Unfortunately, there is no general rule for word order, nor any "preferred" or "common" word order - usually the words in a sentence can be reorganized in several different ways (some combination are not possible, of course), and it is up to you which one you choose for a particular situation. Sometimes the word order determines what you want to emphasize in the sentence; some combinations may sound formal or old-fashioned or poetic... I think you will get to feel these things intuitively as you make progress with the language.MasterEnki wrote:Does Slovak have a particular word order / grammar rules for word order (like English, Spanish, etc.) or is it whatever someone wants?
If there isn't any rules for word order, is there a particular word order that the majority of Slovak-Speaking Natives use or prefer?
In English... "The red cat sat on the mat" is preferred, where as "Cat sat the red on mat the" would be considered really stupid and weird!!!
"Pes" is male, but if you don't particularly care about the gender, just use "pes" all the time... In that case your sentence would be "Dovidenia, veľký pes". To underline that you are dealing with a female dog, use "fena" or "fenka": "Dovidenia, veľká fena" (although I can't come up with a situation that would make me say that ).MasterEnki wrote:'Goodbye big dog' - Dovidenia veľka pes (The dog is female, is 'pes' accurate for both genders, or just male?)
MasterEnki wrote:'I am very strong and pretty - Som veľmi silný a pekný (I probably wouldn't use this in real-life, but is this the correct way to use Som = I form, present of byt'?)
No, this should be just plain old nominative.MasterEnki wrote:'Luke is my friend' - Luke je môj priateľ (is this correct, I think this is meant to be Genitive Case?)
These are possible:MasterEnki wrote:'I have a friend named Luke' - Ja mam priately volá Luke
That's exactly what I wanted to warn you about the first time I read those sentences about Luke Although "priateľ" was originally a perfectly neutral word for a friend, nowadays it takes more the meaning of a boyfriend. To avoid misunderstanding, use "kamarát" instead. ("Mám kamaráta, ktorý sa volá Luke.")MasterEnki wrote:I heard that in Slovak, you use different words depending on the Relationship (i.e. Friend, Lover, Boss, Stranger in Street, etc.)
Very similar: "priateľka" = girlfriend, "kamarátka" = friend. "I have a girlfriend named Sarah."MasterEnki wrote:Also how would you express this for a girlfriend?
This is a tricky one... There are many debates about how (and IF) foreign names should be declined. I usually try my best to avoid declining them at all by reorganising the sentence so that the name is in nominative So sorry, no response to this from me. Maybe someone else will dare try the declensions for "Luke".MasterEnki wrote:What is Luke in each Case? How does it look for Nominative, Genitive, etc.
qwerty wrote:Good to hear there's someone new who wants to learn Slovak!Unfortunately, there is no general rule for word order, nor any "preferred" or "common" word order - usually the words in a sentence can be reorganized in several different ways (some combination are not possible, of course), and it is up to you which one you choose for a particular situation. Sometimes the word order determines what you want to emphasize in the sentence; some combinations may sound formal or old-fashioned or poetic... I think you will get to feel these things intuitively as you make progress with the language.MasterEnki wrote:Does Slovak have a particular word order / grammar rules for word order (like English, Spanish, etc.) or is it whatever someone wants?
If there isn't any rules for word order, is there a particular word order that the majority of Slovak-Speaking Natives use or prefer?
In English... "The red cat sat on the mat" is preferred, where as "Cat sat the red on mat the" would be considered really stupid and weird!!!
To use your example, both "The red cat sat on the mat." and "On the mat sat the red cat." can be used in normal communication; several more combinations are not completely impossible, but would be considered copied from an old poetry book (e.g. "The cat red on the mat sat.").
This is a tricky one... There are many debates about how (and IF) foreign names should be declined. I usually try my best to avoid declining them at all by reorganising the sentence so that the name is in nominative So sorry, no response to this from me. Maybe someone else will dare try the declensions for "Luke".MasterEnki wrote:What is Luke in each Case? How does it look for Nominative, Genitive, etc.
I would definitely go for the second variant, i.e. "Lenkin dom", "Lenkina kniha", "Lenkino auto". There might be cases, though, when the first one is used almost exclusively, for example when the owner is represented by multiple words: "kniha Lenky Novákovej*", "dom mojej starej mamy" (my grandma's house).MasterEnki wrote:Just wondering, when describing ownership of something, which is more commonly used?
To je dom Lenky / kniha Lenky / auto Lenky OR
To je Lenkin dom / Lenkina kniha / Lenkino auto
Yes, pronouns are also declined. (Note: "čí" (="whose") is spelled with an accent on i; "či" means "whether".)MasterEnki wrote:I noticed that these are declined in all Cases, similar to adjectives (Pekny, Cudzi, etc.)
To give some examples of "aký" in different cases:MasterEnki wrote:I can imagine these in the Genitive:
akeho je Lenkin dom?, etc.
And the Locative:
akom je na zahrade?, etc.
But, I'm finding it hard to imagine real-life examples for these that are in Dative, Accusative and Instrumental.
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