Teach Yourself Slovene

I had ordered a used copy of Teach Yourself Slovene off Amazon a while back.  I'm not planning on going beyond what this book teaches, so should be interesting to see how far I get.  You could call this a side project.  :)
  
Slovenia used to be part of Yugoslavia, but the language is considered different enough not to be grouped with Serbian, Croatian and Bosnian.  I'm still not clear on whether Bosnian is considered a separate language.  I do have a Bosnian dictionary, but it could probably just as easily have been labeled a Serbian or Croatian dictionary.

Of course like most language books, pronunciation is gone over first.  This part feels rushed.  For instance, they don't tell you how the letter C should sound.  I've been pronouncing it like "ts" just because that's how it's typically pronounced in other Slavic languages, but maybe Slovenian is different?  I don't have the recordings, so will have to look online to fill in the details.

Flipping through the book I could recognize some words, so having at least a limited knowledge of Serbian will be helpful to an extent.  One thing I've heard about that makes Slovenian stand out is the dual number thing.  They mention this in the introduction, like a heads up.  It sounds easy enough on the surface: one = singular; two = dual; three or more = plural.  I guess the hard part is just a matter of remembering to use dual when you instinctively want to use plural for two things or people, and of course learning an extra set of case endings.
  

This book didn't get very good reviews on Amazon, but there really aren't many resources for learning Slovenian, so it's better than nothing, at least to get started.  I did notice a typo right away in Unit 01. The dialogue has Izvoil! while the vocab list has Izvoli!  Anyway, it means "Here you are!" when being handed something.  

The book itself seems pretty thin.  Only 184 pages in all, and that includes the introduction, exercise key, appendix and word list.  I could be surprised to find it's actually packed with a lot more than it looks.  To confuse myself even further, maybe I'll tackle this together with my Teach Yourself Serbian and two copies of Teach Yourself Serbo-Croat.

Serbian and Croatian in One

I just ordered the FSI Serbo-Croatian course on Etsy (the books only.)  It seemed like a rare find that I couldn't pass up.  They were published in 1965 & 1968.  Funny how Volume 1 is so worn compared to Volume 2.  Maybe the previous owner was really gung-ho, then gradually lost interest, barely touching the second volume.  I'm always curious to know the history of these old language books I have: Who owned it?  Why did they choose that language?  Did they make much progress?, etc.  Anyway, this course is available online as well, but I prefer having the actual texts, though the recordings will be helpful.

Serbo-Croatian Resource

A Handbook of Bosnian, Serbian and Croatian begins with a short introduction, then jumps into the geography and history of each country and how that history influenced various aspects of each respective language.  I found it interesting to learn about the different paths these countries took and understanding how those paths shaped their cultures.  Dialects are briefly touched on here, and again more extensively toward the end.

Before going on, I should note that despite my title choice for this post, the term "Serbo-Croatian" isn't used anymore.  If wanting to learn any of these languages, the best option is to focus on either Croatian or Serbian.  Learning materials for Bosnian specifically are pretty hard to find.  I checked on Amazon and all I found were a couple of Bosnian-English dictionaries.

Back to the book...

The sound system is covered next.  If you're not into the technicalities of it all (which I admittedly am not), the details can be a tad overwhelming.  Teach Yourself Serbian goes over the most common examples of spelling changes and the sound changes that result in a way that's much easier to take in.  Fortunately, Serbian is very straight-forward when it comes to pronunciation.  The idea is one letter, one sound, and that applies whether reading Cyrillic or Latin.

It's made known from the beginning there really aren't many differences in the grammar of these three languages.  In this segment, which is the longest, all are basically treated as one language with specific distinctions made only when necessary.  I'm weird, I like grammar.  Not in that totally unbending way some people get caught up in, but more because I'm fascinated by the way other languages operate.

We then learn all about vocabulary.  Here is where the languages are said to differ the most.  Examples are given along with a few categorized wordlists.  One thing I've noticed is there seem to be quite a few words for one thing.  I've looked up words in Serbian and have been surprised and confused by the many translations that appear. 

Finally, there's a short reading text that's literally translated with the part of speech or case listed under each word of the translation.  For a language where articles don't exist and case expresses certain things we would use separate words for in English, I found this to be very helpful.

To sum up, this little book is good for anyone seriously studying these languages, but needlessly technical for the casual learner.  I consider myself somewhere inbetween.  The "serious" part of me found myself highlighting facts that the "casual" side of me had wondering, 'What in the world are you gonna do with that info?'  Due to the technicalness - not sure that's an actual word, but we'll just pretend it is ;) - it would perhaps be most appealing to those interested in the linguistics of the Balkan region.

After going over this booklet, I am now more inspired to practice my Serbian, and will hopefully start adding posts to my Serbian language blog soon.  :)