Learning Slovak

I wrote this sometime in December and I wanted to share it, since I wrote it and never remembered to post it! I'd say I'm not nearly as frustrated as I once was with it, but only because I've changed my attitude to NOT stress about it:

Slovak is a beautiful language. I love to listen to it and try to speak it. However, it's absolutely one of the most difficult things I've ever tried to learn. It's so hard that sometimes I don't even TRY to speak to a Slovak because I know before hand it will be wrong! I know this is the wrong mentality but my fear of man's opinion has me in a bind here. For those of you wondering, I can understand much more than I can speak or write, mostly because it's easier to get the idea of a sentence from someone else than make it up from scratch yourself.

I think what makes it so difficult is that the endings on the words are always changing! For example, we have one word for Slovak. That can explain the people, places, the language, it can describe food, culture, etc. In Slovak though, the word for the Slovak language is Slovencina or Slovensky, depending on how you use it. The word for a male Slovak is Slovak, but the word for a female Slovak is Slovenka. The words Slovenska, Slovenske or Slovensky can be used as an adjective, for example, Slovenska Banka. The word for Slovakia itself is Slovensko and the plural for Slovaks is Slovaci So that gives you a peek into how words can change so much in this language.

I'm totally used to seeing billboards and signs in Slovak too, and it doesn't bother me much. Sometimes it's frustrating when I really need to know what it says, but normally I find it challenging to try and figure it out. I was thinking last night how odd it will be to see these things in English when I return to the States.

Praise: That God's given me the desire to learn and listen to this beautiful language.
Prayer: That God will give me the gift to learn and speak it.

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Again, I'd say that at this stage of my learning process I find it really fun and challenging. Everywhere you look here, you're involved in a sort of game to see how many pieces of the puzzle you know. When I first started I could say I recognized maybe 5% of the words I see regularly on billboards and menus and such. The longer I'm here, the more my percentage goes up and the more I recognize. I love that. I also just love getting better at it and love having Slovak being the first language on my mind other than English. For example, now when I want know what someone is doing, I first think or say "Co robis?" or "Kam ides?" (where are you going).

I would love to continue to learn Slovak even when I go home, as well as getting back into Spanish. Learning languages is challenging but fun!