Lesson 2. Soft consonants: ď, ť, ň, ľ and de, te, ne, le

The mark ˇ over a consonant is the mäkčeň, the softening mark; on ď, ť, ľ it looks like an apostrophe. ď, ť, ň, ľ are soft: the middle of the tongue presses up, as for the y of “yes”. ď is d + y at once, ť is t + y at once, ň is ny in “canyon”, ľ is lli in “million”: ďakujem (thank you), ťahať (to pull), kuchyňa (kitchen), ľúbiť (to love). Before e and i, d, t, n, l are soft with no mark: de, te, ne, le — deň (day), teraz (now), nedeľa (Sunday), leto (summer); also di, ti, ni, li — ticho (silence). No mark is written: the softness is clear anyway. Before y they are hard, as in English: dy, ty, ny, ly — dym (smoke). That is what the y is for. Exceptions are hard although written te or de: ten (that), jeden (one), vtedy (then), and many borrowed words: telefón, tenis, moderný. In square brackets this course writes how a word sounds, with Slovak letters: [ď], [ť], [ň], [ľ] are the soft sounds, [c] is ts, [ch] is the rough h of “loch”, [ŭ] is a short u like the w in “now”. dedina — [ďeďina]. A long syllable isn't stressed: in lekár the stress is on le-, and -kár is just long. Common mistakes: • × “ďeň” in writing — before e the softness isn't written: deň. • × deň with a plain English d — before e, d is soft. • × a soft t in ty — before y it's hard. • × a soft t in ten — it's an exception.

All the other consonants are plain before e and i, as in English: pero (pen), mesto (town, city), bez (without). c is ts, as in “cats”: one letter, also at the start of a word, never k: cudzinec (foreigner). dz is ds, as in “adds”: one letter, one sound, with voice: medzi (between). dž is the j of “jam”: džús (juice). A single j is the y of “yes”, never the j of “jam”: jeden (one), ďakujem. č is ch as in “church”, š sh as in “shoe”, ž the s of “vision”: čaj (tea), šéf (boss), žena (woman). The checker doesn't see the mäkčeň: “dakujem” counts, and the answer key shows ďakujem. But y for i is another letter, and that's a mistake. Common mistakes: • × c read as k in cudzinec or práca — c is always ts. • × “ts” in two letters — the sound ts is one letter, c. • × a plain z for dz in medzi — dz is one sound, like ds in “adds”.