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Why Czech isn’t hard + some resources | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| Andrew~ Groupie United States howlearnspanish.com Joined 5266 days ago 42 posts - 67 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Japanese | Message 1 of 8 01 July 2010 at 5:09am | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||
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I randomly came across this today on a language-learning blog that I just recently subscribed to and was very impressed with his analysis. It sounds like he knows what he's talking about, however I am not a linguist (language nerd, as in someone who loves learning languages, yes, professional linguist, no) so I thought I'd throw it up here and see what you guys think. I also bookmarked it because of the resources (books, etc.) he recommended because I looked into learning Czech a while ago since it is one of the languages I'd like to pick up at some point and was really shocked at how little there is out there for English speakers who want to learn Czech.
http://fluentin3months.com/why-czech-isnt-as-hard-to-learn-a s-you-think/ (the forum software keeps screwing up the link, nothing I can do about it, sorry, you'll have to delete that random spare space it keeps inserting in there) It really sounds like Czech is a very logical language thereby making the grammar and vocabulary easy to learn, plus it makes the whole "OMG it has 7 cases, AAACCK get it away!!" thing I've heard on here a few times far less scary. Edited by Andrew~ on 01 July 2010 at 5:14am 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||||||||
| johntm93 Senior Member United States Joined 5325 days ago 587 posts - 746 votes 2 sounds Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish | Message 2 of 8 01 July 2010 at 5:31am | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||
Oh, and yes, the forum doesn't let new members make links, to avoid spamming. Edited by johntm93 on 01 July 2010 at 5:33am 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||||||||
| Andrew~ Groupie United States howlearnspanish.com Joined 5266 days ago 42 posts - 67 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Japanese | Message 3 of 8 01 July 2010 at 5:41am | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||
Ah, ok, I did not know that. Well, I thought he made a very compelling argument and I've heard several people on here (I believe it was one of those "what are the hardest languages?" threads) talk about how exceptionally difficult Czech was, so I thought this might interest some of you guys. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||||||||
| johntm93 Senior Member United States Joined 5325 days ago 587 posts - 746 votes 2 sounds Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish | Message 4 of 8 01 July 2010 at 6:00am | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||
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I did find it pretty interesting.
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| egill Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5694 days ago 418 posts - 791 votes Speaks: Mandarin, English* Studies: German, Spanish, Dutch | Message 5 of 8 01 July 2010 at 7:12am | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||
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I think there are two issues at hand here: absolute difficulty and relative difficulty.
Of course with the right skills/attitude/environment/materials no language has to absolutely be any level of difficulty. However it's clear that in most cases (haha) what's being discussed is the latter. Most frequently, it means how hard something would for the average forum member relative to the others being discussed. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||||||||
| Splog Diglot Senior Member Czech Republic anthonylauder.c Joined 5667 days ago 1062 posts - 3263 votes Speaks: English*, Czech Studies: Mandarin | Message 6 of 8 01 July 2010 at 7:25am | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||
If Benny's post on Czech inspires others to learn the language I will be overjoyed. Not many people learn Czech, so the more the merrier! Be warned, though, that Benny only mentioned the easy bits. The grammar does have some parts that make sense and are "logical" however, at least in my experience, every time you think "aha! I get it know" some new bunch of complexity comes along that slaps you in the face. So there is a lot to learn, and it does take a long time to absorb. Having said that, there is one thing Benny says in that post which is absolutely true: "There is no challenge in the Czech language that you cannot overcome." Of course, this is true for all languages; given time and effort you will get there. Finally, it depends how good you want to get in Czech. If you want to be conversational in Czech you really will have to dive into the complexity, and commit to at least a year of daily study. However, if you just want to dabble in Czech for a few weeks and learn some phrases, then you probably don't have to worry about the complexities of the language. Get the Grammar book and phrase book Benny recommended, and within a couple of months you will be able to ask for a beer, say hello, and get a general taster for the language. And maybe that is enough. I certainly dabble with lots of languages, and there is nothing wrong with doing that. Or maybe during that two months you will find that Czech grabs you, and instead of giving up, you may want to go on and explore the challenging stuff. If you do that, post on here and tell us about your experiences: I would love to hear them. 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||||||||
| Andrew~ Groupie United States howlearnspanish.com Joined 5266 days ago 42 posts - 67 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Japanese | Message 7 of 8 02 July 2010 at 6:14am | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||
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Thank you very much for that, Splog, that was very useful.
I initially became very interested in learning Czech a while ago but something someone from Eastern Europe (I think they were Czech) told me that put me off a bit from it was that most Czechs now speak conversational English and so, unless you're going to live there, it's really not necessary to learn Czech. That plus the alleged difficulty and the lack of learning materials available for it made me think perhaps I shouldn't place too much priority on it and learn some other languages first. How true is this? How many people speak English, and how good is it (their English), on average? I'm actually going to move somewhere outside the U.S. (or at least get citizenship somewhere else) eventually and the Czech Republic is, after having done a bit of research, very high up on my list of countries that I'm considering: it's in the E.U. and the Shengen area, it's probably the only Eastern European country that can be considered "first world", very little corruption, great beer, beautiful women (I've heard a lot of good things about the women there, and I'm single and in my late 20's, so yes this matters to me :D ), Prague is the best-looking city in all of Europe because it was untouched in WWII, very little "nanny state" regulation compared to the rest of Western Europe, etc. Obviously if I decide to move there I would want to be at least conversationally fluent in Czech before even arriving, but that's something that's probably at least 5 years in the future, so I'm not going to worry about it right now. Edited by Andrew~ on 02 July 2010 at 6:17am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||||||||
| Splog Diglot Senior Member Czech Republic anthonylauder.c Joined 5667 days ago 1062 posts - 3263 votes Speaks: English*, Czech Studies: Mandarin | Message 8 of 8 02 July 2010 at 8:46am | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||
It is great to hear you are considering moving to the Czech republic; it certainly is a splendid place to live.
Prague is really the only cosmopolitan city in the Czech republic, and here you will find that most people under the age of around 35 will speak at least some English. The better educated, the more likely the are to speak it well. The older a person is, the less likely they are to speak it. Outside of Prague, far fewer people speak English.
Czechs tend to be very sensitive to the country being described as in "Eastern Europe". In fact, Prague is West of Vienna! Officially, the Czech Republic is in Central Europe.
Until quite recently, it was quite common to be able bribe bureaucrats to make things move smoothly for you, but that has almost entirely disappeared now. There remains, though, quite a lot of corruption among politicians (typically taking a percentage of the price of public works contracts), however you are unlikely to encounter any corruption personally. In terms of good beer and beautiful women, I have to agree those are certainly true. For a young, single man it is rather a good lifestyle here. Of course, I am old and married, so this does not apply to me :-)
That isn't correct. There was quite a lot of bombing in Prague - by the allied forces. Prague had a lot of heavy industry, making tanks and the like for the German army, and the factories and railroads were bombed heavily. Any extra bombs were, alas, dropped in residential areas. Still, much of the old and beautiful architecture remain untouched - but it is not uncommon to see two beautiful villas from the 1880s, with an ugly building from the 1950s on a site where a third villa used to be.
I wish you all the best with that. Czech is a great language when you get into it. Rather frustrating at times, but rewarding all the same. 4 persons have voted this message useful |
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