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Decided to learn Slovak? You’re in for exciting times!
Learning Slovak is helpful if you want to converse with Slovaks. But apart from Slovakia, this language is also spoken in some parts of Hungary, Serbia, and other countries where the Slovak diaspora can be found.
As a West Slavic language, Slovak is also closely related to Czech and Polish. If you plan to study these languages, knowing Slovak should also give you a leg up.
That said, if you’re thinking of learning Slovak through a well-known program like Rosetta Stone, I have unfortunate news for you: a Rosetta Stone Slovak course is yet to exist.
However, there are several Rosetta Stone alternatives for Slovak learners. So, fret not, you can still master this language!
What is Rosetta Stone?
Before we dive into our list, let’s first talk about Rosetta Stone and why it’s so popular.
Rosetta Stone was first released in 1992 as a CD-ROM program for Windows and Macintosh. Today, the company offers more digital solutions including its mobile app.
For three decades, Rosetta Stone has been teaching languages through its Dynamic Immersion method, which is a natural method of learning languages. Basically, it exposes you to the language before explaining all the rules (i.e., grammar) and without using translation or phonetic spellings.
In short, it’s the way we learn languages as children. Or, as foreigners in a land where Google Translate didn’t exist.
Rosetta Stone also has a superb voice recognition engine called TruAccent. This feature helps you perfect your pronunciation and accent through speaking drills.
For all its awesome features, Rosetta Stone is available in only 25 languages and the list sadly misses out on many Slavic languages.
The best Rosetta Stone alternatives
Since there’s no Slovak on Rosetta Stone, you can check out other Slovak learning apps instead. Here are the three that I highly recommend:
1. Mondly
Slovak isn’t on Duolingo but that doesn’t mean there aren’t any other gamified apps for Slovak learners. Mondly is one of your best options if you thrive in fun and challenging learning environments.
Through immersive games and exercises, Mondly teaches essential Slovak vocabulary. Grammar is not explicitly taught but demonstrated through context. You’ll also get lots of conversational drills that will improve your listening and speaking skills.
To keep you motivated, Mondly features learning stats and a leaderboard — perfect for competitive folks! Daily lessons that last for 5-10 minutes are free but it’s worth signing up for the premium version to unlock more content and features. Check out the latest Mondly promo here.
Key features:
- Short and fun lessons for learners of all levels
- Exercises focus on improving conversational skills
- Teaches relevant vocabulary
2. Ling App
The US Foreign Service Institute categorizes Slovak as a “hard language” to learn for English speakers. Of course, this is relative to every learner’s motivation and learning style. But if you’re looking for a surefire way to enjoy learning, I suggest using Ling.
Ling’s Slovak course includes a variety of engaging exercises, from quizzes and puzzles to sorting sentences. To help you hone your listening and speaking skills, you can also practice conversations with Ling’s chatbot.
Although the Slovak alphabet is not much different from most alphabets as it uses the Latin script, Ling’s finger-tracing exercises are helpful if you’re not used to diacritics. Plus, it gives you a well-rounded understanding of the language.
Key features:
- Interactive exercises that target all core language skills
- AI chatbot to practice conversations with
- User-friendly and game-like interface
3. Glossika
Learning Slovak using Glossika is an intuitive process, thanks to the app’s smart technology, adaptive learning algorithms, and structured content. Here, you learn by listening to massive amounts of full sentences, which makes vocabulary, pronunciation, and grammar acquisition more natural.
The platform offers two modes for adaptive learning: an intensive session that trains all core skills and a hands-free audio-only training that’s ideal when you’re driving or jogging.
Glossika employs spaced repetition and utilizes AI to make your practice more challenging as you improve. Audio quality is top-notch as it uses recordings from native speakers. Overall, a great app for improving your listening and speaking skills.
Key features:
- Over 3,000 Slovak sentences and phrases
- Natural way of teaching vocabulary, grammar, comprehension, and pronunciation
- Effective review methods based on SRS
Other great resources to learn Slovak
To achieve fluency in Slovak, or any language for that matter, you need to mix up your resources. Aside from the above apps, here are other tools you can use to learn Slovak:
Italki: Getting personalized coaching from a tutor is one of the best ways to quickly boost your Slovak skills. With italki, you can book affordable online lessons with a professional Slovak teacher or a community teacher. Discounted rates are available. You can also check out Preply for more tutor options.
Simply Learn Slovak: A phrasebook for travelers and students, this app has 1,000+ Slovak words and phrases in over 30 categories such as greetings, shopping, business, hobbies, health, and even dating! These words and phrases are recorded by a native speaker, allowing you to learn the correct pronunciations.
- Naughton, James (Author)
- English (Publication Language)
- 368 Pages – 08/01/2015 (Publication Date) – Routledge (Publisher)
Colloquial Slovak: The Complete Course for Beginners: This step-by-step coursebook teaches Slovak the way it’s written and spoken today. With clear instructions and relevant examples, this book presents essential vocabulary and grammatical points without jargon and fluff.
Beginning Slovak: A Course for the Individual or Classroom Learner: Although labeled for beginners, this book is best suited for learners who already know basic vocabulary and grammar. Each lesson consists of dialogues, reading materials, grammatical commentary, vocabulary, and a variety of drills focused on teaching day-to-day language.
Clozemaster: If you’re past the newbie stage and ready for something more challenging, Clozemaster is the app for you. Here, you can fill in the missing words in thousands of Slovak sentences while learning in context. Playing your way through vocabulary exercises and get fluent faster!
Slovake.eu: A free website for Slovak learners, this portal contains courses that comply with CEFR A1, A2, B1, and B2 levels. There are tons of exercises, tests, dictionaries, and grammar tips that you can access for self-paced studying.
Tandem: Learning languages need not be done in isolation. If you’d like to learn Slovak and make friends in the process, sign up for a language exchange partner on Tandem. With over 200 Slovak speakers in Bratislava alone, you’ll definitely find someone willing to teach you not just about the language but also the culture.
Learn Slovak With Stories: Ideal for intermediate and advanced learners, this YouTube channel teaches Slovak the natural way — by listening to fun stories in easy Slovak. While the vocabulary Pauli uses is simple, the videos don’t come with English subtitles so they might be hard for absolute beginners to understand.
Conclusion
By now, you should know that there are plenty of ways to jumpstart your Slovak learning journey, even if the language isn’t covered by Rosetta Stone.
With Mondly, Ling, and Glossika, plus other learning tools listed above, it’s just a matter of time before you move on from Ahoj and Maj sa to advanced Slovak expressions. Whatever resource you decide to use, remember to practice daily and have fun!