nuriayasmin Senior Member Germany Joined 5246 days ago 155 posts - 210 votes
| Message 1 of 9 24 December 2010 at 7:38pm | IP Logged |
Can anyone recommend a good Czech grammar? I just can't find anything and as I'm a beginner, I don't want a monolingual grammar but one which is written in German or English. It shouldn't cost a fortune, either. I'd really prefer a book but if there's nothing available, any links to suitable websites are also welcome. Any suggestions? I'd be extremely thankful!
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Splog Diglot Senior Member Czech Republic anthonylauder.c Joined 5672 days ago 1062 posts - 3263 votes Speaks: English*, Czech Studies: Mandarin
| Message 2 of 9 24 December 2010 at 8:42pm | IP Logged |
I have a lot of Czech grammar books. For a beginner, the best one by far is
This One by James Naughton
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hrhenry Octoglot Senior Member United States languagehopper.blogs Joined 5133 days ago 1871 posts - 3642 votes Speaks: English*, SpanishC2, ItalianC2, Norwegian, Catalan, Galician, Turkish, Portuguese Studies: Polish, Indonesian, Ojibwe
| Message 3 of 9 24 December 2010 at 8:44pm | IP Logged |
If it's grammar you're after, there is an entire series of books entitled "Essential Grammar" for many different languages. They're very dry,but complete.
That said, if you're a beginner why not get yourself a normal course instead, such as Teach yourself, Assimil or Linguaphone? I would also think the FSI course is quite complete.
R.
==
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nuriayasmin Senior Member Germany Joined 5246 days ago 155 posts - 210 votes
| Message 4 of 9 24 December 2010 at 9:04pm | IP Logged |
The "Essential Grammar" was actually listed at amazon.de, too but I was a bit confused because it says "Also available as a printed book". So this is a printed book? I have a German course book and it certainly explains the grammar and has a summary of the grammatical structures the course covers but I'm someone who needs a real grammar. I guess I'm very traditional concerning that. Well, I think I'll buy that one as both of you recommended it. Thanks a lot.
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Splog Diglot Senior Member Czech Republic anthonylauder.c Joined 5672 days ago 1062 posts - 3263 votes Speaks: English*, Czech Studies: Mandarin
| Message 5 of 9 24 December 2010 at 9:15pm | IP Logged |
nuriayasmin wrote:
The "Essential Grammar" was actually listed at amazon.de, too but
I was a bit confused because it says "Also available as a printed book". So this is a
printed book? I have a German course book and it certainly explains the grammar and has
a summary of the grammatical structures the course covers but I'm someone who needs a
real grammar. I guess I'm very traditional concerning that. Well, I think I'll buy that
one as both of you recommended it. Thanks a lot. |
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It is available as both a printed book and an e-book. I have both.
It is certainly a grammar book - but also includes explanations and examples. So, it is
not just a book full of tables for word-endings, nor is it a standard course-book.
Note, however, that it is not a complete reference grammar. No such things exists for
Czech, but this book is as close as you are going to get. It would be more than enough
for beginner and intermediate levels. Once you get to advanced Czech you will end up
having to use reference grammars written in Czech, and even they are limited.
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lingoleng Senior Member Germany Joined 5301 days ago 605 posts - 1290 votes
| Message 6 of 9 24 December 2010 at 9:22pm | IP Logged |
hrhenry wrote:
If it's grammar you're after, there is an entire series of books entitled "Essential Grammar" for many different languages. They're very dry,but complete. |
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I just want to second this: I have several of these and they are very good. (They are certainly complete for the needs of an ambitious learner, but don't aim for real completeness, they don't mention every single exception of the rule, and then the exception of the exception; only language professionals will need something more comprehensive for their work.)
These volumes are nicely divided into two parts: pure "grammar" and language "functions", what makes them even more useful and accessible.
(Why not mention another thing: Before using such a quite big grammar I use to have a look into something much thinner like the grammar parts of a dictionary, phrasebook, Wikipedia articles or similar. For a first overview this is often enough.)
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Splog Diglot Senior Member Czech Republic anthonylauder.c Joined 5672 days ago 1062 posts - 3263 votes Speaks: English*, Czech Studies: Mandarin
| Message 7 of 9 24 December 2010 at 9:43pm | IP Logged |
I forgot to mention that I once made a video giving a brief overview of a few English-
based Czech grammar books, including the one I recommend above.
Maybe the video will be helpful for you, and so here it is
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nuriayasmin Senior Member Germany Joined 5246 days ago 155 posts - 210 votes
| Message 8 of 9 25 December 2010 at 12:20am | IP Logged |
Splog wrote:
I forgot to mention that I once made a video giving a brief overview of a few English-
based Czech grammar books, including the one I recommend above.
Maybe the video will be helpful for you, and so here it is |
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Thank you, that was interesting to watch. So I'm going to order "Essential Grammar" in January - hoping that I will get a real book and not an e-book :-).
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