tajosto Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 4658 days ago 54 posts - 64 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Czech
| Message 1 of 60 04 March 2012 at 4:37pm | IP Logged |
Hello, I recently moved to Czech Republic, and started learning Czech on my own a few months ago. I'm hoping
that keeping this language learning log will help increase my consistency and motivation with learning. I've been
making slow progress, probably because it's my first time learning another language (not counting Latin in high
school), so I've been floundering around quite a bit, trying to figure out which methods work best for me. I'm so
happy to have discovered this forum, which seems to have a great, supportive communitiy and many resource
suggestions!
Methods tried so far:
• Using InternetPolyglot to learn vocabulary. Works well when I'm in the right mood, and I appreciate the
combination of images, sounds, and written word. But I'm mostly trying to learn vocabulary in context these days
rather than just memorize isolated words.
• LiveMocha: I found the community aspect wonderful, particularly the way that submitting writing and speaking
is worked into the lessons, and that feedback from native speakers very quickly. However, the content of the
actual lessons, at least for Czech, was unclear at times, and actually seemed to be completely incorrect for some
lessons. So, although I am tempted to go back for the community, I'm not keen on learning incorrect material.
• LingQ: I appreciate the reading and listening aspect, but find that the lessons are too unstructured and random,
at least for the beginning Czech category.
• Teach Yourself Czech, Czech Step by Step. I didn't much like either of these books, but I really like Colloquial
Czech and am waiting to get the audio CD in the mail.
• book2: I just got the book, audio, and the iphone app, and really like them.
• Watching Czech movies and television and adding vocabulary and sentences into Anki. Also doing this with
Czech music. My favorite learning method so far! :-)
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hribecek Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 5350 days ago 1243 posts - 1458 votes Speaks: English*, Czech, Spanish Studies: Italian, Polish, Slovak, Hungarian, Toki Pona, Russian
| Message 2 of 60 04 March 2012 at 6:01pm | IP Logged |
Welcome!
I'm very pleased to see another person learning Czech, they're very rare here. I hope you're here to stay.
I've been learning Czech off and on for about 6 1/2 years and have lived here for about 4 1/2 years or so. Obviously I'm no native and there are a few here who can help you, but I'll be glad to help you too if I can. I'll be following your log closely.
I used "Chcete mluvit česky" and "chcete ještě lépe mluvit česky" as my main textbooks, but they´re kind of boring for most people, very thorough though.
Have you tried "Czech Step by Step"? It´s a lot more user friendly and popular than the books I used.
I also mainly learned having one-on-one conversation exchange classes and mixing with Czechs as much as possible.
The "My Czech Republic" website is also useful and has a few helpful experts there. That´s on www.myczechrepublic.cz.
Hodně štěstí!
Edited by hribecek on 04 March 2012 at 6:03pm
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Splog Diglot Senior Member Czech Republic anthonylauder.c Joined 5670 days ago 1062 posts - 3263 votes Speaks: English*, Czech Studies: Mandarin
| Message 3 of 60 04 March 2012 at 6:06pm | IP Logged |
tajosto wrote:
Hello, I recently moved to Czech Republic, and started learning Czech on my own a few months ago.
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If you are in Prague, then I have a mountain of learning resources I can pass on to you. I have been in Prague for 7 years now, and learning Czech was a long uphill battle. Stick with it, and you will get there. The number one mistake is giving up.
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tajosto Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 4658 days ago 54 posts - 64 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Czech
| Message 4 of 60 04 March 2012 at 7:31pm | IP Logged |
@hribecek and @Splog, thanks for the encouragement and suggestions! I'm happy to find other Czech students and
speakers, and will be in touch if I have any questions. :-)
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tajosto Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 4658 days ago 54 posts - 64 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Czech
| Message 5 of 60 07 March 2012 at 7:14pm | IP Logged |
I've been busy with work and travel planning, but have kept up with my SRS reps in Anki (though I haven't added
new content in about a week.) I've been using the book2 iphone application quite a lot, listening to lessons during
the day while working, cooking, etc, and listening and sort of "shadowing" while taking a walk. I find the book2 app
quite smart in terms of being able to test content, select "hard" content for listening from multiple lessons, etc. And
certainly listening to it over and over is getting it into my consciousness: this morning I woke up thinking "Líbí se
vám tady?" One other fun thing I did was learn to sing "Happy Birthday" in Czech for my boyfriend. :-)
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squonk Groupie United States Joined 4747 days ago 44 posts - 60 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Irish
| Message 6 of 60 07 March 2012 at 7:28pm | IP Logged |
Ahoj,
Proč ses stěhovala do České republiky? Kvůli zaměstnání?
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buchstabe Tetraglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4703 days ago 52 posts - 108 votes Speaks: German*, EnglishC2, French, Spanish Studies: Czech, Swedish, Japanese
| Message 7 of 60 07 March 2012 at 11:11pm | IP Logged |
I too found "Chcete mluvit česky" a bit dull, but I liked the 2nd volume for the numerous examples and all the lists (which might put off other folks).
I like learning words in semantic sets and I didn't find any thematic dictionary for Czech when I started, so the vocabulary lists came handy.
Later (after not having studied / used Czech for more than 3 years) bought the German edition of Step by Step to freshen up my knowledge, but I have to admit I didn't follow
through. (Yet.)
There are some "Čeština pro cizince" exercise books out there that you could check out if you'd like to have more material. I personally have one from PONS (Desetiminutovky -
Čeština pro cizince). The exercises are mostly intermediate level, I'd say.
The author of Step by Step published a new textbook last year for which they have a preview online:
http://www.czechonlinetutor.com/ce1.html
http://www.czechonlinetutor.com/ce2.html
There are free exercises and flashcard sets (výukové karty) available online for the new books as well as for "Step by step 2":
czechonlinetutor.com.
Looking out these links I found a book focusing on Czech conversation and aiming at B2
level: Czech for Life
I'll watch out for that one for next time I'm in the Czech republic because the description sounds very interesting to me.
Other resources I like:
SoundCzech (English; learn idioms through songs)
Bob a Bobek (children's series - probably not for everyone :) )
Edited by buchstabe on 11 March 2012 at 9:11pm
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tajosto Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 4658 days ago 54 posts - 64 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Czech
| Message 8 of 60 28 March 2012 at 12:50am | IP Logged |
@squonk:
Jsem se přestěhoval do České republiky, protože z mého přítele, a protože o práci. :-)
@buchstabe:
Thanks for all the ideas and suggestions; the intermediate resources well definitely be useful to me later on. Right
now, Colloquial Czech and book2, combined with online media are holding my interest fairly well.
Learning update: I've been traveling, but have tried to keep up with SRS reps and listening to book2 material. Now
that I'm a little more settled again, I've been working through the first unit of Colloquial Czech, doing the exercises,
as well as typing and repeating the dialogues. For fun, I've been listening to the first Harry Potter audio book and
following along in the English text. I've been pleasantly surprised at how many words are familiar to me!
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