixer besides having a M.A in Archaeology. His biggest interests are in guitar playing and the iron age. I believe I can learn a lot about living as a foreigner in Ireland and handling all the problems that can arise from reading his blog. It can give you a basic overlook of the Irish culture.



http://www.nerdseyeview.com/

The »nerd« is a young American woman who moved from Seattle to a small village in Austria- reason, love. She is a freelance technical writer and has very unusual hobbies as playing the ukulele and snowshoeing. Her writing skill are extraordinary what makes her blog fun to read. By following her online diary you can get a fairly realistic overview of the American culture colliding the Austrian culture- all the differences and similarities.



http://www.carniola.org/

Michael Manski hosts his own radio show at the RSI (radio Slovenia international). He moved from New York to Maribor, Slovenia, God knows why. If you want to know how it feels to emigrate to Maribor, Slovenia I highly recommend you to read this blog. Manski has a brilliant sense of humour and his descriptions of the Slovenian culture are accurate and genuine. To conclude, good fun!