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Splog at University | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Splog Diglot Senior Member Czech Republic anthonylauder.c Joined 5674 days ago 1062 posts - 3263 votes  Speaks: English*, Czech Studies: Mandarin | Message 57 of 72 11 March 2011 at 7:14pm | IP Logged | ||
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Our class has a new member: yet another Russian woman. We did have, briefly, a woman
who was half Czech and half American, but she dropped out unfortunately - since she felt overwhelmed by the Russians. I must say, I am starting to find this overwhelming Russian majority quite detrimental. Firstly, my wife tells me she can already detect their Russian influence on my own accent, which I was warned would happen by one of the professors. The second, and more troubling aspect, is that we are now going to have classes on the specific issues Russians face when learning Czech, including speech-therapy sessions. This, of course, is completely useless to me. It is not all bad news, though. On Wednesday of this week I had to visit hospital for various tests (blood work, ECG, and a few other things). I confess to being slightly nervous up-front, since medical terminology is quite specialised. However, the conversation flowed very smoothly with the doctors and nurses, and I don't think I made any terrible blunders. Then, back at University today, I was talking about this and was invited to give an (unprepared for) speech on parasites. Again, I was surprised that I felt very comfortable doing this, and made no particular blunders. Just a few months ago, I would have steered clear of such seemingly specialised topics (for fear of lacking vocabulary). The fact it went well must mean that my abilities in the language are improving. Finally, on a completely different front: Although I normally avoid such things like the plague, I recently bought (completely impulsively, and persuaded by a heavily discounted price) a dictionary of Czech slang (not colloquial Czech - rather, street slang). Having studied it for an hour or so, I tried out a few samples on my wife, and to every single one she said either "I have never heard anybody say that before" or "That one died out years ago". Clearly, slang cannot be learned from a book. Edited by Splog on 11 March 2011 at 8:45pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 5014 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 58 of 72 11 March 2011 at 9:26pm | IP Logged | ||
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Hello,
I've read through all the thread now and I admire your courage. :-) A few things that came to my mind: You wrote: "It is very ill mannered to use the colloquial variant in shops, on the bus, at the post office, with teachers. Well, pretty much with anybody apart from your closest friends and family." (sorry, haven't learnt to quote yet) This is not entirely true. This definition quite applies to writen formal czech. But when it comes to spoken one, it is very different. Most people won't bother with formal czech most of the time. For exemple in a shop as you mentioned. Everyone will ask for "chleba", noone will say "chléb". Colloquial is probably ill mannered only in situations like speaking with teachers (depends on the teacher often), at court, public speaches etc. And there are more "shades" of colloquial variant. Some people speak in nearly a slang, some differ only slightly from the formal variant. You wrote about the history of those two forms. Have you heard someone from Morava speaking? Their czech is much closer to the formal variant, the language had evolved slower in that part of country. It is interesting to hear a moravian speaking with someone from Prague or Plzeň. I've been thinking about this a lot during last half-year. I'm studying at Charles university :-) since October and I have met people from quite every corner of Czech Republic (and Slovakia). It is fascinating to listen to them all. One last thing. You mentioned the old news in television. They are definitely not there because of nostalgia. It mostly makes people smile or even laugh to see that, even though most of them had to live through those horrible years. Those news were heavily controlled by communist government. How to explain that. It's news like this: "The great Soviet Union achieved a great success in whatever." "The number of unemployed in Great Britain is growing." "A village Horní Dolní produced twice as much carrot as planned.". And the stone faces of people announcing the news? At those times noone probably thought announcing news was about anything else than the "information". And I guess one could have even had troubles for making wrong face, for exemple looking ironic at wrong time. So the old news are in television mostly for educative or historical purposes (my generation hasn't lived through communists and some young people, sadly, even don't care about our history). 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 5014 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 59 of 72 11 March 2011 at 9:29pm | IP Logged | ||
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one more thing :-)
"In front of the other students she them announced "Please don't use dictionaries and other materials. If you have questions about anything, then ask me. If you keep looking in dictionaries then I may as well go home." " You sure it wasn't meant as a joke? Czech humour is often connected with irony and sometimes it is not easy to distinct (sometimes even for native speaker :-D). Or the other option, it was a very stupid teacher. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| stelingo Hexaglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5837 days ago 722 posts - 1076 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, French, German, Italian Studies: Russian, Czech, Polish, Greek, Mandarin | Message 60 of 72 11 March 2011 at 11:51pm | IP Logged | ||
Which book was that? I may have bought it. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Splog Diglot Senior Member Czech Republic anthonylauder.c Joined 5674 days ago 1062 posts - 3263 votes Speaks: English*, Czech Studies: Mandarin | Message 61 of 72 04 April 2011 at 3:55pm | IP Logged | ||
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I am now half-way through the second semester at University. Having said that, I
haven't been to University as much as I would have liked. As I have mentioned elsewhere, I spent several weeks in India earlier this year, and there I picked up a rather nasty parasite which (along with the side effects of the drugs I was given to fight them) has seen me out of action for much of this semester. As a result, I have probably only made it there about half the time. This is in contrast to a near-perfect attendance last semester. This, however, has proven less problematic than I would have expected. For a start, (as mentioned earlier) this semester is (unfortunately) a mere repetition of last semester. Adding to this, the class size is now too large (12 or so, in contract to an average of 3 last semester), and there are too many students from a single nation (all Russians except me). Overall, I would say that the first few months at the University were superb at raising my conversational ability. It took me to the point where Czechs never try to switch the language to English, which I take to be a sign they don't find talking to me in Czech to be painful. It now seems that University has taken me as far as it can. As a result, I am now also having length one-on-one discussions with a very patient Czech woman several times a week. These are not lessons. Rather, they are discussions on whatever theme is topical. These have proven to be very beneficial, and are stretching me in the way that University did at the start of last semester. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Splog Diglot Senior Member Czech Republic anthonylauder.c Joined 5674 days ago 1062 posts - 3263 votes Speaks: English*, Czech Studies: Mandarin | Message 62 of 72 17 April 2011 at 12:42pm | IP Logged | ||
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I think I reached a milestone in Czech this week. While listening to some debates about
the economy, I found myself also reading a magazine article about slang, and able to still follow the debates. This is something that is pretty normal in your native language, but something I have never been able to do before in a foreign language. The difference seems to be that nowadays reading and listening in Czech doesn't require much concentration. The meaning just sort of jumps into my brain without any conscious effort. The same is not true for speaking and writing: although I can flow pretty well with these, there are still times when I find myself having to think through something more than I would have to in English. Presumably, this gap will fade away too, in due course. Overall, I no longer feel that Czech is a language I am studying in any sense, more one that I am using. It feels like a part of me, rather than something outside me. Consequently, I have shifted my focus to active study of some of my other languages, while continuing to use Czech in my daily life as I would use English. Edited by Splog on 17 April 2011 at 12:57pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Teango Triglot Winner TAC 2010 & 2012 Senior Member United States teango.wordpress.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5561 days ago 2210 posts - 3734 votes Speaks: English*, German, Russian Studies: Hawaiian, French, Toki Pona | Message 63 of 72 17 April 2011 at 1:35pm | IP Logged | ||
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I think it's a great sign that you feel Czech has essentially become a part of you. After years of commitment and passion for learning the language, it seems you're now deservedly more in the enviable insider's position of "looking out" rather than the foreigner's of "looking in". An inspiring lead to follow! :)
Incidentally, are you currently studying your other languages through Czech as well? Edited by Teango on 17 April 2011 at 1:36pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Isarin Tetraglot Newbie Germany Joined 5644 days ago 34 posts - 41 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Japanese Studies: Czech, Mandarin, Italian | Message 64 of 72 17 April 2011 at 2:41pm | IP Logged | ||
I don't really want to start a whole discussion on this... but although what you wrote is commonly believed it is what one calls a "national myth". People were at no time "forbidden by law" to speak Czech. In the Habsburg monarchy language politics was a tool for keeping the multi-ethnic state from disintegrating while also keeping the local population and elites happy. I know that you probably never realized this, because virtually everyone seems to believe it and it's rarely questioned. So, usually the "dark history" of the Czech language starts sometime after bílá hora. The Czech nobility (or those of the (catholic) nobles who where left) and Bohemia lost a lot of their (political) significance after 1620. After the "Obnovené zřízení zemské" 1627 (something like a constitution), the Czech parliament (only nobles of course) sessions however, were still conducted in Czech. In the middle of the 18th century when language politics got more important, the situation was the same. All new laws and regulations were published in Czech and German. Czech was not legally discriminated. What happened around that time though, was that Latin ceased to play an important role in education, and German, not the Czech language filled this gap (from 1752 onwards lectures at the University of Prague were held in German; very few lectures about theology and obstetrics also in Czech). On the other hand, Maria Theresia intruduced Czech language classes at the military academy of Vienna, the engineering academy in Vienna, the knights academy and a chair of Czech language was introduced at the university in Vienna. In 1776 there was an order to teach children, in areas where German was not commonly spoken, German in primary schools. The teaching language in primary schools was still Czech. Under Joseph II, German was introduced as official language in Bohemia in 1784. This meant a further decrease in importance for the Czech language, since all official business was now conducted in German and it was thus necessary for alle Czech speakers to learn German. There where next to no secondary schools which taught in Czech. The reason for this, however, where not legal ones, but practical and economic reasons. To appease the Czech nobility, a chair of Czech language was intruduced at the university in Prague in 1791. The situation pretty much stayed the same till 1848, and it definitely did not deteriorate. The German-speakers of Bohemia never really made an effort to learn and use Czech, although most of them knew at least some words and sentences. The problem for Czech was that many Czechs simply didn't care to learn it, since it was the language of the "poor and "uneducated". Josef Jungmann, one of the leading figures during the "Czech National Revival" illustrates the situation in this "Rozmlouvání o jazyku českém" in 1806. In the first conversation he lets Veleslavín, a scholar from the 16th century talk to a contemporary Czech person (from 1806). This "Czech" makes a lot of grammar errors, and, much to Veleslavíns dismay, doesn't even feel ashamed about speaking his mother tongue badly (the 2nd one with Protiva is really interesting too, since it illustrates which role language played for the "patriots" of that time and the connection people made between language and "nation"). This was only to refute that the "language was forbidden for several hundreds of years of occupation" and to give a more differentiated account of the situation. I have to admit that I'm not very well informed about the language situation from 1939-1945, so I'd like to hear more about the situation then. [edit] Congratulations on your Czech by the way. Your progress gives me some hope that it is possible... Edited by Isarin on 17 April 2011 at 2:52pm 3 persons have voted this message useful |
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