Azerbaijani to Slovenian: a shared we can hide a pair or an entire group
Count the people behind biz
Azerbaijani biz means we without a separate dual pronoun. Slovenian distinguishes two participants from a larger group, so the source pronoun may leave a grammatical decision unresolved. A sentence about travelling together needs the actual group size before the target pronoun and verb can be selected.
Greenberg’s Slovenian grammar distinguishes midva from mi for dual versus plural reference, with gender-related forms in the paradigm too. An Azerbaijani message from two colleagues should not automatically receive ordinary plural agreement merely because its source pronoun has the same form used by a larger team.
The dual distinction can spread through the sentence. A target pronoun indicating two people must cooperate with the appropriate verb and other agreeing forms. Changing the pronoun while leaving the remainder in a larger-group pattern does not fully translate the number information once the actual participants are known.
Two people can include or exclude the listener
Azerbaijani biz can mean the speaker and listener or the speaker and other people. Slovenian dual number alone does not settle that issue either. It tells the reader the group contains two, but the identity of the companion still needs to come from the sentence or context.
The documented Midva z Miranom greva v Lendavo means that Miran and the speaker are going to Lendava. The named companion clarifies who belongs to the pair. This is useful for translating an Azerbaijani travel arrangement: a short source we should not accidentally invite the listener when the intended companion was someone else.
In a meeting message, preserve any explicit Azerbaijani companion expression rather than discarding it because the target already contains a dual pronoun. The pronoun carries number, while the companion phrase identifies the other person. These are different pieces of information, and the reader may need both.
A destination, a wish, and a present journey remain different
Azerbaijani Mən poçta getmək istəyirəm expresses wanting to go to the post office. A Slovenian translation must retain the desire rather than turn it into an assertion that the trip is underway. The target’s appropriate number form cannot compensate for a changed action or time.
Both languages use case marking, but Slovenian prepositions and predicates determine their own required noun forms. Azerbaijani suffixes marking a destination should be interpreted through that relationship before the target phrase is formed. Copying a source case name into a target grammar rule can obscure whether the person is going somewhere or already located there.
Finally, Azerbaijani has no grammatical gender, while Slovenian agreement can require it in relevant forms. A source reference that leaves participants unidentified may therefore need more context. For a translated plan, verify the actual pair or group, whether the listener belongs to it, and the intended journey stage. Those checks preserve the practical arrangement behind the source pronoun instead of treating we as one invariant word across both languages.
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