On Friday, I had a less than competent moment in my tutoring session. Adriana introduced a list of questions that I had to answer on the spot. Some of the questions included “Hovoríš po Slovensky?” (Do you speak Slovak) or “Kde je Bratislava?” (Where is Bratislava), relatively simple questions. The question that really tripped me up was “Kto je Zuzana Čaputová?” (Who is Zuzana Čaputová). We went over some professions our last lesson like “učitelka” (teacher) and “doktor” (doctor). So, when I saw the name, “Zuzana Čaputová”, I immediately thought that I needed to focus on some of the new professional vocabulary from our last lesson. With that thought, I said “Zuzana Čaputová je farmár” (Zuzana Čaputová is a farmer). I knew that the response was completely wrong the moment I finished the sentence. Unfortunately, I had mistaken the first female (and the current) President of Slovakia for a farmer. Adriana was very kind about correcting me, but I was so embarrassed to completely mislabel President Čaputová. Despite listening to Slovak current events podcasts and reading about the President, my brain majorly lapsed as I confused one of the most accomplished Slovaks for a farmer. I am just glad that I made that mistake in front of Adriana and not among strangers.
Despite this unfortunate incident, I really enjoy my Slovak lessons and study sessions. The fast-paced, one-on-one style of my tutoring lessons helps keep me engaged and actively challenges me. Most of these lessons are based around on-the-spot verbal language production as Adriana continually asks me to form sentences and answer questions. This language production allows me to practice my accent with Adriana offering adjustments for any mispronunciation. I really enjoy that these lessons are so engaging and not too focused on lengthy lectures. One of the biggest detriments to my past language experiences was long theory or grammar lectures with the teacher talking the majority of the time. These types of lectures kept me from actually understanding the material and applying it to my language production. I hope to continue to focus on lessons with constant verbal language production and avoid any lessons with too much grammar or theory.
One of my major tasks at the moment is learning numbers in Slovak. It is pretty humbling to dedicate my time to learning how to count, a task that I consider to be basic, almost child-like. Sometimes, I have to remind myself that I am starting from the very beginning with Slovak; I am currently operating at the approximate level of a toddler. Despite the intuitive nature of language, some skills and knowledge come with time and practice such as the ability to properly pronounce “ch” or understanding the complicated declension table. Even though these tasks can feel a little childlike, they are essential to properly speaking Slovak. Additionally, I have the advantage of identifying cognates between English and Slovak numbers while also understanding the relatively abstract concept of numbers, likely a challenging concept for toddlers to grasp.
In my previous language learning post, my goal was to focus on consuming Slovak media. I have mostly listened to two podcasts: “Slovakia Today, English Language Current Affairs Programme from Slovak Radio” and “Comprehensible Slovak”. “Slovakia Today” helps me stay informed with the current state of Slovakia (fulfilling my cultural competency goal) and gives me an opportunity to hear citizens speak Slovak with an immediate English translation. Additionally, “Comprehensible Slovak” helps me practice my listening comprehension with the podcast host speaking slowly and clearly. The podcast also comes with a transcript of the episode which helps in better deciphering the words. Listening comprehension is something that I have struggled with throughout my language learning experiences in Spanish, Danish, and Slovak. Due to my struggles with listening comprehension, my goal is to watch or listen to a program (15-30 minutes in length) twice a week in order to practice listening, focus on pronunciation and hopefully, pick up a few familiar words.
President Zuzana Čaputová (and not a farmer)
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