) tisícsto, (2,000) dvetisíc, (100,000) stotisíc, (200,000) dvestotisíc, (1,000,000) milión, (1,000,000,000) miliarda.
Counted nouns have two forms. The most common form is the plural genitive (e.g. päť domov = five houses or stodva žien = one hundred two women), while the plural form of the noun when counting the amounts of 2–4, etc., is usually the nominative form without counting (e.g. dva domy = two houses or dve ženy = two women) but gender rules do apply in many cases.
Verbs have three major conjugations. Three persons and two numbers (singular and plural) are distinguished. Subject personal pronouns are omitted unless they are emphatic.
Several conjugation paradigms exist as follows:
|volať, to call||Singular||Plural||Past tense (masculine – feminine – neuter)|
|1st person||volám||voláme||volal – volala – volalo|
|bývať, to live, dwell, but not exist||Singular||Plural||Past tense|
|1st person||bývam||bývame||býval – bývala – bývalo|
|vracať, to return or (mostly in slang) to vomit||Singular||Plural||Past tense|
|1st person||vraciam||vraciame||vracal – vracala – vracalo|
|robiť, to do, work||Singular||Plural||Past tense|
|1st person||robím||robíme||robil – robila – robilo|
|vrátiť, to return||Singular||Plural||Past tense|
|1st person||vrátim||vrátime||vrátil – vrátila – vrátilo|
|kupovať, to buy||Singular||Plural||Past tense|
|1st person||kupujem||kupujeme||kupoval – kupovala – kupovalo|
|zabudnúť, to forget||Singular||Plural||Past tense|
|1st person||zabudnem||zabudneme||zabudol – zabudla – zabudlo|
|vidieť, to see||Singular||Plural||Past tense|
|1st person||vidím||vidíme||videl – videla – videlo|
|minúť, to spend, miss||Singular||Plural||Past tense|
|1st person||miniem||minieme||minul – minula – minulo|
|niesť, to carry||Singular||Plural||Past tense|
|1st person||nesiem||nesieme||niesol – niesla – nieslo|
|stučnieť, to carry (be fat)||Singular||Plural||Past tense|
|1st person||stučniem||stučnieme||stučnel – stučnela – stučnelo|
|byť, to be||jesť, to eat||vedieť, to know|
|Past tense||bol, bola, bolo||jedol, jedla, jedlo||vedel, vedela, vedelo|
Adverbs are formed by replacing the adjectival ending with the ending -o or -e / -y. Sometimes both -o and -e are possible. Examples include the following:
The comparative of adverbs is formed by replacing the adjectival ending with a comparative/superlative ending -(ej)ší or -(ej)šie, whence the superlative is formed with the prefix naj-. Examples include the following:
Each preposition is associated with one or more grammatical cases. The noun governed by a preposition must agree with the preposition in the given context. The preposition od always calls for the genitive case, but some prepositions such as po can call for different cases depending on the intended sense of the preposition.
Main article: History of the Slovak language
Slovak is a descendant of Proto-Slavic, itself a descendant of Proto-Indo-European. It is closely related to the other West Slavic languages, primarily to Czech and Polish. Czech also influenced the language in its later development. The highest number of borrowings in the old Slovak vocabulary come from Latin, German, Czech, Hungarian, Polish and Greek (in that order). Recently, it is also influenced by English.
Although most dialects of Czech and Slovak are mutually intelligible (see Comparison of Slovak and Czech), eastern Slovak dialects are less intelligible to speakers of Czech and closer to Polish and East Slavic, and contact between speakers of Czech and speakers of the eastern dialects is limited.
Since the dissolution of Czechoslovakia it has been permitted to use Czech in TV broadcasting and during court proceedings (Administration Procedure Act 99/1963 Zb.). From 1999 to August 2009, the Minority Language Act 184/1999 Z.z., in its section (§) 6, contained the variously interpreted unclear provision saying that "When applying this act, it holds that the use of the Czech language fulfills the requirement of fundamental intelligibility with the state language"; the state language is Slovak and the Minority Language Act basically refers