Struggles in Language Training

Hi again! So about a week ago I finished my Slovak language traning. We’ve been in Velky Slavkov for the past two weeks taking a crash language course in Slovak. Honestly, this language is INSANELY difficult, and it was a very frustrating few weeks…but I made it! People keep telling me that it’s one of the most difficult languages in the world to learn…(I don’t know if that’s true or not, but it seems like it could be). Nouns, pronouns, verbs AND adjectives change gender in Slovak!! There are four cases and seven declinations. After two weeks, I still can’t even tell you what a declination is. Whenever our teacher attempted to teach us about them, she just started laughing, along with the German girls, and was like “This is impossible. You don’t even know what this is, they don’t have declinations in English”. Pretty encouraging, haha! The training was helpful of course, but at the end of the two weeks I could only understand a few words of our “listening paragraphs”.

The training was pretty intense. We did four hours every morning after breakfast, and then usually did an hour or so in the afternoons or in early evenings. During our breaks we usually did some studying, and at night we worked on our homework assignments for the following day. Since we were in a small village, there wasn’t a lot to do during the days. We usually went for walks just to get exercise, and once in awhile we would take the train over to the neighboring city of Poprod to go to an internet café. Basically, it was a LOT of Slovak in a short time, and hopefully my brain absorbed more information than I think it did. I guess I will have to see, once I get to the point where I can speak in sentences and worry about tenses and things. Our teacher was a student who is living and studying at a University in Kosice, Slovakia (second biggest city in Slovakia, Eastern part). Zuska’s English is pretty good! She plans to become an interpreter in England after she graduates in a year. She was helpful with the language, and just general questions about the country. She introduced us to Slovak Superstar, which is Slovakia’s version of “American Idol” and it’s hilarious. We spent a few nights watching that, and a few other television shows, attempting to pick out words in Slovak. I will keep you updated also on how the language is going! More coming soon!