Wednesday, July 1, 2009

Slovak Word of the Day 8: verný

verný adj. faithful

This one is designed to explain the comment on my earlier post that a translation is like a woman: ak je verná, nie je pekná, ak je pekná, nie je verná (if she is faithful, she's not pretty; if she's pretty, she's not faithful).

It's and easy word to remember because it is obviously related to veriť (to believe). It also calls to mind nevera (unfaithfulness), as in the Elán song Amnestiu na neveru (Amnesty for Unfaithfulness).

I'll come back to Elán when I can - in fact, it's remarkable that I have managed to write even this much about the Slovak language and culture without mentioning Slovakia's biggest rock band. I joke with my wife that 50% of the songs on Slovak radio are by Elán and I don't think that is much of an exaggeration. Fortunately their music is excellent, as well as being a brilliant source of Slovak idiom.

Incidentally, my wife's friends, who were already suspicious as to why rozvod came up earlier, will really be wondering what is going on now. I'm on the lookout for something cheerier for Word of the Day 9

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