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How to improve my czech learning? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| Volte Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 6437 days ago 4474 posts - 6726 votes  Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 9 of 14 26 January 2008 at 8:14am | IP Logged | ||
Italian grammar can be confusing at times, like the grammar of any other language. It doesn't strike me as particularly exceptional. Italian phonetics are fairly easy for English speakers; distinguishing and producing l/gl and n/gn, and rolling r's are probably the hardest parts. Italian grammar is easier for French speakers than English speakers, as both are romance languages, but it's easier yet for Spanish speakers. I don't think French speakers have an advantage over English speakers with the phonetics; both French and English are oddball languages in that regard. The subjunctive is used a little more in Italian than in Spanish, and some vocabulary is different, but they are extremely similar languages. I could understand a lot of Spanish (especially written, but even spoken) before I ever studied any, just through knowing some Italian. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| hradska Diglot Newbie Sweden Joined 6113 days ago 16 posts - 17 votes Speaks: Czech*, English Studies: Swedish | Message 10 of 14 31 March 2008 at 6:47am | IP Logged | ||
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I am czech and when I lived in Prague (for 1 year) I found myself a language exchange friend, (swedish) who was learning czech.
It was really hard to find a swedish speaker, but you should have no problems with English/czech exchange. I will be back to Prague in September, if you wanna practice little. My boyfriend is learning czech also, and he has improved a lot by talking to me all the time. It really is about practice and motivation. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| kyknos Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 5494 days ago 103 posts - 140 votes Speaks: Slovak, Czech*, English Studies: German, Spanish | Message 11 of 14 08 November 2009 at 11:30pm | IP Logged | ||
It is hard to believe. Some foreign language is mandatory in all schools (often two foreign languages) and English is the most popular choice since the Velvet Revolution in 1989. I would say that about 90% of persons younger than 35 years would know at least basics of English and many of them are fluent. It is almost impossible to study most fields at university or get IT or tourist industry job (Prague is IT and tourist industry city) without at least basic fluency in English. With older people English is less popular because Russian was mandatory in schools before 1989 and the number one western language was German (there was communist East Germany but no East England or East USA :) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Torbyrne Super Polyglot Senior Member Macedonia SpeakingFluently.com Joined 6093 days ago 126 posts - 721 votes Speaks: French, English*, German, Spanish, Dutch, Macedonian, Portuguese, Italian, Swedish, Czech, Catalan, Welsh, Serbo-Croatian Studies: Sign Language, Toki Pona, Albanian, Polish, Bulgarian, TurkishA1, Esperanto, Romanian, Danish, Mandarin, Icelandic, Modern Hebrew, Greek, Latvian, Estonian | Message 12 of 14 09 November 2009 at 9:34pm | IP Logged | ||
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Charles University offers intensive courses in Czech language. You can do a few of them during the course of the year to boost your knowledge of the language and move up through the levels as you go. There is also a year-long course designed to get you up to a level to be able to study in Czech. I have done both types of course and they are great. If you go into the university building at nám. Jana Palacha 2, you should be able to find some information (3rd floor if memory serves). Here is their website for more information: http://ubs.ff.cuni.cz/
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| Deniz Bilingual Heptaglot Groupie Czech RepublicRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6817 days ago 94 posts - 97 votes Speaks: Czech*, Slovak*, EnglishC2, German, Italian, Spanish, FrenchB2 Studies: Russian, Arabic (Written), Portuguese, Indonesian, Persian | Message 13 of 14 10 November 2009 at 11:26pm | IP Logged | ||
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It is really rather strange that you have not found czechs with decent knowledge of English. It may be just my entourage, but at least twenty of my good friends speak English so fluent they would pass for natives and none of them studies English as a major. It may be possible, that your accent in English is a little bit further from the standard taught in czech schools and you may speak too fast for the unaccustomed ear to get what you say in the beginning. If you want to communicate effectively, then just try to adjust you English as much to the standard as possible and slow down when speaking it. I know it hurts but it may help a lot. I must admit that you really surprised me with your problem. I thought the main issue when learning Czech was that it is really hard to find a Czech person whose English is worse than the learner´s Czech. There are some bars in Prague with a cool cosmopolitan atmosphere and I am sure you ll meet locals you can talk to. Try La casa blů (the bar from the film "Samotáři") or any of the Popocafepetls. Aloha is not bad either and the whole Žižkov and Vinohrady area is filled with bars, where you find a lot of university students.
Anyways, good luck with your Czech :) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| William Camden Hexaglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6270 days ago 1936 posts - 2333 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, Russian, Turkish, French | Message 14 of 14 11 November 2009 at 8:41pm | IP Logged | ||
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I have used Polish, German and Russian as fallback languages in Prague (there was less resentment of Russian than I detected in Poland). Although I don't know much Czech, I have sometimes been helped by its relative similarity to Polish and even Russian. I was once lost in the Moravian countryside but found my way back to my campsite because I could read a road sign that pointed the way to a castle next to it, working it out from cognate words in other languages.
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