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Czech - which books or courses? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes |  | |
| Alai Diglot Newbie Germany Joined 4990 days ago 3 posts - 3 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: Russian | Message 1 of 7 12 April 2011 at 11:56pm | IP Logged |
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I would like to start studying Czech, for personal reasons (travel, beauty of its sound, possibly reading literature). I would like to focus on reading and passive knowledge, speaking is not my priority, although I also not wish to neglect it entirely. I've never studied any language on my own before, so I'm eager to get advise on how to go about it. The only thing that could help me with it is my (rather restricted) knowlegde of Russian, but I am aware that amongst the Slavic languages Russian and Czech aren't the closest neighbours. Browsing along, there were two courses that caught my interest:
1) Czech step by step by Lída Holá (1 text book, 1 exercise book, 1 CD, grammar summary) 44 €, which could be followed by a second such set 2) Assimil - Czech with ease (1 book, 4 CDs) 99,80€ (I would use the German version of these courses). Has anyone worked with these courses and could tell me about them? Which other sources could you recommend? Any general advice on learning on my own? Also, the level on the Assimil course says it's A1 - B2, which seems a very large step to me. Can anyone certify that? (Opposed to that "Czech step by step" only covers A1, the next book A2.) Thanks in advance. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
 newyorkeric Diglot Moderator Singapore Joined 6378 days ago 1598 posts - 2174 votes  Speaks: English*, Italian Studies: Mandarin, Malay Personal Language Map | Message 2 of 7 13 April 2011 at 3:04am | IP Logged |
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You can start by looking a couple of threads down, at least at the time you posted, to see a thread about the Assimil course.
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| nuriayasmin Senior Member Germany Joined 5242 days ago 155 posts - 210 votes | Message 3 of 7 13 April 2011 at 7:50am | IP Logged |
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I'm mainly working with Langenscheidt's "Praktischer Sprachlehrgang Tschechisch" which I consider as pretty good. The main disadvantage is that it only covers A1-A2 while all the other Langenscheid courses take you up to B1.
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| Splog Diglot Senior Member Czech Republic anthonylauder.c Joined 5668 days ago 1062 posts - 3263 votes Speaks: English*, Czech Studies: Mandarin | Message 4 of 7 13 April 2011 at 2:49pm | IP Logged |
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I must have just about every book there is on learning Czech, and have used them all
(rather than just let them sit on the shelf). If your primary interest is reading, and you want to reach a pretty high level, I would recommend the two books in the Do you want to speak Czech? series. They give better grammatical descriptions than the books you have mentioned, and cover much more vocabulary. Another advantage is that they are available in several languages (e.g. English to Czech, Russian to Czech, German to Czech, and others). Audio CDs are also available for the books if you are interested. The only downside is that the two books require lots of hard study, since Czech is far from an easy language (some other textbooks pretend it is, and igmore the harder parts). Edited by Splog on 13 April 2011 at 2:50pm 5 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Wompi Triglot Groupie Germany Joined 4955 days ago 56 posts - 64 votes Speaks: German*, Spanish, English Studies: Czech | Message 5 of 7 09 June 2011 at 8:55am | IP Logged |
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I started about one year ago with "Assimil Tschechisch". I did it not the Assimil way but used shadowing and scriptorium.
I have finished the book about 2 month ago but I wouldn´t pretend to be B2 :) more an A2 - B1. I liked the book itself and it was fun, but there are also some constructs which I never would use in German. e.g. (Mlsny jako kotcka rika ... => Zu Deutsch: Schleckig wie eine Katze sagt ...)??? Never heard or said this in German :) A good point to start would be the Book2 lessons with shadowing. There you can download easy sentences in German and Czech. Afterwards, or if you have enough time you can start with Assimil. I am now at the level where I can do small talk with a czech, understand many things and have a solid basic vocabulary but thats it. If you want to read books afterwards like Harry Potter or Narnia there is still a long way to go. One disadvantage is that it is very hard to find sources and texts for learning which are intermediate. The best would be, like splog said, to buy books for Czechs learning German. I tried to find some texts for L-R Method but it is almost impossible because the grammar is very different from German. So I am trying to translate easy books on my own which is hard but not impossible. Although Czech is a very hard language I am happy that I started it and successfully finished the assimil book because now I like the language very much. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 5008 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 6 of 7 12 June 2011 at 4:05pm | IP Logged |
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I have recently gone through list of new books by Charles University (looking for something else) and there is at least one new textbook of czech for intermediate students. The one I've read about is called "Nebojte se češtiny" and as I've read it should cover both usual conversational situations and grammar and should be focused on current spoken czech but of course I do not have any personal experience with it.
There are as well bilingual texts German-czech and some are even graded readers but there are not many of those. I guess that the czech pages must be easier as well, if the German ones are. It's pleasant to read such nice things about my native language, thank you. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 5008 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 7 of 7 12 June 2011 at 4:54pm | IP Logged |
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I've looked in the list once more and found out I originally meant another and probably better book "Čeština pro středně a více pokročilé" by Bischofová and others. It is meant for learners who have already acquired level B1.
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