Past tense: the -l participle plus sem, si, je
The past is assembled from two parts: the -l participle and the present of 'to be'. delal + sem — I worked. English keeps only one piece ('worked' carries everything); Slovenian keeps both, and the little helper can never be dropped. For example: “Lani sem bil v Ljubljani” — Last year I was in Ljubljana. A rule from the Slovenian course: worked out on examples, not memorized as a wording.
How it works
The past is assembled from two parts: the -l participle and the present of 'to be'. delal + sem — I worked. English keeps only one piece ('worked' carries everything); Slovenian keeps both, and the little helper can never be dropped.
The participle, like the English '-ed' form, knows gender and number: bil sem — said by a man, bila sem — by a woman. And of course it knows two: bila sva — the two of us were. For three or more it's bili smo.
The helper is an unstressed word, so it obeys the second-place rule. Hence the order that seems odd at first: Lani sem bil v Ljubljani, but Bil sem doma. Whatever stands first is first, and sem squeezes in right behind it.
Negation fuses, as you already know from the present: not 'ne sem bil' but nisem bil.
Table
| a man | a woman | |
|---|---|---|
| I was | bil sem | bila sem |
| you were | bil si | bila si |
| he / she was | bil je | bila je |
| we two were | bila sva | bili sva |
| we were | bili smo | bile smo |
| you were (polite) | bili ste | bile ste |
| I was not | nisem bil | nisem bila |
By example
- Lani sem bil v LjubljaniLast year I was in Ljubljana
- Včeraj je deževalo ves danYesterday it rained all day
- V soboto sva šla na tržnicoOn Saturday the two of us went to the market
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
Past tense: how does it work in Slovenian?
The past is assembled from two parts: the -l participle and the present of 'to be'. delal + sem — I worked. English keeps only one piece ('worked' carries everything); Slovenian keeps both, and the little helper can never be dropped.
What does it look like in an example sentence Slovenian?
“Lani sem bil v Ljubljani” — Last year I was in Ljubljana. A rule is easier to test on sentences like this than to memorize as a wording: what surfaces in conversation is the sentence.