Grammar

Nouns

Nouns generally end in a consonant or the vowel a, o or e. There is no article to distinguish a words gender or definiteness, meaning that bčela can mean “a bee” or “the bee” depending on the context. The plural isformed by placing i at the end of a noun the ends in a consonant or by replacing the final vowel with i, ex. muž “man” > muži “men”, psa “dog” > psi “dogs”, drevo “tree” > drevi “trees”, etc.

Adjectives and Adverbs

Adjectives and adverbs always go before the word they modify, ex. mali golub “small pidgeon”. Adjectives generally end in i, and adverbs are formed from adjectives by replacing the final i with an o, ex. božski “divine” > božsko “divinely”, božsko krasni “divinely beautiful”.

Comparatives are formed by adding vece before the adjective or adverb, ex. vece dobri “better”. The superlative is formed by adding naj- directly before the adjective or adverb, ex. naj-dobri “best”. “Less” istranslated with menje, ex. menje dobri “less good”, and the negative superlative isformed with najmenje, ex. najmenje dobri “worst”.

Adjectives can become nouns by describing to/ti with them, ex. zli to “the evil one”, zli ti “the evil ones”.

Personal Pronouns

• The third person gendered and pronouns (jego, ona) and neuter pronoun (ono) are optional.

Correlatives

• “Here” the prefixes tu and tam which express closeness and distance (this/that) but are optional. To is used when the closeness or distance of what is being pointed out doesn’t matter.
• The relative pronouns are the relative word under the “Which” column. To je dom, kde jego žive, “This is the house where he lives,” Včera bil den, kogda me peva, “Yesterday was the day when I sang.” The equivalent to the English “which” or “who” is koj, ex. Bobi, koj je tamo, “The beans which are there”, Muž, koj mlovi, “The man who is speaking.”

Numbers

The first 10 cardinal numbers are: 1 jedin, 2 dva, 3 tri, 4 čtiri, 5 pet, 6 šest, 7 sedme, 8 osme, 9 devet, 10 cet.

The teens are formed by adding na cet after the cardinal number: 11 jedin na cet, 12 dva na cet, 13 tri na cet, 14 čtiri na deset, 15 pet na cet, 16 šest na cet, 17 sedme na cet , 18 osme na cet, 19 devet na cet.

The tens are formed by adding cet at the end of the cardinal number: 20 dvacet, 20 tricet, 40 čtiricet, 50 petcet, 60 šestcet, 70 sedmecet, 80 osmecet, 90 devetacet.

The hundreds are formed by adding sto “hundred”: 100 sto, 200 dvasto, 300 tristo, 400 čtiristo, 500 petsto, 600 šeststo, 700 sedmesto, 800 osmesto, 900 devetsto.

The higher numbers are tisoč “thousand”, miljon “million”, miljard “billion”.

The first 4 ordinals have a particular form: 1st pervi, 2nd drugi, 3rd treti, 4th četverti. “Thousandth” also has a particular form: stoti. The rest are formed by placing i at the end of the cardinal number or by replacing the final vowel with i.

Verbs

The present tense for all persons and numbers is represented by the basic stem found in the dictionary, ex. Žena mlovi, “The woman is speaking,” Kot pride “The cat is coming.” Before going into the tenses and forms of verbs, it will help to go over the unique forms of the only irregular verb, je “be”. Its noun form (“being, existing”) is bitje, its future is bude, its imperative (used for commands and suggestions) is budejte, its past active participle is suči and its past is bil.

Verbal nouns are formed by adding nje to the end (ex. pride “come” > pridenje “arrival”), unlessthe stem endsin a, in which case one merely adds nje (ex. smeja “laugh” > smejanje “speaking”).

The future tense is formed by placing če before the verb, ex. Či ti če tancova s me? “Will you dance with me?” The imperative of verbs ending in i ifs formed by adding te to the end, ex. Ljubite me! “Love me!”; for all other verbs, it is formed by adding jte to the end, ex. pride “come” > Pridejte! “Come!” Prosim, mlovijte, “Please speak.”

The past tense is formed by placing an l at the end of a verb stem, ex. Me tancoval “I danced”, On bil ščestni, “They were happy”.

The conditional (used to talk about wishes and hypotheticals) is formed by placing bi before a verb’s past tense, ex. Me bi bil ščestni, či on bi bil sde, “I would be happy if they were here.” The past tense of the conditional is created by placing a bil before the bi, ex. Me bil bi delal to, “I might have done that.”

The present active participle is formed by adding or replacing final vowel with uči, ex. može “can, may”, > možuči “able, mighty”.

The past active participle is formed by adding vši to the end (dela “do”, delavši “having done”)

The present passive participle is formed by adding or replace the final vowel with omi (poče “begin” > počomi “(being) began”).

The past passive participle isformed by adding ni to the end, ex. blagoslovi “bless”, blagoslovini “blessed”.

Conjugation of Verbs Which End in i

Conjugation of Verbs Which Don’t End in i

Conjugation of je