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Trouble learning Czech...need help! | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Advice Center |  | |
| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 6967 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes  20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish | Message 9 of 14 20 October 2008 at 9:30am | IP Logged |
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You're welcome.
I've not mastered either Czech or Slovak. All that I have is a certain level of knowledge in both (with my Slovak being at a slightly higher level than my Czech). Czech is fairly regular too, but it takes some time to get used to its "regularness". One thing that I find easier in Slovak compared to Czech is that Slovak declension and conjugation are closer to those in Polish or BCS (two languages of which I have some competence). It took me a while to get used to Czech endings since they seemed to diverge more from those of other Slavonic languages. When you compare Czech to other Slavonic languages, Czech declension makes certain distinctions dating from the era of Late Proto-Slavonic but which Polish, Slovak and BCS no longer make. On the other hand, Czech declension and conjugation is complicated by the "přehlaska" and distinction between "soft" and "hard" sounds. One thing that really threw me for a loop when I started learning Czech was that a lot of the endings in Czech verbs and nouns were repeated (in other words, a lot of endings did double- or triple-duty in places where Polish, Slovak or BCS would use distinct endings) 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| shreypete Pentaglot Groupie Czech RepublicRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5959 days ago 90 posts - 93 votes Speaks: English*, Hindi, Telugu, CzechB1, SpanishB2 Studies: GermanB2, FrenchA2, Dutch, Swedish | Message 10 of 14 20 October 2008 at 9:54am | IP Logged |
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I would simply be amazed if someone can master such a language (or for that matter any slavic languages) unless
the person is so committed that he/she studies it for more than 4-6 hrs a day. In fact the other day, I met a couple of American expats living here and they spoke it so fluently so that I was just speechless. What was even more surprising was that they had mastered the language in 2 years (and 2 of them were engineers with full-time jobs). But for some reason living in this country doesn't really seem to help with the language ; actually living in Prague doesn't help much as most people switch to English if they see that the speaker can't keep up with them. Perhaps I should take some private lessons (but they're just too expensive).... Edited by shreypete on 20 October 2008 at 10:08am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Julie Heptaglot Senior Member PolandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6714 days ago 1251 posts - 1733 votes 5 sounds Speaks: Polish*, EnglishB2, GermanC2, SpanishB2, Dutch, Swedish, French | Message 11 of 14 20 October 2008 at 3:21pm | IP Logged |
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I know people who have mastered either Czech or Polish in a pretty short time and without very intensive work (and they aren't native speakers of other Slavonic languages). Well, it may be individual, like there are some languages you learn faster and some that you learn slower, which doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the language being objectively hard or easy. I mastered German pretty fast, many people are surprised when they hear how little time it took me and that I have absolutely no German roots, I've never lived there or anything... at the exactly same time I've started learning French and I'm still struggling with it, I don't "feel it" and probably never will (that's my very optimistic ;) attitude right now), I speak it really bad and sometimes don't understand a thing - but I WILL learn it. Even if I'm so much more commited to German ;).
About private lessons - perhaps you can find a partner for the language exchange which is completely for free? Or, if you want to take private lesspns, try to find some students of Czech language and literature (or linguistics, English philology - something like that) - they may not have experience in teaching Czech but it won't cost that much and shouldn't be bad, especially if you know what you want to learn. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| shreypete Pentaglot Groupie Czech RepublicRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5959 days ago 90 posts - 93 votes Speaks: English*, Hindi, Telugu, CzechB1, SpanishB2 Studies: GermanB2, FrenchA2, Dutch, Swedish | Message 12 of 14 20 October 2008 at 3:28pm | IP Logged |
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Hey Julie, thank you for your advice. I'm quite surprise that you picked up German so quickly...it is indeed a hard
language (the grammar still confuses me quite a bit; and there's just way too much vocab. but I guess it's been long since I've not reviewed my German study materials...perhaps I'll get to that after I get a grip on Czech). 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Julie Heptaglot Senior Member PolandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6714 days ago 1251 posts - 1733 votes 5 sounds Speaks: Polish*, EnglishB2, GermanC2, SpanishB2, Dutch, Swedish, French | Message 13 of 14 20 October 2008 at 3:44pm | IP Logged |
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It may be because I've felt in love with this language... I also had pretty many short immersion-like situations.
On the contrary, my motivation to learn French has been purely reasonable so far (I know it would be good to learn French, I'm trying hard to learn it etc. but I still don't feel like I want to be learning French - it would be so much better if I simply already spoke French fluently ;)). And even living in a French-speaking town doesn't really improve my motivation right now - I can get by anyway. I really recommand you the language exchange - it's pretty much fun and just a good and cheap way to learn a language (and it was my main method while learning German, by the way). 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| shreypete Pentaglot Groupie Czech RepublicRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5959 days ago 90 posts - 93 votes Speaks: English*, Hindi, Telugu, CzechB1, SpanishB2 Studies: GermanB2, FrenchA2, Dutch, Swedish | Message 14 of 14 20 October 2008 at 4:00pm | IP Logged |
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Thank you....I'll find some speakers on this forum who speak czech and see if they can help me out.
1 person has voted this message useful |
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