Slovenian words that do not translate
A dhow, a kottu roshi, a khachapuri — words a dictionary can only give as a description in brackets, because the thing is not part of everyday life here. All such Slovenian words are collected here: 42 words with an explanation of what it is and what it is for.
Words and what stands behind them
A summer camp on a high mountain pasture where cattle graze and cheese is made from June to September. The herd coming down at the end of summer — kravji bal — is celebrated with music and dancing.
A beekeeper hut where the hives stand in rows set into the wall, with entrances opening outward through painted boards. Beekeeping is so universal in Slovenia that World Bee Day was established at its proposal.
A dry, gusty northeast wind rolling off the plateau toward the sea. It reaches two hundred kilometers per hour, flips trucks and closes roads. It is also the wind that dries prosciutto.
A pork sausage, cooked and smoked, pinned with a wooden skewer, with an EU-protected name. The recipe is fixed: pork, fat, salt, garlic, pepper — and nothing more. Eaten with horseradish and mustard.
Shrovetide carnival week before Lent: schools and offices go in costume, and in Ptuj fur-clad kurents in horned masks parade the streets. It ends with the burning of an effigy.
A mid-September festival of driving the herd down from the high pastures: the cows come down wearing wreaths and bells, and music, cheese and dancing wait below. Literally "cow ball" — the official name, not a joke.
A coffeehouse in the Austrian style: newspapers, pastries, tables on the embankment, and the unspoken right to linger over one cup as long as you like. Ljubljana’s kavarne along the river are busy in any weather, winter included.
A pastry of two sheets of puff pastry with custard and whipped cream between them, cut into strict squares. The Bled recipe has been fixed since 1953 and unchanged; it is eaten looking at the lake.
A light, sour wine from Dolenjska — the only one in the world legally made by blending red and white grapes together. Low in alcohol, high in acid; people drink a lot of it and do not treat the tartness as a flaw.
The coat of arms of Ljubljana and the four figures on the Dragon Bridge of 1901. Legend says Jason slew the dragon here while sailing past with the Argonauts. Locals joke that the dragons wag their tails when a girl crosses the bridge.
A wooden hay-drying rack: a row of posts with horizontal cross-poles between them, under a roof. The wind blows through, the rain cannot reach. Nothing like it exists anywhere else in the world, and it counts as a symbol of the country.
A thick soup of soured turnip or cabbage, beans, potatoes and smoked meat. From the coast and the Karst. Cooked long and eaten in winter; on the second day it is considered better.
A pork leg salted and air-dried on the bora wind, never smoked, for a year or longer. The wind and the limestone air of the Karst make the flavor — elsewhere the same recipe comes out different. The name is protected.
A holeless doughnut with apricot jam inside and a light band around the equator — the sign it floated in the oil correctly. Eaten at Carnival, when they are counted in the millions.
A figure dressed in sheepskin with a horned mask, a long red tongue and a belt of five cow bells. It goes from house to house and drives winter away with its noise. Walking as a kurent is a man’s job and an inherited right.
The carnival in Ptuj, where hundreds of kurents and other masks gather from all around. It runs for ten days before Lent and is considered the largest ritual carnival between the Alps and the Balkans. On the UNESCO list.
A glacial lake with the only island in the country, a church on it and a castle on the rock above the water. Visitors reach the island on flat-bottomed pletna boats rowed standing up. In the church they ring the wishing bell.
An unofficial emblem of the country. The linden is considered the Slovenian tree — villages once held their assemblies beneath it — and the leaf appears on aircraft, goods and tourist marks.
A horse breed bred since 1580 at the stud farm in Lipica. Foals are born dark and lighten to white by about age seven; the Spanish Riding School in Vienna performs on them.
Coffee with plenty of hot milk, served in a tall cup — the standard breakfast. Not a latte and not a cappuccino: the ratio is closer to half and half, with no foam on top.
The highest mountain of the country, 2864 meters, with three peaks — hence the name. It sits on the coat of arms and the flag. A belief says every Slovenian must climb it at least once, and many take that seriously.
A blind, pale cave amphibian, nicknamed the "human fish" for its flesh-colored skin. It can live up to a century, skip eating for years, and is found only in the karst caves of this region.
A painted board on the gable of a hive: a saint, a village scene, or a tall tale like "the women shoeing their old husband". They helped the beekeeper tell the hives apart — and left behind folk painting of the 1700s and 1800s.
The look of central Ljubljana conceived and built by a single architect, Jože Plečnik, between the wars: bridges, the market, the embankments, the library, the cemetery. Listed by UNESCO as one designed whole.
The genre heard at every village fair: diatonic accordion, clarinet, baritone and double bass, songs about mountains, love and wine. Created by the Avsenik brothers’ ensemble in the 1950s and spread across the whole Alps.
A karst cave over twenty kilometers long, toured by an underground train since 1872. Inside are halls of stalactites, an underground river and the olm, bred there.
A roll of thinly rolled yeast dough with filling, coiled and baked in a round mold with a tube in the middle. More than eighty fillings exist: walnut, tarragon, cottage cheese, cracklings. Baked for Christmas and Easter.
A pie of eight layers in strict order: poppy seed, cottage cheese, walnut, apple — all twice, between sheets of pastry, soaked in cream. The name is EU-protected and the order of the layers may not be changed.
February 8, a state holiday of culture marking the death of the poet France Prešeren. Museums are free and state prizes are handed out — a rare national day devoted not to war or independence but to poetry.
A thick barley stew with beans, root vegetables and smoked meat. Once soldiers and workers food, now on menus as a home dish. A spoon should stand in it — otherwise it is merely soup.
A village competition in homemade salami: households bring their own, the jury tastes blind and awards places. Held in winter after the pig slaughter, and the victory is discussed until the next one.
November 11, the day when young must traditionally turns into wine. An excuse for feasts all over the country: goose, red cabbage, pancakes and the first wine of the new vintage. A secular feast, though named after a saint.
Rolls of thin dough with filling, coiled and boiled in water or baked. More than a hundred fillings: cottage cheese with tarragon, walnut, apple, buckwheat. Served as a side to meat or as dessert.
A dark wine from the Karst, pressed from the refošk grape that grows on red, iron-rich earth. Nearly black, sharply acidic, high in iron — it was once prescribed as a cure for anemia.
A limestone plateau between Trieste and the Vipava Valley, riddled with caves and sinkholes. The word "karst" in every language of the world comes from its name: the phenomenon was described and named here.
The river through central Ljubljana, which sinks underground seven times in the karst and surfaces again. The embankments and bridges along it follow Jože Plečnik’s design, and thousands of objects from the Bronze Age to Rome have been raised from its bed.
Prešeren’s 1844 drinking song whose seventh stanza became the anthem. It wishes peace to all nations rather than victory to its own — rare among anthems — and its stanzas are printed in the shape of a wine glass.
A double hayrack: two rows of posts joined under one roof, with a deck and a room between them. A cart stands below, hay lies above — in essence a barn grown out of a drying rack.
A tavern with home-style cooking, often family-run in the same house the owners live in. Not a restaurant and not a cafe: a short menu, big portions, an inexpensive set lunch. A village usually has one, and it doubles as the meeting place.
A village party under a canopy: a live brass band, beer, sausages and dancing till morning. It is put on by the fire brigade or a sports club, and the proceeds go to them. In summer there is a veselica in some village almost every weekend.
A place to drink wine by the glass and buy bottles to take away, with a bite of pršut and cheese on the side. In a country with twenty thousand winemakers it is an ordinary meeting spot, not a connoisseur rarity.
A stiff porridge of buckwheat or cornmeal, scalded with boiling water and broken with a spoon into rough lumps. Poured over with cracklings or milk. Poor everyday food that became the emblem of home cooking.
Why such words are in the course
These are a language's ID marks: they cannot be translated because the thing they name is not part of everyday life here, and they are exactly what you hear on day one. There are few of them on purpose — 42 words out of 4051 words in the course. A course where every seventh word is a local curiosity would teach local studies, not a language.
Every word here has its own page, with pronunciation, a look at the spelling and an example of use.
Frequently asked
Why can't these words simply be translated?
A translation assumes the thing exists here too and is just called differently. Not in this case: “a dhoni is a boat” is true and useless — there are many kinds of boat, and a dhoni is known by its tall curved prow and by being the only way between the islands. An explanation answers the question about the thing, not the word.
Do you have to learn them?
Not before everything else. But you will meet them early: local food is offered on the first day, and a festival is named without explanation. Knowing what stands behind a word is more useful than being able to translate it.