Ahojte!
Ako sa máte? Tu je všetko dobré.
I'm currently visiting my parents, or to be more precise - their dog. My parents are off travelling this weekend and I am having a loooong weekend from work. In a while I'll also need to defend my thesis. Then, what?
I'm quite happy about having been able to work on my Slovak this week. SJ (the main train operator in Sweden) had quite a chaotic week, which gave me loads of time to study Slovak.
The material that I use for my Slovak adventure is a book called Slovak for You by Ada Bohmerova. It's not the most interesting textbook I have seen, but it serves its purpose. I'm also carrying around on the Little Prince (Malý princ), attempting to read it once in a while.
My problem when it comes to Slovak is that I understand it. Is that a problem? It sure is! Because I understand quite a bit, I don't make much of an effort to actually memorize the Slovak version of words and grammar. The other day I was trying to put together some sentences, which was very hard as I intuitively wanted to use the Polish alphabet instead of the Slovak one. Silly me!
I believe that one can learn a lot by analyzing words and sentences. So, let's analyze the "Ako sa máte?"
sa - this is actually a reflexive formant, which belongs to the verb mat' (to have).
máte = they have.
Ja mám - ja nemám
Ty máš - ty nemáš
On, ona, ono má - on, ona, ono nemá
My máme - my nemáme
Vy máte - vy nemáte
Oni, ony majú - oni, ony nemajú
Ako sa máte? Tu je všetko dobré.
I'm currently visiting my parents, or to be more precise - their dog. My parents are off travelling this weekend and I am having a loooong weekend from work. In a while I'll also need to defend my thesis. Then, what?
I'm quite happy about having been able to work on my Slovak this week. SJ (the main train operator in Sweden) had quite a chaotic week, which gave me loads of time to study Slovak.
My problem when it comes to Slovak is that I understand it. Is that a problem? It sure is! Because I understand quite a bit, I don't make much of an effort to actually memorize the Slovak version of words and grammar. The other day I was trying to put together some sentences, which was very hard as I intuitively wanted to use the Polish alphabet instead of the Slovak one. Silly me!
I believe that one can learn a lot by analyzing words and sentences. So, let's analyze the "Ako sa máte?"
Ako sa máte? How are you?
Ako = how (compare with jak in Polish and как in Russian)sa - this is actually a reflexive formant, which belongs to the verb mat' (to have).
máte = they have.
Conjugation of mat' and nemát'
Ja mám - ja nemámTy máš - ty nemáš
On, ona, ono má - on, ona, ono nemá
My máme - my nemáme
Vy máte - vy nemáte
Oni, ony majú - oni, ony nemajú
And how to reply...
- Ďakujem, dost' dobre/celkom dobre. Quite well, thank you.
- Bohužiaľ, nie vel'mi dobre. Unfortunately, not too well.
- Dobre/ nie dobre. Well/ not well.
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