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| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 6937 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes  20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish | Message 9 of 16 09 June 2005 at 11:12am | IP Logged | |||||
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*I thank lenkadv and kyknos for offering helpful comments and corrections in the sections on culture, grammar and vocabulary.*
INTRODUCTION Czech (čeština) is a Slavonic language spoken by approximately 12 million people worldwide. Czech is closely related to Slovak, slightly less so to Polish and Sorbian and even less so to the other Slavonic languages such as Russian, Ukrainian, Serbian and Bulgarian. It is the official language of the Czech Republic. USEFULNESS The usefulness of Czech is limited to Czech Republic and Slovakia. As in many countries in Central Europe, ESL teaching is widespread and many young adults and teenagers speak at least some English. Many older Czechs speak varying degrees in German. Given the proximity to Austria and Germany, German is still a useful language for Czechs who work in tourism and commerce. Those who had come of age during the communist period also learned Russian as part of the mandatory imposition of Soviet culture during the Cold War. However, it is understandable that many Czechs refuse to speak Russian because of the association with the oppressive days of communism and Soviet-led crushing of the Czech uprising against communism in August 1968. Because of the close linguistic tie to Slovak, standard Czech and standard Slovak are still mutually intelligible for most adults. This intelligibility was reinforced during the days of a federated and later communist Czechoslovak state through much of the 20th century when Czech and Slovak were designated as the official languages. Official communications, literature and broadcasts were accessible to Czechs and Slovaks in both of these languages. It was quite easy for citizens to develop a strong passive knowledge of the other language. In addition, Slovak dialects were strongly influenced by Czech as Czech was the literary language of the Slovaks for a few centuries until the 18th or 19th century. With the breakup of Czechoslovakia into separate Czech and Slovak republics in 1993, the degree of mutual intelligibility is fading however. Many Czech teenagers and children now have more difficulty understanding Slovak than people who had grown up during Czechoslovakia's existence. Much the same is occurring in Slovakia with Slovak teenagers and children having increasing difficulty in understanding Czech. In a more general sense, a knowledge of Czech is a useful base to learn other Slavonic languages. In Czech you will encounter typically Slavonic grammatical and lexical specialities. See the appropriate section below for more information. CHIC FACTOR Like Hungarian and Budapest, a knowledge of Czech is linked to Prague - that magic destination of a tourist's itinerary. In spite of this association, many Czechs do not regard their language as a major language for foreigners. As such, they will be pleasantly surprised if you take the time to learn some Czech or tell them that you want to learn Czech. They will be very tolerant of your mistakes and won't hesitate to help you learn, or if necessary switch to a language that you both know (e.g. English, German) While it may not convey the same sense of mystery or perhaps menace to a Westerner as a knowledge of its linguistic cousin: Russian (think KGB and dominating Soviet Olympic athletes), a knowledge of Czech is a rather unusual attribute for a Westerner. Perhaps seeing a Czech newspaper headline with its consonant clusters and diacritic marks would strike any English speaker as exotic. ;-) ECONOMIC IMPORTANCE "The Czech Republic is one of the most stable and prosperous of the post-Communist states of Central and Eastern Europe. Growth in 2000-04 was supported by exports to the EU, primarily to Germany, and a strong recovery of foreign and domestic investment. Domestic demand is playing an ever more important role in underpinning growth as interest rates drop and the availability of credit cards and mortgages increases. Current account deficits of around 5% of GDP are beginning to decline as demand for Czech products in the European Union increases. Inflation is under control. Recent accession to the EU gives further impetus and direction to structural reform. In early 2004 the government passed increases in the Value Added Tax (VAT) and tightened eligibility for social benefits with the intention to bring the public finance gap down to 4% of GDP by 2006, but more difficult pension and healthcare reforms will have to wait until after the next elections. Privatization of the state-owned telecommunications firm Český Telecom is scheduled to take place in 2005. Intensified restructuring among large enterprises, improvements in the financial sector, and effective use of available EU funds should strengthen output growth." (courtesy CIA World Fact Book - updated as of May 17, 2005 - source) With Germany as one of its neighbours and its largest trading partner, it is not surprising that the Czech Republic has been the recipient of substantial investment flows. Indeed, the Škoda brand is now partially owned by Volkswagen. TRAVEL OPPORTUNITIES Prague (it's a maginificent city and a giant tourist trap at the same time - beware of pickpocketers and scams) Český Krumlov (a beautiful town in the south that has beautiful small-town architecture. It's also a tourist trap) Karlový Vary (mineral springs and spa used for centuries) Plzeň (home of Pilsner Urquell - 'nuff said) Kutná Hora (a bit like Český Krumlov with its beautiful medieval architecture. It doesn't seem to have as many tourists as Český Krumlov which keeps crowding the town.) Brno (an underrated city with a beautiful cathedral, castle and mummies... :-)) Olomouc (a mini version of Praha without hordes of tourists. It has a large trinity column on the main square and its town hall has an elaborate set of astronomical instruments and clocks.) Castles, castles, castles (Šternberk, Pražský hrad, Karlštejn, Konopiště, Hluboka, etc. If you think France has chateaux, come to the Czech Republic to see some beautiful 'hrady' :-)) COUNTRIES Czech Republic (official), spoken by Czech immigrants and ethnic Czechs in Slovakia, Poland, Germany, Austria, Ukraine, Canada and the United States. SPEAKERS Approximately 12 million in total. Of those about 10 million live in the Czech Republic. VARIATIONS Standard Czech is taught in schools and used for official purposes ("spisovná čeština" ~ written Czech), while Common Czech ("obecná čeština" ~ general Czech) is often used in conversation. The use of Common Czech seems more noticeable in Bohemia (western part of the country) than in Moravia (eastern part of the country). Standard Czech uses the dialect of Prague as its base. There are also dialects of Czech that differ from both Standard and Common Czech. In the west, are the Bohemian dialects (of which the one in Prague is but one) while in Moravia there are three distinct groups: Central Moravian, Moravsko-Slovensky which is spoken near the border with Slovakia, and Lachian which is spoken on the northeastern border with Poland. We can view the zone of West Slavonic languages as a dialectal continuum. The Bohemian dialects tend to merge gradually into the Moravian dialects as one travels eastward. In turn, these Moravian dialects gradually merge either intoWestern Slovak dialects as one travels further east into Slovakia, or into Silesian dialects of Polish as one travels northward through Moravia into Poland. CULTURE A knowledge of Czech will give you access to some outstanding literature. Milan Kundera and Franz Kafka are two of the more well-known authors in Czech literature. Naturally, many of the more popular works have been translated into English. According to lenkadv of this forum: "Kafka and Kundera are both great authors who represent Czech culture but Čapek and Seifert (Nobel Prize winner) might be more representative of the Czech language. Kafka actually only wrote in German (being a German speaking Jew living in Prague) and Kundera is as French as Czech now (his last books were written in French and never translated into Czech)." Some fine composers also originate from Bohemia and Moravia. Outstanding examples are Antonín Dvořák (Symphony No. 9, "From the New World"; Slavonic Dances 1-16), Bedřich Smetana (Vltava (or 'Moldau' in German) - a symphonic poem of the Vltava river from his cycle 'Má Vlast' ("My Homeland.")) and Leoš Janáček (Sinfonietta; Glagolithic Mass; Lachian Dances; opera 'Jenůfa'). Indeed music in Bohemia and Moravia has been attested over the past 1000 years and also includes folk music, religious hymns in addition to pop music, rock, metal, rap, alternative, ska, R'n'B and punk. Modern representatives of Czech musical life include the rock bands Už Jsme Doma and Wohnout, the black metal band Root, the singers Lucie Bílá, Karel Gott and Jaromír Nohavica, and the punk rock band Tři sestry. Czech cinema is something that seems to "punch above its weight" to use a boxing analogy. Three films from Czechoslovakia or the Czech Republic have won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film: "Obchod na korze" (a joint production with Slovaks and set in Slovakia with Slovak rather than Czech dialogue), "Ostře sledované vlaky" and "Kolja". Films from the Czechoslovak New Wave of the 1960s are also of high repute with the aforementioned "Obchod na korze" and "Ostře sledované vlaky" dating from this period. Other notable Czech films include "Černý Petr" by Miloš Forman, "Sedmikrásky" directed by Věra Chytilová, "Valerie a týden divů" by Jaromil Jireš and "Obecná škola" by Jan Svěrák. DIFFICULTIES For English speakers, the greatest difficulties in my opinion are: 1) verbal aspect 2) verbs of motion 3) syntax 4) nominal and adjectival declension 5) vocabulary GRAMMAR Like other Slavonic languages, Czech has elaborate inflections for its nouns and adjectives. For nouns and adjectives, there are seven cases: nominative, accusative, genitive, dative, locative, instrumental and vocative There are three numbers: singular, dual and plural. However, the dual is present only in a few instances of declension. In other words, there is neither a complete nominal and adjectival declension in the dual nor dual personal pronouns (e.g. 'we two', 'you two') as in Slovenian and Sorbian. There are three genders: masculine, feminine and neuter with the masculine divided further into animate and inanimate categories in the declensions of the nominative and accusative. There are four moods: infinitive, indicative, conditional and imperative. There are two voices: active and passive. Because of Czech's inflective nature, personal pronouns are usually omitted unless the speaker wishes to emphasize the subject of a sentence. In addition, syntax can be rather free compared to English as much of the relevant grammatical information of a sentence is revealed in the inflections, suffixes and prefixes of the words. Syntax usually depends on the focus or nuance that a speaker wishes to convey. There are a few rules regarding syntax however. i) the reflexive pronoun goes in the second position except when used in the past tense Češu se doma = I comb myself at home (in general, as part of a routine) Já se doma češu = I comb myself at home (emphasizing the fact that it is *I* who *DOES* comb himself regularly at home) ii) the personal marker of the past tense always goes in the second position Češal jsem se doma = I was combing myself at home (in general, as part of a routine) Ja jsem se češal doma = I was combing myself at home (emphasizing the fact that it was *I* who was regularly combing himself at home) iii) adjectives often precede the nouns that they describe (adjectives can follow the nouns that they describe as seen in certain terms used in the physical sciences or in poetic texts). In addition, adjectives must agree with the nouns that they describe. český voják = Czech soldier (masculine animate nominative singular) velký sešit = big notebook (masculine inanimate nominative singular) česká dívka = Czech girl (feminine nominative singular) červené auto = red car (neuter nominative singular) čeští vojáci = Czech soldiers (masculine animate nominative plural) velké sešity = big notebooks (masculine inanimate nominative plural) české dívky = Czech girls (feminine nominative plural) čeverná auta = red cars (neuter nominative plural) PRONUNCIATION Like Slovak, stress in Czech is fixed on the first syllable of words. Vowels can be long or short. Therefore, 'a', 'e', 'i', 'o' and 'u' each have a lengthened counterpart. There is a distinction between 'soft' and 'hard' consonants. In turn, this distinction is important not only in pronunication but grammar as well. e.g. Mám cizí knihu = I have a foreign book ('cizí' is 'soft', and the accusative feminine form of 'cizí' is identical to the nominative form among others) vs. Mám zelenou knihu = I have a green book.('zelená' is 'hard' and the accusative feminine form of 'zelená' is 'zelenou') In spite of this, Czech pronunication is rather simple despite the intimidating appearance to those unaccustomed to acute accents, hooks, open dots, ů and a few consonants that act like vowels (e.g. prst = finger - pronounced something like English 'perst' but the 'er' sound is quite short. Think of the English word 'bird', it's pronounced like 'brd' rather than 'beerd') VOCABULARY Czech vocabulary is generally quite removed from English even though both are Indo-European languages. dva = two tři = three čtyři = four (it's a distant link - only a linguist can explain how the 'čt-' is connected to 'f-' in 'four'.) pět = five mléko = milk voda = water bratr = brother sestra = sister syn = son žena = woman (cf. English 'queen' - it's a distant cognate) žít = to live (cf. English 'quick' - it's a distant cognate) sněh = snow ty, vy = you (singular), you (plural) noc = night hodina = hour (cf. English 'good' - it's a distant cognate) nos = nose zítra = tomorrow dnes = today včera = yesterday There are many German loanwords as Bohemia and Moravia have been strongly influenced by German culture since the Middle Ages. e.g. rytieř = knight (cf. German 'Reiter'), knoflik = button (cf. German 'knopf'), brýle = eyeglasses (cf. German 'Brille') Many loanwords (especially modern ones) come from English tím (team), puk (hockey puck), internet, tramvaj (tramway, streetcar) TRANSPARENCY / INTELLIGIBILITY TO PEOPLE KNOWING OTHER LANGUAGES Most English-speaking learners will find little in Czech that is instantly familiar at the outset apart from most of the Czech alphabet and the occasional internationalism (e.g. fotbal, gyros, mobilní telefon). Czech is intelligible in varying degrees to native speakers of other Slavonic languages without courses or special training with this "untrained intelligibility" highest when one knows Slovak. Here are some hints that may help with making sense of Czech for people speaking at least one Slavonic language other than Czech. 1) Sometime during the 13th century, a wide-ranging shift in vowels (umlaut) occured in the speech community and marks a turning point from "Old Czech" to "Middle Czech". These changes are still present in modern Czech and are part of the explanation why Czech today sounds and appears less intelligible to other Slavs than the otherwise closely-related Slovak. This development (called “česká přehláska”) entailed the frequent shift of -a and -u after soft or palatal consonants but not before hard consonants in Old Czech to e/ě and i/í in Middle Czech. E.g. kůže = "leather, skin" (Czech) (Cf. *koža (Proto-Slavonic); koža (BCMS/SC, Slovak, Slovenian, Sorbian); кожа (Bulgarian, Macedonian, Russian, Ukrainian); koża (Polish)) ulice = "street" (Czech) (Cf. *ulica (Proto-Slavonic); вуліца (Belorussian); ulica (BCMS/SC, Polish, Slovak, Slovenian); улица (Bulgarian, Macedonian, Russian); wulica (Sorbian - archaic); вулицa (Ukrainian)) N.B. This change of a > e from a few centuries ago in Old Czech may initially cause confusion for other Slavs whose languages never underwent this change and so expect to see -a in this position. In the examples above, the Czech words are feminine singular but for other Slavs they appear to be neuter because of the final -e, given that it's typical for neuter singular nouns. lidé = "people" (Czech) (Cf. *ľudьje (Proto-Slavonic); людзі (Belorussian); ljudi (BCMS/SC); люде (Bulgarian); луѓе (Macedonian); ludzie (Polish); люди (Russian, Ukrainian); ľudia (Slovak); ljudje (Slovenian); ludźo/luźe (Sorbian)) A tentative conclusion is that Czech has e/ě and i/í in positions where other Slavs would expect a or u respectively in a cognate or "look-alike" word. E.g. Všechno nejlepší! = "All the best!" (Czech) (Cf. Усяго найлепшага! (Belorussian); Sve najbolje (BCMS/Serbo-Croatian); Bсичко най-хубаво (Bulgarian); Cе најдобро (Macedonian); Wszystkiego najlepszego! (Polish); Всего наилучшего! (Russian - rare); Všetko najlepšie! (Slovak); Vse najboljše (Slovenian); Bсього найкращого! (Ukrainian)) 2) A particular bugbear for outsiders learning Czech is the noticeable distinction between Colloquial and Standard Czech. Briefly put, Standard Czech is taught in school or courses for independent learners and used in official situations. Consequently the average foreign learner of Czech will be exposed primarily to this variant during study. However the colloquial variant is widespread and differs noticeably from the standard. Here are some tips that may help other learners (not just Slavs) make sense of colloquial Czech with reference to standard Czech. a) the "older" (and standard) -ý- and -é- have changed to -ej- and í/ý in the "newer" (and colloquial) variant. "That's a good idea!" To je dobrý nápad! (Standard Czech) To je dobrej nápad! (Colloquial Czech) Cf. To jest dobry pomysł! (Polish); To je dobrý nápad! (Slovak) "I'm drinking good milk." Piji dobré mléko. (Standard Czech) Piju dobrý mlíko. (Colloquial Czech) Cf. Piję dobre mleko (Polish); Pijem dobré mlieko (Slovak) These changes in Colloquial Czech may initially throw off people speaking other Slavonic languages (especially Polish or Slovak) since the colloquial Czech ending for singular neuter adjectives (-ý) is the same as or quite similar to the ending for singular masculine adjectives in Slovak (-ý) or Polish (-y) respectively. b) Words that begin with o- in Standard Czech often begin with vo- in Colloquial Czech (similar to a tendency in Belorussian, Sorbian, and Ukrainian) "fire", "eye", "windows" oheň, oko, okna (Standard Czech) voheň, voko, vokna (Colloquial Czech) агонь, воко, вокны (Belorussian) wogeń/woheń, woko, wokna (Sorbian) вогонь, око, вікнa (Ukrainian) c) The instrumental plural in Colloquial Czech ends with -ma rather than -mi or -i/-y as in standard Czech. This colloquial ending originates from one used for the dual and is cognate with the current ending of -ama/-ima in instrumental/dative/locative plural in BCMS/SC. "I'm going to the restaurant with the Czech men/women/children." Jdu do restaurace s českými muži/ženami/dětmi. (Standard Czech) Jdu do restaurace s českýma mužema/ženama/dětma. (Colloquial Czech) Idem u restoran s češkima muškarcima/ženama/djecom (BCMS/SC) Cf. Idem do reštaurácie s českými mužmi/ženami/deťmi (Slovak) d) For verbs in standard Czech that end in -i for 1st person singular ("I") and -eme for 1st person plural (i.e. "we") in present tense, they will often end in -u and -em respectively in colloquial Czech. This may be initially confusing for people used to BCMS/SC, Slovak or Slovenian since -em designates only the 1st person singular. E.g. "We are working but I am always drinking coffee." Pracujeme, ale já vždycky piji kávu. (Standard Czech) Pracujem, ale já dyť piju kávu. (Colloquial Czech) Pracujeme, ale ja vždy pijem kávu. (Slovak) Radimo, ali ja pijem uvijek kahvu. (BCMS/SC) Delamo, ampak jaz vedno pijem kavo. (Slovenian) e) The standard 3rd person plural endings in present tense of -ají/-ejí/-ějí often shorten in colloquial Czech to -aj/-ej/-ěj. "They have a new house." Mají nový dům. (Standard Czech) Maj novej dom. (Colloquial Czech) Majú nový dom. (Slovak) Mają novy dom. (Polish) Imaju novi dom. (BCMS/SC) "They're waiting for me." Čekají mě/na mne. (Standard Czech) Čekaj mě/na mne. (Colloquial Czech) Čakajú na mňa. (Slovak) Czekają na mnie. (Polish) Čekaju me (BCMS/SC) N.B. The colloquial Czech forms here may be misinterpreted by other Slavs as "Have a new home!" or "Wait for me!" respectively because of their ending -aj which is typical of imperatives in other Slavonic languages. f) The past tense for 1st and 2nd person in Colloquial Czech is often expressed just as in Eastern Slavonic with the subject being indicated by a personal pronoun rather than the corresponding form of "to be" in present tense as codified in Standard Czech. E.g. "I [feminine] was at the concert in Prague." Byla jsem na koncerte v Praze. (Standard Czech) Já byla na koncertě v Praze. (Colloquial Czech) Я была на канцэрце ў Празе. (Belorussian) Я была на концерте в Праге. (Russian) Я була на концерті в Празі. (Ukrainian) Cf. Bila sam na koncertu u Pragu. (BCMS/SC); Bola som na koncerte v Prahe. (Slovak) "We [masculine] wrote the letter yesterday." Napsali jsme včera dopis. (Standard Czech) My napsali včera dopis. (Colloquial Czech) Mы напісалі ўчора ліст. (Belorussian) Mы написали вчера письмо. (Russian) Mи написали вчора лист. (Ukrainian) Cf. Napisali smo pismo jučer (BCMS/SC); Napísali sme včera list. (Slovak) Scroll down to the sections on transparency / intelligibility for speakers of other languages in the profiles for BCMS / Serbo-Croatian, Polish, Slovak, Slovenian and Ukrainian for related information on the subject. SPELLING Spelling is quite phonetic. There is devoicing when a voiced consonant (one with a slight 'buzz') is at the end of a word or is immediately before a devoiced consonant (one without a slight 'buzz') This devoicing is not reflected in spelling. E.g. hezký = nice (pronounced 'heski' since voiced 'z' precedes unvoiced 'k'. Therefore, the 'z' sound turns into the 's' sound) E.g. lev = lion (pronounced 'lef' since voiced 'v' is at the end of the word. Therefore, the 'v' sound turns into the 'f' sound) Czech uses the Roman alphabet with its own twists for English speakers. The different letters for English speakers are: á, č, ď, é, ě, í, ň, ó, ř, š, ť, ú, ů, ý, ž TIME NEEDED According to FSI, it takes approximately 1100 class hours to achieve professional speaking and reading proficiency in Czech. Naturally, the time needed will vary on each person's level of motivation, access to material and environment. Given such factors, the time needed to achieve professional speaking and reading proficiency in Czech can take as little as a year to as many as infinity. ;-) BOOKS 1) Teach Yourself Czech (David Short) - It comes with two CDs or cassettes and a textbook. - What I enjoyed most about this course was that it had lively dialogues and useful grammar information. It also comes with exercises for each chapter with answers at the back of the book. It also has a chapter that touches on the differences between formal and colloquial Czech. - What I enjoyed least about this course was that its presentation of grammar was somewhat unstructured and could intimidate the learner at first. In the interest of keeping lively dialogues, it's natural that the language used would have relatively complex structures for a beginner and some idioms. The grammar section of each chapter would focus on the grammatical aspects of each set of dialogues. It would have been desirable if the textbook had included more exercises. 2) Colloquial Czech (James Naughton) - It comes with two CDs or cassettes and a textbook. - What I enjoyed about this course was that it had good dialogues (perhaps not as lively as those used in Pontifex's course) and useful grammar information. It also comes with exercises for each chapter with answers at the back of the book. It also devotes a chapter each to formal and colloquial Czech respectively. - Compared to Short's course, 'Colloquial Czech' has a somewhat better presentation of grammar since the dialogues are designed in a way to emphasize the grammar or theme of a given chapter. It would have been desirable if the textbook had included more exercises. As a first step, Colloquial Czech would probably be a slightly better starting point for the absolute beginner because of its better presentation. 3) FSI Czech FAST course (textbook by Radovan Pletka) - It comes with twelve CDs or cassettes and a textbook/workbook. - What I enjoyed about this course was that it had practical dialogues and succint grammar information. It also comes with exercises for each chapter. Most of the exercises are oral and consist of repeating what the speaker says. There are some exercises where you fill in the blanks while listening to the dialogues. - Compared to Short's and Naughton's courses, the FAST course is quite dry and more utilitarian. However, if you want a course with the most audio, this is the probably the best that you can get. Even though the FAST course's introduction mentions that it is meant for people who need a crash course in Czech and cannot get access to the full FSI basic Czech course (44 weeks), I have never been able to find this full Czech course. 4) A Practical Czech Course For English Speaking Students (Miloš Sova) - It is a textbook with 48 chapters (530 pages - including appendices with excerpts from Czech novels and outline of grammar.) - What I enjoyed most about this course was that it has lots of exercises and that it builds your knowledge gradually. In addition, it's full of useful grammatical information, albeit it notes that some of the constructions that it illustrates and explains are rarely used in colloquial Czech. It focuses on providing a good understanding of formal Czech rather than colloquial Czech. - Compared to more modern textbooks, Sova's textbook is old (published in 1962) and full of outdated dialogues (e.g. it still talks of the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic, some of the assigned texts are subtle boosts of socialism/communism.). More importantly for someone learning on his or her own, the textbook has no answer key (apparently there is a separate book with answers to all of the exercises, but I haven't found it yet). It's better to use it in a classroom setting since some of the exercises are oral and you will need a teacher or fellow student to help you with exercises where you create your own dialogues. - As of September 2011, Indiana University's Center for Language Technology and Instructional Enrichment hosts the recordings in .mp3 of the book's dialogues and readings on its audio archive for Czech under "A Practical Czech Course". 5) English-Czech/Czech-English Dictionary (Josef Fronek) (Published by Leda) - This is a larger and better overall two-way dictionary than Poldauf et al.'s version. In Fronek's dictionary, most entries contain commonly-used translations of phrasal verbs between English and Czech complete with the appropriate grammatical cases. It also indicates whether a verb is perfective or imperfective. As a bonus, it also has grammatical tables illustrating the nominal and adjectival declensions and verb conjugations. Almost all entries are linked to a pattern in the section with grammatical tables. - This dictionary would be the undisputed master among medium-sized English-Czech-English dictionaries if it weren't for one serious flaw. Namely, it rarely indicates the perfective-imperfective pairs for the verbal entries. For example it's useful that the dictionary indicates 'napsat' as a perfective verb meaning 'to write'. However, the dictionary does not mention that its imperfective counterpart is 'psat'. As such, a learner will have a problem in finding the correct verb to use in a sentence. - Avoid foreign booksellers or Amazon if possible as they usually charge a substantial premium on this dictionary (in North America, this dictionary costs about $55 US). Try instead to buy the dictionary in Czech Republic or Slovakia. In Czech Republic, this dictionary costs approximately 800 Czech crowns (roughly $33 US). 6) English-Czech/Czech-English Dictionary (Ivan Poldauf et al.) (10th ed. published by WD Publications or Hippocrene Books) - Compared to the dictionary by Fronek, Poldauf et al.'s offering isn't the best overall one. It doesn't show as many examples of idioms in the entries and some of the English translations are a little unusual. However, it has one redeeming feature that makes it worthwhile. Poldauf et al.'s Czech-English section shows the imperfective-perfective pair of verbs in the same entry. This is an invaluable aid for English-speaking learners who have no idea which version of the verb to use. If the compilers didn't include this piece of information in the entries, the learner would on average have a 50% probability of choosing the incorrect verb for use in a sentence. 7) Velký česko-anglický slovník (ed. Ivan Poldauf et al.) - This is a larger version of the Czech-English section in the bi-directional English-Czech/Czech-English dictionary in 6) and has the same strengths and weaknesses in 6) - Because it indicates explictly the aspectual counterpart of every verb, its usefulness to a student is not to be dismissed. - Avoid foreign booksellers or Amazon if possible as they usually charge a substantial premium on this dictionary (in North America, this dictionary costs roughly $37 US). Try instead to buy the dictionary in Czech Republic or Slovakia. In Czech Republic, this dictionary costs approximately 600 Czech crowns (roughly $25 US). 8) Anglicko-český a česko-anglický příruční slovník (Josef Fronek) - This is a very new dictionary containing roughly 50,000 headwords with 90,000 words and phrases. - In general it is similar to Fronek's dictionary in 5) but is somewhat smaller. However this dictionary is really designed for foreigners in mind and in my view is a much better choice for the student of Czech. Each entry in the Czech-English section is listed with inflectional hints including the aspectual counterpart for verbs. In other words the dictionary will clearly show the perfective counterpart of an imperfective verb (or vice-versa) for headwords that are verbs. - If one cannot find Fronek's new concise dictionary (no. 8)) then the second-best solution that I have found is to use Fronek's older dictionary for most situations (no. 5)) in this list but then turn to one of Poldauf et al.'s dictionaries (nos. 6) or 7)) when trying to determine the aspectual counterpart of a verb. SCHOOLS There are courses for foreigners who want to learn Czech in Czech Republic. Most such courses are given in the capital, Prague but there are also options often from private firms or tutors in larger cities such as Brno and Ostrava. The Institute of Language and Preparatory Studies at Charles University in Prague offers intensive courses in Czech for foreigners lasting between a summer to a full academic year. An example of a private operation is the Education Center of Ostrava which offers lessons to groups or an individual. Faculties of Czech Studies at universities outside Czech Republic are perhaps more common than the sheer size of the Czech population or relatively low profile of the Czech Republic would imply. Princeton University, UCLA, University of Michigan, Indiana University, University of Toronto, University of Glasgow and the School of Slavonic and Eastern European Studies in London among many others offer courses in Czech outside Czech Republic. LINKS Discussions or threads on HTLAL involving Czech - Slavic Language Family Learning Sequence - Splog's Log - Czech through Russian - Czech words in English - Amusing Czech sentences - Czech resources - Czech and Russian - Czech and Russian - similarities? - Regarding Czech - the Colloquial series - How to improve my Czech learning? - Czech numbers - Why Czech isn't hard + some resources - Czech and Slovak Comparison of Czech and Slovak using dialogues in “Colloquial Czech” and “Colloquial Slovak” as presented in the log “Chung at work / Chung pri práci” (notable points of differentiation are in parentheses with lexical differences including false friends being too numerous to list below) — Unit 1, Dialogues 1/1 (declension of 1st person singular) — Unit 1, Dialogues 4/3 (conjugation in present tense 1, "soft" declension for feminine nouns) — Unit 1, Dialogues 5/4 (declension of certain neuter nouns) — Unit 4, Dialogues 1/1 (conjugation in present tense 2, declension of feminine nouns in dative/locative singular) — Unit 4, Dialogues 2/2 (declension of rok "year") — Unit 4, Dialogues 3/3 (Slovak rhythmic law) — Unit 4, Dialogues 4/4 (declension of feminine possessive adjective for 3rd person singular) — Unit 4, Dialogues 5/5 (declension of possessive adjective for 1st person singular and feminine personal pronoun for 3rd person singular ) — Unit 4, Dialogues 6/6 (Slovak pre corresponding to Czech pře- or pro-) — Unit 7, Dialogues 1/1 (asymmetric correspondence between Czech ů and Slovak ô) — Unit 7, Dialogues 2/2 (l-participle from verbs ending in -st/-zt / –sť/–zť, instrumental singular for "soft" feminine nouns) — Unit 7, Dialogues 3/3 — Unit 7, Dialogues 4/4 (Czech přes and Slovak cez forming a mutually exclusive pair, conjugation of "to go" and "to take") — Unit 7, Dialogues 5/5 (declension of "this") — Unit 7, Dialogues 6/6 — Unit 10, Dialogues 3/3 (formation of imperative, declension of "these, those", declension of numerals 2, 3, 4, plural of masculine animate nouns, declension of nouns ending in -ctvo/-stvo) — Unit 10, Dialogues 4/4 (nominative/accusative plural of neuter nouns, declension of "soft" adjectives, conjugation of verbs with infinitive -nout / -núť) — Unit 15, Dialogues 1/1 (conditional mood, 2nd person singular in past tense of reflexive verbs) — Unit 15, Dialogues 2/2 (declension of 1st person singular possessive adjective with masculine animate object, declension of "all; everybody; everything") — Unit 15, Dialogues 3/3 (possessor suffixes, accusative of 3rd person singular personal pronoun in masculine and neuter, kinship terms) — Unit 15, Dialogues 4/4 (comparative and superlative) — Unit 15, Dialogues 5/5 and concluding remarks (dates, ordinal numerals, personal age) Other forums - Unilang's Czech discussion forum - WordReference's Czech discussion forum General collections of links - Ajoda's Czech links - A wide-ranging site on many aspects of the language (e.g. grammar, education, professional organizations, media) General treatment and descriptions of Czech's learning difficulty - A basic profile of Czech (the source of about half of this profile's material): - Sketch ofCzech - A website on language difficulty for native speakers of English Dictionaries and other databases - Free online dictionary between Czech and several languages - Dictionary of Moravian dialects Online courses/textbooks, instructional online videos or lists of available course titles - The king of all sites for those who want to learn Czech. It has lots of information, exercises, articles, reviews on learning materials. - List of learning materials of Czech for foreigners with bibliographical information and short reviews - FSI Czech Basic Course hosted at ERIC (textbook only) - DLI Czech Basic Course hosted at ERIC (textbook only - warning large download! 1720 pgs, 99 MB) - DLI Czech Basic Course: Pattern Drills Vol. 1 hosted at ERIC (textbook only) - DLI Czech Basic Course: Verb List hosted at ERIC - DLI Czech Basic Course: Grammar Vol. 1 hosted at ERIC - DLI Czech Basic Course: Grammar Vol. 2 hosted at ERIC - DLI Czech Basic Course: Advanced Phase (Air Phase) hosted at ERIC (textbook only) - DLI Czech Basic Course: Air Force Dialogues hosted at ERIC (textbook only) - DLI Czech Basic Course: Dictation Exercises hosted at ERIC (textbook only) - DLI Czech Basic Course: Songs of Czechoslovakia (textbook only) - Beginning Level Czech for Americans hosted at ERIC (textbook only) - Intermediate Czech by Grażyna Kabat et al. hosted at ERIC (textbook only) - Short Course in Czech Pronunciation (audio only) - Czech Grammar by Janda and Townsend - A Grammar of Czech as a Foreign Language by Tahal - Reading Authentic Czech I by Privorotsky hosted at ERIC (textbook only) - Reading Authentic Czech II by Privorotsky hosted at ERIC (textbook only) - E.I.L. Czech: An Audiolingual Course Vol. 1 by Kucekova hosted at ERIC (textbook only) - Extensive collection of handouts on Czech grammar hosted by Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures at the University of Michigan - Pravidla českého pravopisu (Orthographic Manual of Czech) - Internetová jazyková příručka (Online linguistic handbook - monolingual but excellent as it is both a reference dictionary showing inflection of any word entered by the user and a reference manual of Czech grammar and orthogprahy) - Czech in Czech Republic from Langmedia at the Five Colleges Center for the Study of World Languages - Tsjekkisk nettkurs (Online course of Czech for beginners in Norwegian hosted by the University of Oslo) Literature and authentic texts - Online resources for Czech literature including literary works in English translation - Online Czech reader of texts from the 18th and 19th centuries - Reader with selected works from Czech literature including exercises and audio hosted by Brown University Information on dialects - This page has an interesting link to Czech dialects and other Slavonic languages from a Czech perspective: For those who want some information on the Moravian Czech dialects, here are two sites (for these, it's better if you can understand some Czech): - Hantec this concentrates on the dialect spoken in Brno - on the left there is a link 'slovník hantecu' which means 'dictionary of Hantec [dialect]') - Po naszymu (this is a nice site on the Lachian dialect spoken in Northeastern Moravia. It's especially interesting if you also know some Polish and/or Slovak.) Bookstores that carry Czech inventory or have material of interest for students of Czech: - Barvič a Novotný - Bay Foreign Language Books Ltd. - Bohemia Books USA - Czech Books - jn Czech Bookstore - Kosmas.cz - Neoluxor - Schoenhof's Institutions or tutors offering lessons in Czech - List of tutors, private firms or schools offering Czech lessons to foreigners - Intensive courses in Czech for foreigners offered at Charles University in Prague. - Department of Czech for Foreigners at Masaryk University in Brno. - Courses in Czech for foreigners offered at Palacký University in Olomouc - Private courses in Czech offered at Education Center of Ostrava - Czech Language Groups at Meetup.com (these are groups where one can meet expatriate Czechs at meetings or events. So far almost all active groups are found in Canada or the USA but there is also a group in London) Downloadable/streamed media - List of radio stations in Czech Republic and website of Czech Television which have content available as streams. Edited by Chung on 30 December 2014 at 12:58am 5 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| administrator Hexaglot Forum Admin Switzerland FXcuisine.com Joined 7157 days ago 3094 posts - 2987 votes 12 sounds Speaks: French*, EnglishC2, German, Italian, Spanish, Russian Personal Language Map | Message 10 of 16 22 September 2005 at 4:04am | IP Logged | |||||
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The Czech Profile is now online. Thanks for this great profile for a great language, Chung! Edited by administrator on 22 September 2005 at 4:07am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| kyknos Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 5277 days ago 103 posts - 140 votes Speaks: Slovak, Czech*, English Studies: German, Spanish | Message 11 of 16 08 November 2009 at 2:29pm | IP Logged | |||||
Some comments: 1) I would expect UTF-8 to be used on a language site (or any site, these days). 'Central European (Windows)' is so 20th century... and it is not declared properly in the page source. The result is that even my Czech computer does not render the characters properly without intervention. 2) Usefulness: it is not strictly limited to Czech and Slovak republics. It is usable in other Slavic countries as well. (For example, I just managed to succesfuly pass skipper exam spoken in Croatian without any prior knowledge of the language. Many key survival phrases like "veliko točeno pivo" / "velké točené pivo" are also very similar.) I have also met people speaking Czech in Germany, Austria or for example Greece - it was proven useful to try Czech in these countries whenever English fails. Sometimes it works surprisingly well. 3) Variations: it should be probably stressed, that some dialects in their most pure form are not intelligible for a person knowing only standard Czech (literal and general). For example so called "hantec" of Brno (heavily influenced by German and yiddish) or language spoken in Český Těšín (heavily infulenced with Polish) may be completely unintelligible even for a native speaker of Czech from Prague. There are also several "false friends" between different Czech dialects. For example ordering "sodovka" (carbonated water in Bohemia) will get you coke or some other sweet drink in Moravia (even in parts without heavy dialect). 4) Culture: Kafka is an author we are proud of and you can find references to him everywhere in Prague, but his works are originaly written in German, not Czech. Prague used to be Czech-German bilingual city until the end of WWII and Kafka was a German speaking Prague Jew. And Kundera (controversial person at least) is now writing in French. Good examples of Czech writing authors would be: Karel Čapek (coined the word robot), Jaroslav Hašek (author of the famous Good Soldier Švejk), Bohumil Hrabal or Jaroslav Seifert (poet, Nobel prize winner). Edited by kyknos on 08 November 2009 at 2:30pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| kyknos Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 5277 days ago 103 posts - 140 votes Speaks: Slovak, Czech*, English Studies: German, Spanish | Message 12 of 16 08 November 2009 at 3:37pm | IP Logged | |||||
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5) Difficulties: apart from the possible problems with sometimes surprisingly heavy dialects in such a small country, two problems come to my mind:
a) Multiple negatives in a sentence. There can be many negatives in a single sentence. Sometimes, if the sentence is too complicated and clumsily written, it can confuse even a native speaker as it is not obvious whether the meaning is negative or positive. This is also sometimes used for comical effect. b) Diminutives. Czech uses them heavily. You will not find most of them in a dictionary, even a large one. Czechs invent them on the fly. For example, the word "pes", meaning "dog": pes: pejsek, pejsánek, pejsáneček, psík, psíček (psisko is sometimes also used as diminutive, but its primary meaning is augmentative, pesan is augmentative) The diminutives above are just those I can remember now from standard Czech, without using any dialects or local variants. And only those that use the same stem, pes (adult dog). There is also a word "štěně" (puppy) and you can make many diminutives from there. štěně: štěňátko, štěňátečko... or even augmentative (štěnisko). And of course, you can make nouns including diminutives from "sound words" (so called citoslovce). Haf is the sound of a dog, the noun made from that sound is hafan. By making the noun from the sound it is already sort of diminutive, but you can go from there further: hafan: hafík, hafánek, hafáneček, hafíček... And there are many more possibilities. People can invent their own diminutives and they will be understood by a native speaker. For example I have heard "hafísek" from an "emo-style" girl, it sounds little too "emo", it was new to me, but there was no doubt about the meaning. If I include other stems meaning dog and possibly local variants or if i just try to be little inventive I can write "little dog" in many other ways... And it is also possible to use diminutive adjectives. For example "kulatý" means "round", while "kulaťoučký" means "round and little" or may be rather "round in a cute way". "Zeleňoučký" is "cute pretty green" etc... "Kulaťoučké jablíčko" means "cute little round apple". And it is also possible to use diminutive verbs. For example "spát" is "to sleep", but "spinkat (or even "spinkilinkat" or "hajat" from a different stem) means "to sleep in a cute way", "to sleep like a little baby". To understand all those words you have to develop a feeling for the language. There are too many of them, they are constructed as necessary and Czechs love to use them. And of course, sometimes their meaning is shifted. 6) Spelling: mostly phonetic - but some letter pairs are (in some situations) pronounced the same way. The most important examples are "i/y" a "s/z". Often both letters are possible, but depending on the letter written, meaning is different (for example bít/být = to beat/to be; or správa/zpráva = administration/report,news(sg.)). Beware. If you are an obvious non-native speaker, Czechs will be very tolerant to your mistakes. But if you are good enough to be mistaken for a native speaker but still confuse i/ý and s/z, you will be considered uneducated and semiliterate. Edited by kyknos on 08 November 2009 at 3:40pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| kyknos Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 5277 days ago 103 posts - 140 votes Speaks: Slovak, Czech*, English Studies: German, Spanish | Message 13 of 16 08 November 2009 at 4:16pm | IP Logged | |||||
Not always. For example in chemical and biological terminology, its is often the other way around: pes domácí (domestic dog, literally dog domestic) kyseliná sírová (sulphuric acid, literally acid sulphuric) dub letní (a type of oak, literally oak summer) Even in non-scientific situations, noun can precede adjective. It sounds archaic but in some situations it can be used (for example for poetic effect). For example from the Czech anthem: "země česká domov můj" is literally "country czech home mine".
yes, but some adjectives are same for all genders: velký muž, velká žena, velké dítě but jarní muž, jarní žena, jarní dítě 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| anole Diglot Newbie Czech Republic Joined 5152 days ago 10 posts - 14 votes Speaks: Czech*, English Studies: French, Latin | Message 14 of 16 13 March 2010 at 12:12am | IP Logged | |||||
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I think, dialects are really interesting, because there are some funny differences .)... some words are usually used in Ostrava (East), but they wouldn't understand it in Brno (for example: rožnout x rozsvítit = switch on). It's not so unusual in the big coutries, but if you consider how big the Czech Republic is, it's just seems funny to me...
1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| ajodaprague Newbie Czech Republic ajoda.eu Joined 5096 days ago 1 posts - 1 votes Studies: Czech* | Message 15 of 16 07 May 2010 at 11:51pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Usefull links:
http://www.ajoda.eu/materials-for-students---cz 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 6937 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes 20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish | Message 16 of 16 18 November 2010 at 6:31am | IP Logged | |||||
Thank you. Added. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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