Marta Pirnat-Greenberg. Colloquial Slovene: The Complete Course for 
Beginners. 2nd edition. London: Routledge, 2012. 313 pp.
This is one of sixty-five handbooks in Routledge’s Colloquial series. Because the first 
Colloquial Slovene by Albretti appeared in 1995, this book is labeled “second edi-
tion.” This is very misleading, for Albretti’s book has been largely rewritten and—to 
anticipate my comments below—enormously improved. The improvement was very 
necessary. Both the first Colloquial Slovene and Albretti’s (19981) Teach Yourself Slo-
vene language course are “not recommended” on the web page of the Society for Slo-
vene Studies;2 and Marta Pirnat-Greenberg (2004; hereafter MPG) in her review of 
the first Colloquial Slovene quite justifiably wrote: “Albretti’s textbook has too many 
factual mistakes to be recommended either for self-learning . . . or for the classroom 
setting. . . . It is particularly regrettable that Slovene did not get a competently written 
textbook in the widely popular Colloquial series, since for most English speakers who 
want to learn Slovene on their own, Albretti’s book is the only choice.” Indeed, in 
the early 1990s some non-English textbooks appeared (see Priestly 19943), but both 
still the only ones available in English were, unfortunately, Albretti’s, and because of 
their unreliability there was indeed nothing suitable that could be used by a speaker 
of English (apart, of course, from course materials such as those prepared in the 
Filozofska fakulteta for students studying there; see the Society for Slovene Studies 
web page referred to above). The brief sections in the booklets prepared for tourists 
and travellers by Hladnik & Hočevar (1994) and in Snoj (2005) are far preferable, 
but they do not pretend to actually teach the language. We can only be thankful that 
MPG has repaired this lamentable lacuna, for, while Albretti's book was in too many 
respects incompetent, the new Colloquial Slovene is, as far as I can tell (not having 
taught Slovene!—see below), a model of competence. 
 1 A second edition, revised by Natasha Stanic, appeared in 2006: this is probably an im-
provement, but I have not seen it.
 2 http://www.slovenestudies.com/index.php?lan=en&pg=l3&height=1080.
 3 This also reviews the egregiously, indeed risibly, weak English-language book by Carcas.
Ocene / Reviews
186 Slovenski jezik – Slovene Linguistic Studies 9 (2013)
The instructional part of Colloquial Slovene: The Complete Course for Beginners, 
which comprises sixteen lesson units, is preceded by a brief introduction on Slovenia, 
the Slovene language, and the use of the book (vii–xi), and a guide to pronunciation 
(1–5). This introductory material is followed by a grammar summary (239–54), a key 
to exercises (255–72), two-way glossaries (273–307), and a grammatical index. Each 
unit includes one, two, or three dialogues that present everyday situations, most of 
them in the life of an American visitor, Ben, who is in Slovenia to do research and 
lecture. Each of the first eight dialogues—which are livelier and more realistic than 
Albretti’s—is followed by an English translation, but the second eight are not; all in-
clude lists of new vocabulary, grammatical explanations (with the non-daunting label 
of “language points”), and a series of exercises. Some units also include “vocabulary 
building” sections, which combine important topics for visitors (e.g., transport) with 
their most relevant lexicons. Most also include reading passages, some of them realia 
from everyday life—business cards, advertisements, menus, and the like; some simi-
lar to Albretti’s “dialogues for comprehension”; and some of them short passages of 
cultural information (on, for example, Jože Plečnik, home remedies, the habit of of-
fering slippers to guests). Indeed, I was very impressed with the insights into Slovene 
culture afforded in these sections. MPG’s new version has a greater variety of content 
and more illustrations (but usually not good ones, see below) than Albretti’s, and 
together these features make interesting and informative changes of pace to the more 
formal pedagogical flow of the units. 
 The degree to which “colloquial” and “literary” variants differ varies greatly 
between languages. For Slovene, as MPG writes, “The gap between standard and 
everyday spoken language can be considerable” (ix). The blurb on the back cover 
of Colloquial Slovene glosses over this difference: “The course offers a step-by-
step approach to written and spoken Slovene,” without mentioning the existence of 
a written Standard Literary Slovene [SLS, zborni jezik] and both a spoken SLS and 
a spoken Colloquial Slovene [splošnopogovorni jezik]; hence, it is unclear which of 
these is the material of the book. The two good modern grammars of Slovene make 
this difference explicit. Herrity (2000, 3) states that “the aim of this grammar is to 
describe the standard language . . . [and] where necessary reference [is] also made to 
the colloquial standard.” Greenberg (2008, 13) likewise writes that “there is a wide 
gap in the structural characteristics of the written and spoken language.” Some col-
loquial languages have indeed been fully and properly described, especially those 
used in diglossic situations, where the difference between the written standard and 
the spoken is enormous and well-established; thus, most notably Colloquial Arabic 
in any of its manifestations (e.g., Levantine Arabic) and Demotic Greek  address this 
issue (for the Colloquial series books treating these, see McLoughlin 2009 and Harris 
1976, respectively). Czech, a language that exhibits well-known and well-described 
varieties, is also an interesting case because the language happens to be spoken in 
a country that is famous for its centuries-old tradition of first-class linguists. Note 
that Colloquial Czech by Naughton (1987) is a course book on spoken and written 
T. Priestly, Review of Colloquial Slovene  187
Standard Czech (spisovná čeština), which may be contrasted with spoken conversa-
tional Czech (hovo rová čeština) as described by Townsend (1990). Clearly, the books 
in Routledge’s Colloquial series are inconsistent about whether or not they are aimed 
at teaching colloquial languages. 
 The Slovene splošnopogovorni jezik is not as fortunate as the examples above, of 
course. A course book on Slovene, like one on any colloquial language that has not 
been fully described, has only one organizational option: namely, to base the materi-
als on the literary variant and, as often as is practical, point out the ways in which 
the colloquial variant differs from it. The dialogues in MPG’s book are by definition 
conversational, and they are indeed couched in a very everyday conversational style, 
but they are necessarily presented in the SLS orthography. MPG might have exempli-
fied the difference between zborni jezik and pogovorni jezik with special texts, as was 
done in Toporišič’s pioneering course book over forty years ago,4 and also in a chap-
ter following the last lesson unit in Routledge’s Colloquial Czech (Naughton 1987, 
172–76).5 Although such a section for a Slovene language textbook might have been 
a distracting—and perhaps even discouraging—diversion, the example in Colloquial 
Czech shows that it can also be very informative and extremely useful. Once learners 
acquire enough skill to begin conversing with live speakers, they may well be faced 
with having to understand examples of non-standard, real colloquial Slovene. What 
MPG does do, on the other hand—and what Albretti spectacularly failed to do—is to 
point out several salient examples of the colloquial usage: for example, vowel reduc-
tion (2), conversational words for greetings (9), a as opposed to ali to introduce yes/
no questions (15), ja rather than da for “yes” (16); and later, the use of the -t- exten-
sion in oblique cases of names like Marko (109). There are not very many opportuni-
ties for information of this kind, but MPG properly uses those that avail themselves.
 Two CDs accompany the book, that include (a) soundtracks for all the dialogues, 
some of the “language points” and vocabulary building sections, and all the read-
ing passages; and (b) other materials (see below). The book and the CDs may be 
bought separately, but are essential complements to each other. North Americans 
who use this course may be disconcerted that the English spelling and vocabulary 
in the book belong on the Western side of the Atlantic (colorful; elevator, highway, 
apartment block), but the English speaker on the CDs is British and has an “Estu-
ary English” accent. Moreover, not only may some of his pronunciations be strange 
for North Americans—for example, [rɪnéjsənts] rather than [rɛnɛsǽnts],6 but he 
 4 There is one conversation in zborni jezik, lesson 11, of Toporišič’s textbook, which is 
identical in pogovorni jezik in lesson 12, that has a page of explanation of the differences bet-
ween the two varieties (1969: 45, 50–51). Example: Če vam je vsèêno, pa vzemíte čŕnega vs. 
Če vam je vsèên, pa vzêmte čŕnga.
 5 In this case (cf. the preceding note), Naughton provides a separate full chapter in hovo-
rová čeština, with no opportunity for a direct comparison between texts in the two varieties.
 6 The speaker also uses [lóʷkətɪv] for locative. This pronunciation is not in the Oxford 
English Dictionary and is probably idiolectal.
188 Slovenski jezik – Slovene Linguistic Studies 9 (2013)
was not properly coached on how to enunciate Slovene proper names; hence An-
drej, Prešernova, Kreslin, Jože Plečnik, [the river] Reka are [ǽndrej], [prέšərnva], 
[krέšlɪn], [jóʷšɛ] plέčnɪk], [ɪrɪka]. Mistakes like these are more than simply discon-
certing: they may well be confusing.
 The dialogues on the CDs are faithful renditions of the printed dialogues; in 
them, Ben, the American character (who, admittedly, is described as speaking Slo-
vene well), and characters who are native Slovenes are read by a native speaker of 
Slovene: this may not be true to life, but it is a necessary choice. The commentaries 
on the CDs depart quite frequently, but never confusingly, from the written text; they 
often make neat complements to the written “language points” and sometimes add 
useful extra information. The exercises on the CDs include comprehension questions 
that are sensibly gradated—the earlier ones have prompts in and partial translations 
from English, while the later ones do not. Some of the other oral exercises are rather 
or very different from those in the book, but all are (as far as I can tell) well thought 
out and appropriate. Occasionally, however, these exercises are not well coordinated 
with the text. For instance, after unit 2, dialogue 3 (29–30) learners need to read 
the language points on pages 30–31 before being able to do the oral exercises that 
follow the relevant CD track, and they have to work out this sequence of tasks for 
themselves. Another example: in unit 3, the CD has a section on expressions of po-
liteness (track 35) preceding a list of numerals (track 36); in the book, these sections 
are reversed (they appear on pages 43 and 42, respectively). There are indeed some 
cross-references in the text to tracks on the CDs, but not enough; and none of the book 
pages are cross-referenced on the CDs.
 I have, apart from my regrets for the lack of a section exemplifying the pogovorni 
jezik, only a few negative comments. One is a simple assumption, and should not be 
considered a criticism: namely, that there do not seem to be enough exercises for the 
learner. Unit 4, for example, introduces the plural and dual morphology in nouns and 
adjectives, and also the “fleeting e.” Each point receives one exercise of eight and six 
lines each, respectively. Unit 6 introduces unidirectional versus non-unidirectional 
verbs and gives five examples; of these, only the unidirectional iti and leteti are prac-
ticed (not the non-unidirectional hoditi, letati) and the other three (peljati se/voziti se, 
teči/tekati, nesti/nositi) do not appear in exercises, except the form teče incidentally 
and occasionally in later units. In these two examples and elsewhere, there is simply 
not enough chance for learners to repeat and practice material. As mentioned above, 
I have not taught Slovene (but I have taught two other languages). Moreover, a book 
of this nature can be properly assessed only after extensive use (a) in the classroom 
and (b) for individual study; thus, any review can at this stage be only a preview. 
Further, this kind of handbook has extraordinary, but necessary, limitations: there is 
no space for the kind of exercises that language learners are subjected to in university 
classrooms and laboratories. This renders the author’s task of presenting material 
and providing opportunities for both acquisition and learning extremely difficult. For 
these reasons, although I detect insufficiencies, judgment must be deferred.
T. Priestly, Review of Colloquial Slovene  189
 Similar comments pertain to the extent of the grammar selected for instruction, 
and the order in which it is presented. All I can say is that the order appears very 
practicable, and the grammar selected (and summarized on pages 239–54) covers all 
the basic regular morphology, plus the most common exceptions, followed by a note 
on clitic order. Only those with extensive experience in teaching Slovene, or someone 
prepared to make a thorough comparison of different textbooks, can throw light on 
these two very important questions.
 I do have five criticisms, here listed in order from slight to serious: 
(i) Very occasionally, MPG’s non-native English is evident, as in, for example, 
“the singular forms of verbs are used . . . , like in the following conversation” 
(p. 13, substitution for “as in”); “going by the stairs” (p. 175, substitution for 
the much more common “going up [or, down] the stairs.”) 
(ii) One translation is, at best, misleading, namely one in unit 5, dialogue 2: the 
person paying the waiter hands him ten euros and says Je že v redu, and this 
is translated as “Keep the change.” In this context, this is what the phrase 
means, but the phrase v redu has not yet been introduced, and its meaning in 
other contexts deserves exemplification and emphasis.
(iii) In the entertaining “Letni horoskop” on page 161, under “Pomlad,” we read: 
flirtali boste bolj kot običajno. Nekaj časa boste sedeli na dveh stolih, kar se 
bo slabo končalo—na koncu boste obsedeli na tleh. Not only is obsedeti not 
glossed, but sedeti na dveh stolih is an idiomatic expression without an exact 
English equivalent. Learners will very probably wonder what “sitting on 
two chairs” means,7 and the phrase should have been explained. Since MPG 
makes the excellent point of warning learners against translating “word-for-
-word,” on page 57, the omission on page 161 is unfortunate. 
(iv) MPG finds no space to mention that the digraphs lj, nj are normally 
pronounced [n] and [l] in prepausal and preconsonantal positions. True, 
she tends to avoid vocabulary and grammatical features with lj, nj in these 
positions—other than a mention of Kranj on page 5 (and, it may be noted, on 
CD 1, track 10), I could not spot any other such words or any such features 
before the last unit (unit 16), where the –nj and –lj forms in phrasal words like 
zanj and comparatives, including daljši, manjši, are given in the language 
notes. I believe this point of pronunciation is too important to be omitted.
(v) Most seriously, the vast majority of photographs are, however well selected 
and appropriate, poorly defined and, quite simply, dull. The two that illustrate 
a trip to Maribor, for instance (the ancient vine and the water tower in Lent), 
are in several shades of uninteresting gray and can hardly attract visitors to 
that city. Maybe a second edition can repair this deficiency.
 7 Although, interestingly, “(to fall) between two stools” must surely derive from the same 
original idea, but how many speakers of English know this phrase?
190 Slovenski jezik – Slovene Linguistic Studies 9 (2013)
To offer what must be a preliminary assessment of the value of this course book—
since a reliable one can not yet be made, as I have stated above—I shall quote and 
comment [in square brackets] on the Routledge online description:8
“COLLOQUIAL SLOVENE is easy to use and completely up to date! [yes] 
Specially written by experienced teachers [sic!; singular required] for self-study 
or class use, the course offers a step-by-step approach to written and spoken 
Slovene [correct, but see my previous comments]. No prior knowledge of the 
language is required [true]. 
What makes COLLOQUIAL SLOVENE your best choice in personal language 
learning? 
Interactive—lots of exercises for regular practice [yes, given the space limita-
tions]
Clear—concise grammar notes [yes, concise and very clear] 
Practical—useful vocabulary and pronunciation guide [yes, precisely so] 
Complete [completeness is a vain boast for a book this compact; see my previous 
comments]—including answer key and reference section [yes] 
Whether you're a business traveller, or about to take up a daring challenge in 
adventure tourism, you may be studying to teach or even looking forward to a 
holiday—if you'd like to get up and running with Slovene this rewarding course 
will take you from complete beginner to confidently putting your language skills 
to use in a wide range of everyday situations.” [This is also true; what jars is the 
presumably formulaic, but in this instance misleading, phrase about the “daring 
challenge in adventure tourism:” it is very hard to imagine tourists returning 
from modern Slovenia with tales of derring-do.] 
In sum: MPG has done what Albretti so notably failed to do: she has designed and 
composed a textbook that lives up to its billing, and which can be unreservedly rec-
ommended to people who wish to teach themselves or others Slovene.
 8 http://www.routledge.com/books/details/9780415559829/
T. Priestly, Review of Colloquial Slovene  191
References
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NTC. 
Greenberg, Marc L. 2008. A Short Reference Grammar of Slovene. Munich: Lincom.
Harris, Katerina. 1976. Colloquial Greek. London: Routledge. 
Herrity, Peter. 2000. Slovene: A Comprehensive Grammar. London: Routledge.
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2nd rev. ed. Kranj: samozaložba.
McLoughlin, Leslie. 2009. Colloquial Arabic (Levantine) 2nd ed. London: Routledge.
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po-slovenski! (Russko-slovenski razgovornik), by O. S. Plotnikova; and . A Concise Gram-
mar of Slovene, by G. Carcas, Slovene Studies 16(2): 101–19.
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Prispelo avgusta 2012    Tom Priestly
Received August 2012    University of Alberta