kurent
“kurent” — kurent (carnival figure) in Slovenian. Noun, level A1. The bells weigh over twenty kilos — the round of the houses is hard work. In a live sentence: “Kurenti so prišli” — The kurents have arrived. You can hear how it sounds right here. A word from the everyday Slovenian course, level A1.
In short
| Written in Slovenian | kurent |
| Translation | kurent (carnival figure) |
| Part of speech | noun |
| Level | A1 |
- kurentkurent (carnival figure)
What it is
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.
This word does not reduce to a translation: the thing it names is not part of everyday life here, so a “translation” would end up a description in brackets. The easiest way to learn it is together with its surroundings — where you meet it and what it is for.
Why it looks that way
The bells weigh over twenty kilos — the round of the houses is hard work.
A word with a story stays in memory longer than one learned as a “spelling — translation” pair: memory holds on to meaning, not to a string.
In a live sentence
A single word almost never appears alone in conversation. A sentence shows where it fits and what stands next to it.
- Kurenti so prišliThe kurents have arrived
How not to forget this word
Reading a word and remembering it are different jobs. A day later, little survives of a single reading — and that is not bad memory, that is how memory works.
- This has been tested on foreign words too. The difference shows up most when you test yourself a few days later rather than straight away.checked many timesKim & Webb, 2022, Language Learning 72(2) · 48 experiments, 3,411 participants, 98 comparisons.
- Recalling beats re-reading. Covering the translation and trying to remember it does more than reading it ten more times.checked many timesAdesope, Trevisan & Sundararajan, 2017, Review of Educational Research 87(3) · 188 experiments, 272 comparisons. g = 0.61; against plain re-reading 0.51, against passive review 0.93.
- An answer you worked out yourself sticks better than one handed to you.checked many timesBertsch et al., 2007, Memory & Cognition 35(2) · 86 studies, 445 comparisons, d = 0.40.
Frequently asked
How do you say “kurent (carnival figure)” in Slovenian?
«kurent». In a live sentence: “Kurenti so prišli” — The kurents have arrived. You can hear how it sounds right on this page. Noun, level A1.
Why does this word look the way it does?
The bells weigh over twenty kilos — the round of the houses is hard work. A word with a story stays in memory longer than a “spelling — translation” pair: memory holds on to meaning, not to a string.
Can I hear how it sounds?
Yes, right on this page: click the word and it will play. The sound works on any phone, and nothing needs to be installed.