Textbooks for Slovene available? (Language Programs, Books & Tapes) Language Learning Forum

Textbooks for Slovene available?
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12 messages over 2 pages: 1 2

koba
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Message 9 of 12

18 March 2012 at 10:53pm | IP Logged

@Medulin: Yes, I guess the material available is scarce even in the languages of
neighboring countries, such as German/Croatian. I have found a course in Hungarian with
about 400 pages, but I'm not sure of the quality of it.

I have a question for those who used "Colloquial Slovene" (the 2nd edition). Given that
it's considered the best course for Slovenian, in what level would I be after I finish
it? (basing on the European Framework of Reference for Languages)
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Chung
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Message 10 of 12

16 April 2012 at 4:29pm | IP Logged

I got a private message about my impression of the new edition of Colloquial Slovene and finally got a chance recently to take a good look at it including working through a couple of chapters. For what it's worth, here's my reply minus certain comments targeted at user-specific questions in the PM.

****

Chung wrote:

It's much better than Albretti's courses and it reminds me of "Colloquial Czech" or "Colloquial Slovak" which I consider to be the better examples of the "Colloquial..." series (but by no means are these the best as I can think of even better courses than the best from "Colloquial...")

There are 16 chapters with each chapter having at least 2 dialogues/narratives (many have 3 dialogues/narratives) and some exercises. In addition many of the chapters have a dialogue recorded in more colloquial Slovenian since the author feels that the difference between standard and colloquial Slovenian is large enough to point it out to learners. The audio is clear and in addition to the dialogues/narratives, a few exercises from every chapter are recorded on the CDs. This course also shows stress placement in Slovenian words and the associated changes in 'e' and 'o' (basically 'e' under certain conditions is pronounced as a schwa while 'o' under other conditions can be "closed" or "open"). The notes on grammar and pronunciation are more enlightening than those in TY Slovene or the old edition of Colloquial Slovene.

I estimate that if you master the material in the course (i.e. to the point where you can fluently and reliably use Slovenian based on everything that the course teaches), your ability would be near B2. The biggest problem of the course is that it doesn't have as many exercises as I would like (basically each chapter has about 8 sections of exercises with 4 or 5 questions in each section. Unfortunately I don't know of any workbooks or sites full of exercises for Slovenian (although I'm sure that in Slovenia you could find something suitable for extra independent practice in addition to opportunities to work on your passive abilities by watching TV or hanging out with Slovenes).

As an aside, I was surprised by how much of the dialogues (even from the last chapter) I understood even though it has been several years since I was studying Slovenian.

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koba
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Message 11 of 12

17 April 2012 at 2:36pm | IP Logged

Thanks a bunch, Chung! I had started using the old Colloquial Slovene by Andrea
Albretti, but I have to admit I didn't really like the approach. It's like some Teach
Yourself editions I've had bad experiences with, the way the grammar is explained and
the vocabulary is given is very hard to work through.

From your review this new edition seems very good and I will see about getting hold of
this book. I have also purchased two French-based courses (Parlons Slovène and
Découvrir et parler le slovène) but as for now I can't really judge their quality since
they are at my other address.

Anyway, I also wanted to share a great online ressource to learn Slovenian:

http://www.e-slovenscina.si/login_snd_eng.asp

All you have to do is register to have access to the content.

Edited by koba on 18 April 2012 at 5:41am
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Expugnator
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Message 12 of 12

17 April 2012 at 3:48pm | IP Logged

Parlons Slovène is not actually a textbook, it's more like a beside reading - though useful!

Découvrir et pratiquer le slovène seems quite good, it's a bit like old-school textbooks with long dialogues, but they still cover actual, useful language. Works better when you have a slavic background, or maybe you should start with Colloquial then proceed to it.

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