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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| William Camden Hexaglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6059 days ago 1936 posts - 2333 votes  Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, Russian, Turkish, French | Message 9 of 20 17 February 2011 at 10:54am | IP Logged | |||||
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The Czech writer Jaroslav Hasek wandered around Slovakia and other places in his youth (c.1900). He seems to have had no linguistic problems in Slovakia so I tend to think the languages were pretty well mutually intelligible in his day.
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| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5121 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian | Message 10 of 20 17 February 2011 at 1:05pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I need to communicate with someone from Slovakia, but cannot find any good language course. May I draw the conclusion from the above, that I might just as well learn Czech? At the moment we are communicating via my really, really bad Russian, and my non-existant Polish.
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| William Camden Hexaglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6059 days ago 1936 posts - 2333 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, Russian, Turkish, French | Message 11 of 20 17 February 2011 at 1:26pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Czech will probably do.
I found in 1993 that I could get by with Russian in Prague. At least until recently, many people at that point had had Russian as an obligatory school subject. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Splog Diglot Senior Member Czech Republic anthonylauder.c Joined 5456 days ago 1062 posts - 3263 votes Speaks: English*, Czech Studies: Mandarin | Message 12 of 20 17 February 2011 at 1:31pm | IP Logged | |||||
You would be hard-pushed to find a Russian speaker in Prague now (other than native Russian speakers - of which there are plenty). It was dropped like a hot potato at schools in the late 1980s. English is the language they replaced it with. In terms of speaking Czech to a Slovak, the most honest answer is: the older they are the more they are likely to understand you. Most Czech and Slovak children seem to have quite a hard time understanding each other, but for people over the age of 30 or so, they grew up with both languages. Edited by Splog on 17 February 2011 at 1:32pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| William Camden Hexaglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6059 days ago 1936 posts - 2333 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, Russian, Turkish, French | Message 13 of 20 17 February 2011 at 1:55pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Yes, I thought the situation in 1993 would not last. I also in 1993 found fewer German speakers in Prague than might have been expected, though I sometimes got a glimmer of recognition if I used my limited knowledge of Polish. On the whole, both Czech and Slovak remind me of Polish.
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| William Camden Hexaglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6059 days ago 1936 posts - 2333 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, Russian, Turkish, French | Message 14 of 20 17 February 2011 at 2:05pm | IP Logged | |||||
There was also a dropping of Russian in favour of English in Hungary, which is mentioned in a Hungarian film of 1992, I think with the title Dear Emma, Sweet Bobi, about two teachers of Russian who retrain as English teachers after 1989. http://riowang.blogspot.com/2008/10/propos-svejk.html A blog by a Hungarian which often has interesting articles. The author notes that Hungarians rarely know Slavic languages, even though many neighbouring countries speak one or other of them. Perhaps Hungarians got rid of Russian a little too quickly. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 6943 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes 20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish | Message 15 of 20 17 February 2011 at 4:37pm | IP Logged | |||||
As William Camden notes, Czech will probably do the job and you aren't likely to be misunderstood either (especially if you're dealing with someone who's older than 30. However I should add that I know quite a lot of Slovaks younger than that who have no problem with understanding Czech including watching Czech films without subtitles or using goods whose instructions are presented in Czech instead of Slovak) However I'm a little surprised that you say that you can't find a good Slovak course. There are a couple of decent ones for beginners in "Colloquial Slovak" and "Slovencina pre cudzincov" that are widely-available. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| stelingo Hexaglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5619 days ago 722 posts - 1076 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, French, German, Italian Studies: Russian, Czech, Polish, Greek, Mandarin | Message 16 of 20 17 February 2011 at 10:54pm | IP Logged | |||||
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On the Czech TV news any news reports I have seen about events in Slovakia have always been done by Slovak journalists in Slovak. And in one of my favourite Czech TV shows 'Vyprávěj' there feature some Slovak characters, speaking Slovak, no subtitles provided. Then you have 'Česko Slovensko má talent' with a mixture of Czech and Slovak presenters, contestants and judges. Here's a clip of a very young Slovak contestant who doesn't seem to have any problems understanding the Czech judges.
Česko Slovensko má talent 2010 - Nejmladší zpěvačka Liliana Oláhová And I have also met several Slovaks in Prague who have quickly adapted to speaking Czech. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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