False friends: 'leto' means year
Half the basic vocabulary looks familiar from the first lesson — and that is exactly the danger. The words you feel you already know most often mean something else, and the thought of double-checking never comes. For example: “leto” — YEAR (summer is 'poletje'). A rule from the Slovenian course: worked out on examples, not memorized as a wording.
How it works
Half the basic vocabulary looks familiar from the first lesson — and that is exactly the danger. The words you feel you already know most often mean something else, and the thought of double-checking never comes.
The list below is worth learning before any other vocabulary: almost every row here is somebody's story about waiting a whole year (leto) for what turned out to be summer (poletje).
Table
| Slovenian | means | not |
|---|---|---|
| leto | year | summer |
| brati | to read | to take |
| mesto | town | place |
| hiša | house | hut |
| stol | chair | table |
| miza | table | — |
| obraz | face | image |
| hrana | food | protection |
| sadje | fruit | orchard |
| ponos | pride | — |
| vreden | valuable | harmful |
| pozor | warning | disgrace |
By example
- letoYEAR (summer is 'poletje')
- bratito read (to take is 'vzeti')
- mestotown (place is 'kraj')
How the rule settles in your head
A rule is not memorized from an explanation. It is memorized from an attempt to use it and a mistake — that is why the app delivers it mixed in with words, not as a separate lesson: it resurfaces exactly where you forgot it.
Frequently asked
Slovenian false friends?
Half the basic vocabulary looks familiar from the first lesson — and that is exactly the danger. The words you feel you already know most often mean something else, and the thought of double-checking never comes.
What leto means in Slovenian?
The list below is worth learning before any other vocabulary: almost every row here is somebody's story about waiting a whole year (leto) for what turned out to be summer (poletje).
Why stol is a chair and miza is a table?
The list below is worth learning before any other vocabulary: almost every row here is somebody's story about waiting a whole year (leto) for what turned out to be summer (poletje).
What does it look like in an example sentence Slovenian?
“leto” — YEAR (summer is 'poletje'). A rule is easier to test on sentences like this than to memorize as a wording: what surfaces in conversation is the sentence.