Slovene is a South Slavic language and the official language of the Republic of Slovenia. It is spoken by around 2.5 million speakers globally. Remarkably, it is one of the few Indo-European languages that retain the dual form alongside singular and plural. The Slovene language is taught at around 30 universities around the world (mostly in Europe).

Since September 2022, the National Taiwan University has offered two consecutive academic courses, "Slovene Linguistics and Culture I and II", with each lasting three hours weekly. The Slovene language is being offered for the first time at a Taiwanese university, making the course selection very unique. Designed for beginner learners, the course's curriculum encompasses foundational Slovene language structures, vocabulary, grammar, and an immersion into its culture, aiming to bring students to the CEFR A1 proficiency level. Requirements for successful completion of the course consist of regular attendance, weekly homeworks, mid-term and final exams, and final reports. Most of the students come from Taiwan and speak Mandarin Chinese as their native language.

This presentation will delve into the unique motivations driving Taiwanese students to learn this lesser-known Slavic language. Data on motivations to learn Slovene were gathered based on class observations, surveys, and social media responses. Preliminary findings suggest that the relatively homogeneous nature of Slavic languages is one of the factors that make the Slovene language interesting to study. There is an increased motivation to study Slovene among those students who previously learned other Slavic languages, or attended Slavic language summer programs, such as Slovak, Czech, and Polish language summer schools, supported by various national governments and the European Union. Furthermore, this discourse will elucidate strategies for invigorating student motivation to learn Slovene, and we will look at how this knowledge could be applied to encourage students to learn other less-known languages.