Š š — eš
«eš» is a consonant of Slovenian, the “Gajica” script, read as “sh as in ship”. An ordinary sh. For example, in the word “štiri” — four. The Slovenian alphabet has 25 letters in total, and this character can be played right here. There is no “sh” combination in Slovenian: the hissing sound is always one letter with a roof. It appears, for example, in the word “ali govorite angleško?” — do you speak English?
In short
| Character | Š š |
| Name | eš |
| Sound | sh as in ship |
| What it is | a consonant |
In our course the character comes 20th of 25, its neighbours in the course are s and t, appears in 334 words of this site.
How it sounds
An ordinary sh
The character in a word
A lone character is hard to remember: memory holds on to meaning, and a letter has none. The word it stands in provides that anchor.
- štirifour
The character in the “three letters of its own” group
The little roof is called strešica — “a little roof”. Nothing else in the alphabet carries one.
Words with this character
How to remember this character
A single letter is the hardest thing to remember: memory has nothing to hold on to — a character has no meaning. A three-step loop works: see the character, try to recall the sound (for «eš» it is “sh as in ship”, as in the word “štiri”), see the right answer.
And come back to it the next day, not in an hour: a check a day or two later beats a check the same day. Nobody holds the whole alphabet — 25 letters — at once.
- It is better to test yourself the next day than at the end of the same session. That is why a word comes back to you tomorrow.checked many timesAdesope, Trevisan & Sundararajan, 2017, Review of Educational Research 87(3) · g = 0.82 when tested a day or two later, against 0.56 on the same day.
- Studying a little every day gets more into your head than spending the same total time in one sitting.checked many timesDonovan & Radosevich, 1999, Journal of Applied Psychology 84(5) · 63 studies compared, difference d = 0.46 — a sizeable figure for a learning effect.
Frequently asked
How does the Slovenian character š read?
As “sh as in ship” — it is a consonant of the “Gajica” script. An ordinary sh. For example, in the word “štiri” — four.
What is the letter š called?
Eš. A character's name and its sound are different things in the Slovenian script: it is called “eš” and reads as “sh as in ship”. Learn the second one: the name only helps when the alphabet is recited aloud.
What can š be confused with?
There is no “sh” combination in Slovenian: the hissing sound is always one letter with a roof. Similar characters are best studied side by side and deliberately compared: learned on different days, they stay separate and get mixed up at their first meeting inside a word.