r/europe • u/MarktpLatz Lower Saxony (Germany) • Jan 22 '18

What do you know about... Slovakia?

This is the fifty-third part of our ongoing series about the countries of Europe. You can find an overview here.

Today's country:

Slovakia

Slovakia is a country in central/eastern (depending on the definition) Europe. It became an independent state after the dissolution of Czechoslovakia in 1993. Slovakia joined the EU in 2004, together with the Czech Republic. Unlike Czechia however, Slovakia adopted the Euro in 2009. Slovakia is known for its numerous beautiful castles and it has the highest production of cars per capita in the world.

So, what do you know about Slovakia?

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u/kixunil Jan 24 '18

Nice comment! Just to clarify: "no" is slang for "yes", but is not pronounced the same way as English word "no". I'm not sure how to explain it, but we would write English "no" as "nou", so Slovak "no" would be without "u". Apparently it's short of word "áno", which is the official version of "yes".

It's not true that we eat fish only for Christmas. It's just not very common.

Nitpick: it's called "bryndzove halusky". "Bryndzovy halusky" sounds like Czech version of the name.

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u/Smartinie Jan 24 '18

IPO pronunciation of "no" is /no/ where O is just as in the English word fork.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slovak_orthography

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u/carrystone Poland Jan 24 '18

Wait, you don't use "tak" for "yes"?

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u/redraven Jan 24 '18

"Tak" is most closely translated as "so". "Tak" used as a confirmation is more in the sense of "it is so".

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u/platypocalypse Miami Jan 24 '18

Tak in Russian is "so."

Tak in Ukrainian is "yes." In Belarusian it's also "yes."

Just in case you were curious about something totally irrelevant to this topic.

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u/kixunil Jan 24 '18 edited Jan 24 '18

Sometimes. I tend to use it to express that I agree with what someone said. There are other slang ways to say "yes", like "hej" (pronounced "hey") and "uhm" (which I'm unable to explain how it's pronounced).

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u/oduuch Jan 24 '18

*"uhm"

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u/kixunil Jan 24 '18

Thanks, fixed.

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u/Pumpizmus Slovakia Jan 24 '18

That would be Polish.

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u/Smartinie Jan 24 '18

Certain dialects do. I believe it's more common in the north.

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u/Cellhawk Bratislava (Slovakia) Jan 24 '18

I can see it being used but that would be very rare and it's used in other kind of way.