112 Bratisl Lek Listy 2007; 108 (2): 112  113 DEBATE AND EDUCATION Phonetic problems with Slovak in foreign students studying medicine in Slovakia Dzuganova B, Balkova D Foreign Language Department, Jessenius Faculty of Medicine, Comenius University, Martin, Slovakia Address for correspondence: B. Dzuganova, Dr, PhD, Foreign Lan- guage Department, Jessenius Faculty of Medicine, Comenius Univer- sity, Zaborskeho 2, SK-036 45 Martin, Slovakia. Phone: +421.43.4134982 Foreign Language Department, Jessenius Faculty of Medicine, Comenius University, Martin, Slovakia. dzuganova@jfmed.uniba.sk Abstract Nowadays more and more foreign students come to Slovakia to study medicine at Slovak universities. Besides specialized subjects studied in English they have to learn Slovak. The authors of this article have focused their attention to the most serious problems, the Slovak language causes to foreign stu- dents studying medicine at Jessenius Faculty of Medicine in Martin (Ref. 6) Full Text (Free, PDF) www.bmj.sk. Key words: pronunciation, consonants, vowels, diphthongs. The codified form of Slovak language has commemorated its 160th anniversary this year. The beginnings of it were very difficult. On the north-eastern edge of Habsburg Monarchy dur- ing revolutionary years of the 18th century also a small Slovak nation dared to ask for the right to use its own language at schools and institutions and a new codified version suggested by ¼udovit túr was successfully accepted by the Slovak public. At present Slovak is used not only by Slovaks and minorities living in Slovakia but also by resident foreigners. Hundreds of foreign students studying medicine in Slovakia study the language, too. In this article we would like to share our experience in teaching Slovak to foreign students at Jessenius Faculty of Medicine (Comenius University) in Martin. The language can be acquired in two ways: in a cognitive way (the way we learn our mother tongue) or in a rational way (the way we learn foreign languages). The best way how to learn a foreign language is to live in a country and to study its lan- guage at the same time. This is the case of our foreign students. During the first weeks of their stay the rational aspect of acquir- ing the Slovak language dominates. One of the first tasks in the class is to make our students acquainted with the Slovak alphabet and phonetic value of Slo- vak consonants and vowels because in English, which is used to communicate with foreign students, the phonetic value of con- sonants and vowels does not correspond with the phonetic value of their Slovak equivalents. It usually does not correspond with their native language, either. This causes the students problems in reading and writing. So for example the Norwegians have ten- dency to pronounce the phoneme o as Slovak u, e.g. Dobrý deò [dubry den], tudova [tuduvat], pracova [pracuvat], modrý [mudry], moný [muny], oèi [uèi] and the pronunciation of the Norwegian u and y corresponds with German umlaut ü, e. g. musím [müsim], kedy [kedü], vtedy [tedü], etc. The problem arises if there are two different words whose meaning depends on dis- tinct pronunciation of Slovak o and u as in modrý x múdry, moný x muný, oèi x uèí, etc. Under the influence of mother tongue or other languages the students tend to read Slovak ch as [è] or [], e.g. chata [èata/ ata], chlapec [èlapek/lapek], chlp [èlp/lp], chrbát [èrbat/rbat], chvi¾a [èvila/vila], chyba [èyba/yba], and the Slovak c as En- glish [k], or [s] according to the following vowel, e.g. cukor [kukor], noc [nok], vec [vek], cibu¾a [sibula], cesnak [sesnak], cesta [sesta], etc. Many students have also problems to distin- guish the phonetic values of Slovak h and ch, e.g. hladný x chladný, hutný x chutný, chorá x hora, chorý x horí, hýba x chýba, hodi x chodi that leads to meaning misunderstandings. The phonetic mistake, if not removed at the very beginning, of- ten becomes a spelling one later. Another very important part of phonetic side of Slovak lan- guage that requires special attention and training is the pronun- ciation of the palatalized consonants ï, , ò, ¾ and their syllabic