Synalepha - Slovenian

[Synalepha]

Hello everybody. So, as my usual, I decided to jump to translating stuff even though I'm at the very beginning of my Slovenian journey. If you were so kind as to help me with these lines, I'd be very grateful to you.

Prva svetovna vojna¹, znana tudi kot vélika vojna, je bila² prva globalna³ vojna, ki se⁴ je začela 28. julija 1914 in je trajala⁵ do 11. novembra 1918. Vanjo so bili vpleteni vsi večji imperiji tistega časa ter njihovi zavezniki, zaradi česar je sprva majhen evropski konflikt na Balkanu prerasel v vojno svetovnih razsežnosti⁶

1) The masculine of prva is prvi, but I wasn't able to find the masculine of svetovna, what is it?
2) Is je bila like has been in English (but with bila declined for person/gender/number)? What's the infinitive?
3) What's the masculine? Globaln?
4) What's se?
5) I'm pretty sure it means "has lasted" but for some reason I can't find the infinitive, if I enter "trajati" in the dictionary, it gives no results
6) The highlighted part escapes my comprehension. Feel free to give as many explanations as you wish about this part, I know it's quite a lot of stuff.

[Ashucky]

Oh my, a post in the Slovene forum, what a delightful surprise I hope your Slovene journey takes you a long way.

1) The masculine of prva is prvi, but I wasn't able to find the masculine of svetovna, what is it?

The masculine form is svetoven (-en is the default ending for the vast majority of qualitative adjectives).

2) Is je bila like has been in English (but with bila declined for person/gender/number)? What's the infinitive?

That's just our good old friend biti "to be" (present sg: sem, si, je; past sg: sem bil/bila, si bil/bila, je bil/bila/bilo).

3) What's the masculine? Globaln?

The citation (=masculine) form is globalen (see #1).

4) What's se?

A reflexive pronoun (part of the reflexive verb začeti se "to begin", which is the intransitive variant of začeti).

5) I'm pretty sure it means "has lasted" but for some reason I can't find the infinitive, if I enter "trajati" in the dictionary, it gives no results

I've no idea what dictionary you're using but trajati is the correct infinitive.

6) The highlighted part escapes my comprehension. Feel free to give as many explanations as you wish about this part, I know it's quite a lot of stuff.

Oh boy ...

Vanjo so bili vpleteni vsi večji imperiji [...] - "All the major empires were involved in it [=the war]" (they key phrase here is biti vpleten v "to be involved in", and then the pronoun njo (accusative of ona "she") merges with the preposition v "in", producing vanjo)

ter njihovi zavezniki - "and their allies" (ter = in "and")

zaradi česar je sprva [majhen ... konflikt ...] prerasel v [... svetovnih] razsežnosti - "because of which [the] initially [small ... conflict ...] became/turned into [... of global] proportions" (zaradi česar "because of which", česar is the genitive form of the relative pronoun kar "what, which"; sprva "at first, initially, originally"; prerasti v "to become, to turn into" (prerasti without the preposition means "to outgrow" (imperfective: preraščati), a perfective form of the imperfective verb rasti "to grow"); razsežnost "dimension, expanse".

[Saim]

EDIT: Oops, I see Ashlucky has beaten me to the punch!

1) The masculine of prva is prvi, but I wasn't able to find the masculine of svetovna, what is it?

Svetoven (indefinite), stetovni (definite). [svetôven]

Don't worry too much about the difference between definite and indefinite adjectives, the distinction only exists in the masculine nominative singular.

2) Is je bila like has been in English (but with bila declined for person/gender/number)? What's the infinitive?

Je bila is she was or has been. Bila is declined for person and number (feminine, singular). The infinitive is biti [bíti]. The present tense conjugation follows a different pattern from different etymology: (singular) sem, si, je, (dual) sva, sta, sta, (plural) smo, ste, so.

Not to be confused with bíti - to beat, which conjugates as bȋjem, bȋješ.

3) What's the masculine? Globaln?

Quite a good guess since the vowel here is epenthetic and the root is indeed "globaln-".

The masculine singular nominative is globalen or globalni. [globálen]

4) What's se?

It's a reflexive pronoun for all persons and numbers.

In this specific case začéti se is the intransitive equivalent of the transitive začéti.

Začela se je vojna - the war started.
Začeli so streljati - they started shooting.

5) I'm pretty sure it means "has lasted" but for some reason I can't find the infinitive, if I enter "trajati" in the dictionary, it gives no results

Which dictionary? The Slovar slovenskega knjižnega jezika has it.

https://fran.si/iskanje?View=1&Query=trajati

6) The highlighted part escapes my comprehension. Feel free to give as many explanations as you wish about this part, I know it's quite a lot of stuff.

Vanjo so bili vpleteni vsi večji imperiji

vanjo - in her (i.e. in the war). The unemphatic accusative form would be "jo", njo is the form used with prepositions: vanjo, nanjo. The masculine or neuter equivalent would be vanj.

vpleteni - entangled, intertwined, involved. From vplesti se.

Večji is the comparative form of velik.

All the larger empires were entangled in it.

ter njihovi zavezniki

ter - and, as well as
njihovi - possessive form of "oni" (they).

zaradi česar je sprva majhen evropski konflikt na Balkanu prerasel v vojno svetovnih razsežnosti

Zaradi means for the sake of, because of and activates the genitive.
Česar is the genitive form of kar (which). "Due to which".

Sprva - at first, initially.

Prerasti (prerástem) - to grow into. To grow is rasti, rastem.

vojna svetovnih razsežnosti - a war of global dimension, magnitude

razsežnost means dimension (SKSJ gives dimenzija as a synonym although I'm not sure to what extent this is used)

[Synalepha]

Thank you both for the treasurable info, it's really helpful for a beginner like I am.

Oh my, a post in the Slovene forum, what a delightful surprise I hope your Slovene journey takes you a long way.

I hope the delight won't turn into boredom because it's likely I'll post quite a lot on here. You can also read my Slovenian blog on the TAC forum.

Which dictionary? The Slovar slovenskega knjižnega jezika has it.

https://fran.si/iskanje?View=1&Query=trajati

That dictionary seems great but it's monolingual and I still need a bilingual one, so I downloaded one from playstore but it's far from being a good dictionary.

[Ashucky]

I hope the delight won't turn into boredom because it's likely I'll post quite a lot on here.

Most definitely not! I'm a linguist and explaining a language's quirks is my favourite thing

That dictionary seems great but it's monolingual and I still need a bilingual one, so I downloaded one from playstore but it's far from being a good dictionary.

You may want to look at Pons. It's the best online dictionary for Slovene (it also offers many language combinations, including Italian <> Slovene).

razsežnost means dimension (SKSJ gives dimenzija as a synonym although I'm not sure to what extent this is used)

Razsežnost can be used to mean "dimension" in pretty much any context, but it's a more standard/literary term than dimenzija. For example, the correct translation of "3D" or "three dimensions" is tri razsežnosti, and a "3D display" would be called trirazsežnostni prikaz (but the colloquial/spoken equivalent would be 3D prikaz or tridimenzijski prikaz). Most commonly, however, even in the spoken language, razsežnost corresponds to "proportions/magnitude" in English (a slightly emphatic usage, though).

[Synalepha]

Most definitely not! I'm a linguist and explaining a language's quirks is my favourite thing

Blessed be the name of the Lord lol. So I don't have to pester him for grammar explanations. xD

You may want to look at Pons. It's the best online dictionary for Slovene (it also offers many language combinations, including Italian <> Slovene).

Thanks!