# Slovenian: Happy Labour Day!



## Saipal

Hi!

I have tried to construct this sentence in Slovenian using different dictionaries:_- Happy International Labour Day, comrade!_ (communist)​This is what I came up with:_- Vesele mednarodni praznik dela, tovariš!_​1. Is it correct? (male/female form)
2. What would be the right thing to say? (male/female form)


[Added]
Some interesting posts regarding the Slovenian use of comrade (_tovariš, _tršica/tovarišica):_forum.wordreference.com/showpost.php?p=917130
__forum.wordreference.com/showpost.php?p=900110_​


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## skye

It should be:

vesel mednarodni praznik dela, tovariš

As far as I can remember I've never heard people congratulate each other on labour day, even though google proved me wrong as it found some results. 

But I called my teachers in elementary school tovariš and tršica too. It's not used any more. Now teachers are just teachers or professors.


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## Saipal

Thanks a lot, Skye! Your quick reply gave my confidence a further boost.

Yes, I can imagine Slovenians have some issues with that particular titulation and the holiday itself. Norway hasn't got that much baggage, and is by some considered to be the last remaining communist state (sarcasm). Labour Day has "always" been big here.

For your further information, my sentence was delivered this morning with great irony and success (only one little spelling error and a gender fault, it seems) to a Sloveninan living in Norway, thus having some understanding of the local culture/sarcasm.


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## skye

I guess some people wouldn't like it, but it's not very common to say it otherwise either. Even in the past when we had parades and everything it wasn't common to say this to another person (like you would for new year). At least I don't remember it. 

Anyway we still had the traditional "wakening march" in our town this morning. The local "brass band" marched around town and played music. They woke me up at 8.45, but they started playing at 7.00 already. It was a pretty small group this year considering how big our band is.


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## Saipal

Great :-D

The really Big brass band and children parade day here is on May 17 (Constitution Day). Today we just have cannon salutes, speaches, political parades and singing of the Internatianal Socialist Anthem and other socialist songs... he he.


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## Tolovaj_Mataj

Hi,
may I return to the initial request once again?

I've never heard using the word "international" in the greetings for the Labour Day. I'm a bit older than Skye, but I still remember what we were tought in school decades ago.
The greetings were usually like these:
Živel 1. maj!  /I forgot. Read this as: živel prvi maj!/
Živel praznik dela!
Naj živi 1. maj, praznik dela!

Etc.

The word "vesel" (happy) was never used in these greetings. Nonono!
Emotion like happiness has nothing in common with worker's revolutionary attitude and aspiration for better working conditions.  


Let me add something about celebrating. In my part of the city I'm never awoken by "budnice" - brass band march songs. I usually listen to them when I go up there to the Rožnik hill where our city celebrates this holiday. These marching songs are partizan and revolutionary songs from the WWII and of course there's also the Intl. Socialist Anthem.

But this morning I was deeply disappointed because there was no such music at all. There was only "turbo folk" music - Skye knows what I mean - in that three quarters of an hour when I was there. I didn't wait for the official ceremony which usually starts in the mid-morning, too much time to wait for some boring speeches of the mayor and trade-unions representatives.

But traditional carnations were still there.


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## Saipal

Very interesting account, indeed, Tolovaj. So may I ask, since my dictionary won't answer, what these words mean in the above context:_ Živel,  Naj živi_​


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## skye

It's something like "long live". 

What I meant in my previous posts is that I've never heard people say anything to each other, like you do on New Year's eve, when you say Happy new year to each other. I've never heard anyone say Happy labour day to another person. As far as I remember "Živel prvi maj" was only on signs, boards, official speeches and so on.


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## skye

Tolovaj_Mataj said:


> Let me add something about celebrating. In my part of the city I'm never awoken by "budnice" - brass band march songs. I usually listen to them when I go up there to the Rožnik hill where our city celebrates this holiday. These marching songs are partizan and revolutionary songs from the WWII and of course there's also the Intl. Socialist Anthem.
> 
> But this morning I was deeply disappointed because there was no such music at all. There was only "turbo folk" music - Skye knows what I mean - in that three quarters of an hour when I was there. I didn't wait for the official ceremony which usually starts in the mid-morning, too much time to wait for some boring speeches of the mayor and trade-unions representatives.
> 
> But traditional carnations were still there.


 
Well, our town is small, so the brass band can manage to walk the entire settlement by noon (they stop at two points I think). And there aren't any speeches either. Maybe we had them in the past, but I don't remember. 

Turbo-folk? That's a shock. Our band plays traditional songs, not too many partisan songs, and I'm not quite sure about the anthem either (cause they choose whatever they think appropriate from their playlist), but they certainly don't play anything like turbofolk.


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## Saipal

Ha ha Tolovaj, "Long live": That's a great one! Thanks a lot! )


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## Saipal

And thank you Skye and Tolovaj, for all the help I have received on this first day of membership in the forums. Appreciate it! In return I have helped out in the Norwegian forum. Seems like an interesting place to check in regularly for a language geek like me 
_ Živel praznik dela!_​


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## skye

It is a nice forum and you can usually get help pretty quickly. Especially at the English only section.

I'm not often here during the week, mostly at the weekends, but there are quite a few other Slovenian members, so someone is bound to reply.


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