Slovene – pronunciation

by David Robertson ~ 10-Dec-2009

Slovene

Slovene pronunciation guide. (Taken from “Slovenian for Travelers” with kind permission from the author, Miran Hladnik).
The Slovenian language has 25 letters. It does not have the letters W,Q,X,Y but it does have three others. These are Č, Š and Ž. The mark above the letters is called a strešica or “little roof”.

A	Father or but	M	Mom
B	To be	N	Nothing
C	Switzerland	O	Horn or hot
Č	Chocolate	P	Path
D	Day	R	Road
E	Bed, fat or the	S	Seven
F	Far	Š	Shock
G	Garage	T	Taxi
H	Spanish Juan or Scottish loch	U	Soon
I	See or hit	V	Vase
J	Yes or hey	Z	Zero
K	Kick	Ž	Pleasure
L	Left

L and V at the end of a word or before another consonant are pronounced like the English W.
D and Ž together are pronounced like English J.
Slovenian has some words that have few or no vowels. They are easier to pronounce than you might think e.g. the mountain Krn sounds like Kern and vrh (summit) sounds like ver.