New Links Added

Just in case you haven't noticed, I've added a couple more Links to the (where else) Links page. These include a site I found that includes online exercises to practise vocab and Grammar. There are also a couple of dictionaries and a few other more general language sites. Remember: keep checking it out as I regularly update it! And of course, if you find something interesting send me a link and I'll stick it up!

Free PDF Textbook

A simple gap fill to expand vocabulary.

I found this ages ago for free on the internet. It’s a 148 page PDF Czech  textbook from varianty.cz. It is entirely in Czech but is meant for foreigners. On your own, it will take a bit of work to get through it as there are no translations. However, vocabulary is introduced through pictures and so is a good way to get used to the language. There is a vocab list at the end of each lesson which you can either have a go at translating before each lesson to prepare, or, possibly more useful and easier, fill in as you go, using the pictures and exercises to help you.  Most of the exercises are also quite self explanatory and involve activities such as gap filling and matching. Grammar is also introduced, starting off with gender in lesson 1, pronouns in lesson 2 and introducing full blown conjugation in lesson 3. If  you can get to grips with it, and don’t mind the prospect of being instantly dropped in the Czech language, it’s a fun course with lots of variety; diagrams, crosswords along with traditional grammar explained in context.

For more information, this is the website. Unfortunately entirely in Czech.

Czech.cz

This is a really good website to keep up to date with life in the Czech Republic. It’s aimed at foreigners who have an interest in the country and is full of facts on history, culture, news and statistics. You can even send cute little e-cards with such puzzling greetings as “liquid plums” and “The Propelled Man”, which if you can decipher, celebrate Czech achievements and sights. It also offers practical advice on travel and finding a job in the CR. I have made regular use of this site in history essay and expect when I’m over there next year. There are so many articles and it’s regularly updated so is a great way to find out more about the country.

Slovo Dne #3 : Však

The most common way to say “but” in Czech is with the word “ale”. However, there are a few alternative, the most used being “však”. It really means “however”, but you’ll see it used more frequently than the English translation, often just being a simple replacement for “ale”. Having a varied vocabulary is a key way of making your writing and speech sound more natural and advanced, so try using it whenever you find yourself repeating “ale” a bit too much.

Slovo Dne #2: Bohemistika

The actual Czech word for “Bohemia” is Čechy, from which comes the word Česko, and the word for the country in many other languages, Czech. However, these originally referred only to the Western half of the country we now call the Czech Republic, Bohemia. This term comes from the Latin term for the tribe that inhabited the area in ancient times, the Boii.

The word Bohemistika is a Czech word that describes the discipline of Czech Studies- the study of the language and the literature of the Czech lands. The discipline has existed from at least the 14th century when the scholar Klaret attempted to create a scientific vocabulary in the language under the rule of Charles IV, but Jan Hus is widely regarded as the founder of the discipline, completely reforming Czech orthography, so that now istead of “Czech”, we see “Čech”.

Inultus

For my Czech Literature course at uni, one of the works that we read was a rather interesting and surreal work by the decadent writer Julius Zeyer. It was called “Inultus”, which means “unavenged” or “unpunished” in Latin and is the first story in his collection Three Legends of the Crucifix. Unfortunately, there I have only found a Czech edition, which you can read for free on the Czech Wikisource. If you’re a beginner it will be a difficult read, but if you’ve studied the language for a year or so, you should be OK.

Synopsis
The story takes place about 20 years after the Battle of White Mountain, a time which the Revivalists looked at as the Czech Dark Ages when German culture dominated in the Czech lands. An Italian sculptress, Dona Flavia, is walking along the Charles Bridge at night with her mute assistant. She comes across a man she takes to be a beggar, who she insults by offering money. He is in fact a poet, one who has written nothing and claims it is all stored in his mind. He calls himself Inultus and is described as having blonde, long hair and watery eyes. In other words, he looks like a Romantic image of Jesus. Flavia, who is sculpting a crucified Jesus, asks him to accompany her to her studio, where she reveals her intentions to sculpt him as the Christ. He is taken aback, believing that this would be blasphemous, but Flavia manages to convince him by claiming that such a great work coming out of the Czech nation would soften the heart of the foreign ruler of Bohemia and so ease the lot of the Czechs. Despite the fact she is only sculpting his face, she ties him to a cross and so begins one of the most surreal episodes in Czech literature. Inultus begins to believe that he is actually Jesus, whilst Flavia becomes overcome by an artistic passion that eventually leads to Inultus’s death and Flavia’s suicide.

Zeyer and the Decadents
An important fact about Zeyer is that he wasn’t strictly Czech, he was the son of a Franco-German noble from Alsace and a Jewish mother. He only learnt Czech from his Nanny. It is possibly this foreign aspect of his character which makes Zeyer such an interesting writer. Though there are clear nationalist elements to the work, Inlutus owes more to French symbolism than the quaint rural nostalgia of Erben or Němcová. Zeyer’s description of Jesus recalls El Greco, a favoured artist of the Decadents and the overlap of art and reality was explored in depth by Huysmanns in his bible of Decadence À Rebours.

SAQs: Seldom Asked Questions

This hasn’t been updated in a while- more than 2 years- but still, it is an interesting diversion and a way to learn more about the less obvious facets of Czech culture. It is a blog by a Professor at Northwestern University and is a compilation of “puzzling aspects of life in the Czech Republic”. Highlights include “Kolová”, or “cycle ball”, a sport he claims was adopted by the Czechs in order to be the best in the world at something! Cynical, but you can’t help but believe it.

Slovo Dne #1

My first "word of the day is: "Ahoj!"
Now, I have already explained that it means "hi" in my last post, a fact that most of you reading this would already have known anyway, if only because it sounds like a pirate greeting. If you think about this, it is quite odd that the Czechs, being a landlocked nation, should have adapted a seafaring term as a greeting! It is true that it is an adoption of the English term, despite some sources claiming the other way around. ( anyone studying Czech is instantly taught that the only Czech words in English is robot, and, possibly, pistol). Apparently it was adapted through the boy scouts and tourists and became popular during the 1930s. Now it is one of the most common greetings in both the Czech Republic and Slovakia.

Czech Basics 1- Greetings

Here is my first “lesson” in Czech. I hope to eventually write some more. Today I will be dealing with how you greet another person, along with the common formalities necessary for any trip. I haven’t included how to pronounce the words, I have presumed that you know what the letters symbolise, though I will cover this on another day. For now, if you need some more guidance, take a look at the pronunciation guide on locallingo.com.

Dobrý den	Hello	Na Shledanou	Goodbye
Ahoj	Hi, bye	Dobrou Noc	Good night
Dobré Ráno	Good morning	Čau	Hi, bye
Dobré odpoledne	Good afternoon
Dobrý Večer	Good evening

These are all pretty self explanatory. Note that both ‘Dobré Ráno’ and ‘Dobré Odpoledne’ are a lot less common than the basic “Dobrý den” which is used throughout the day. “Ahoj” and “čau” are used like French “salut” or Italian “ciao”, for both greeting and saying “bye”. They are relatively informal, but shouldn’t raise any eyebrows if you use it with people you don’t know, just like English “hi”. “Na Shledanou” is the full form of Goodbye, though has a meaning similar to French “Au Revoir”, meaning “until we meet again”. Of course, “Dobrou Noc” is only ever used just before you go to bed.

Ano/ jo, no	Yes/ yeah
Ne	no

Czech can claim the rather dubious achievement of being pretty much the only European language to have a word for “yes” that contains an “n”. Not only does it contain an “n” but you will often hear Czechs use “no” whilst nodding in agreement. This is their way of saying “yeah”. The actual Czech word for “no” is “ne”. You will also hear “jo”, which luckily is more in line with the European norm.

Prosím	Please
Děkuji/u	Thank you
Díky	Thanks
Promiňte	Excuse me

The real star here is “prosím”. Not only does it mean “please” but also has meanings similar to the Italian “prego”. If you don’t know what that entails, it means that you will be asked what you want in a shop with “prosím”, then, after you’ve told the attendant what you want, you will of course, being the polite traveller you are, stick a “prosím” onto the end of your request. Then, once you’ve said a “děkuju”, the assistant will again reply with a “prosím”, though this time with the meaning, “don’t mention it”. For a two syllable word it has a lot of functions attached to it.

Note also that “děkuji” has two possible pronunciations, with “děkuji” being the slightly more formal, but in Prague you are more likely to hear “děkuju”. If that’s  too much of a mouthful, you could resort to a cute little “díky”. Naww.

Well, that’s the basics. Obviously, if you were landed in the middle of Prague, it would not be much help, but I plan to cover more soon! So stay tuned.

Oh, and if you are stuck in Prague, you may want something else to say after you’ve hailed someone with “Promiňte”. Just learn this phrase: Umíte anglicky?

Colloquial Czech: Review

Please note that this is for the 2nd edition. There is a 3rd edition out.
Well as I mentioned last post, I really fell behind in my Czech studies last term thanks to an almost 4 month summer vacation period and so now I am in the great position of spending the Christmas holidays cramming for January exams. Tip 1: don’t do that. My Bible/ life-support machine has been James Naughton’s Colloquial Czech. To anyone who has done a little research into what resources are available to the budding student of Czech, you will undoubtedly have already heard of this work. My advice: get it. It’s one of the few courses worth studying.

The lessons are built around dialogues, which are first presented first in Czech and then, until the 5th lesson, in English. Each comes complete with a vocabulary list to help you decipher the conversation, as well as plenty of good, concise grammar explanations. For the complete beginner, it can be quite overwhelming to be instantly presented with a dialogue in Czech to work through, but gradually it becomes easier to read them, where the issues become more revolved around vocabulary rather than syntax.
There are a lot of exercises that are placed throughout the lessons, between 6-8 for each chapter. A good point is that they encourage you to recall both recently learnt and past vocabulary, ensuring that it is firmly placed in your memory.

There are few really good resources for learning Czech and so this, from an  esteemed Oxford lecturer, really is the best out there. It has the perfect blend of grammar  and exposure to actual examples of the language. Whilst some of the early conversations seem a bit contrived, this is mostly due to the limited language available for the beginner and as you progress they become more lively and natural. I really cannot recommend this book enough!

Czech Films on the Internet!

So after that... traumatic video, how about a bit of kultur? As I have said before, Czech films are pretty good, but are also very hard to come by in England. Luckily, there is now a Youtube channel with a selection of Czech films, at the moment mostly from the 60s. The good news they also come with subtitles! Just click on the little CC on the video player. It stands for "Closed Captions" here rather than "Coco Chanel". Just a heads up.

http://www.youtube.com/user/filmgoria

Mmmmmmm... what?

So you still need a reason to learn Czech? Well, then watch this! Threre are subtitles but really, no translation is required. Just let the rhythm and the dance take over.

Mmmmmm. Jó. Je moc zajímavý.

Updates

I haven't written anything in a verrryyyyy long time but no matter, I'm back! I'm a little under half way through my second year at university and it has been tough! Made worse by my total lack of revision throughout the summer. But I've been working hard over Christmas so hopefully that's sorted! Anyway, next year I spend the year abroad in France and the Czech Republic as part of my language degree. So, in October I'm off to Paris to spend a few months studying in the Paris ghetto at Paris VIII, and then, in February I go to... Brno. Now, most people study Czech with Prague firmly in mind, but, alas, my uni believes that the purpose of the year abroad is to immerse yourself in the language rather than act a tourist in the Golden City. So it's to Brno, the second city, that I have been sent. But as you can see from the image at the top of the post, it really isn't such a disaster, it's a truly beautiful city, and possibly more of a living and working one than central Prague; it will definitely be easier to pick up Czech. This is for 2 reasons, one, Moravian Czech is actually closer to the written standard than the form spoken in Bohemia and 2, I'm more likely to get a chance to actually speak the language.

Typing in Czech

The Czech alphabet is easy to learn, what’s harder is getting all the weird little characters to appear on a computer screen. You’ve probably tried Insert>symbol on MS Word, but this is slow and can be a long process, scrolling down to the write character. Fortunately, if you’re using Windows, there’s a good solution. It takes a few minutes to set up, but once you have it’s quick and easy. Here’s how to set up your keyboard to type in Czech. Don’t worry, it’ll still let you use your normal English keyboard, this will just add an option to switch to Czech whenever you need, whether typing a letter in Word or writing an e-mail in Safari or Mozilla Firefox- it works everywhere!

Got to ‘Control Panel’ and find ‘Change keyboards or other input methods’.

Click on ‘Change keyboards’ on the little pop up that appears

Another box will appear with a list of keyboards already installed. Click on 'add'.

Another box will appear. Choose the language, Czech.

Don't forget to hit 'apply'.

You're done! Now, to use the new keyboard, go to the toolbar and click on "EN", then change that to "CS".

The keyboard takes a while to get used to. Basically the keys letters are the same, but the numbers now correspond to the extra letters. To add the accents, press '+' for the caron and '=' for the acute accent. Here's a map to help you:

Vocabulary 101

This post isn’t going to teach you any actual Czech, but it will set you up to hopefully be able to go out and learn some basic words. I’m going to focus on some resources that I have come across that I have personally found useful, there are a few out there!

One of the downsides of choosing to learn Czech is that unlike French or German, it doesn’t have a major selection of resources, at least not free ones on the internet. However, because it is such a niche, what is there is created due to a real passion for the language. Nowhere on the net is this more apparent than in the Little Czech Primer. As a starting place for the language, you can do little better. Obviously, this is too basic to teach you more than the basics in the language and you won’t be able to construct sentences that go beyond “the mouse eats” (you won’t be able to say what it eats as it doesn’t cover cases), but that’s not the point. It’s a nice way to learn the basic vocabulary in the language through pictures, and what’s good is that it just displays a picture and not the translation in English.

 This may sound like a setback, but really, it’s not. It encourages you to look at the word and link it to the picture. If you have to work out the picture, or what exactly the connection is, it will stay as you haven’t just skim-read the words. Also, the Czech word is linked to a picture and not an English word, so when you see a picture of a dog, for example, you won’t have to go via English first, which is important when trying to become fluent later on. Another good feature is that it includes sound, which you should definitely take the time to listen to as it creates a link between the written and spoken language. One bit of grammar this does cover is conjugating verbs. Just click on the "conjugate" label and it comes up with all the present tense forms of the verb.

For some basic phrases, czech out (the first and last time I’ll do that, promise) the single-serving.com phrasebook. Print it out, fold it, and keep it in your pocket. Of course, this works better if you take it out occasionally and read it. It’s a good little resource to have on you as when standing in queues, sitting on the bus or whatever other wasted time you have in your day, take it out and try and learn one of the phrases in it. This is important, don’t just take it out and skim read it all, but spend time looking at each phrase, look at the words and memorise it. These are what you’ll need to be able to start speaking in the language when you’re actually there, and the quicker you learn them the sooner you can think about grammar, reading and writing in the language. When learning these, try using them whenever you can. This is obviously easier when in the Czech Republic, but still, keep them in mind. If you’ve told your friends you’re learning Czech, greet them in Czech. When counting, use the Czech numbers. Write a shopping list in Czech. When you’re more advanced you’ll be surprised how you can almost immerse yourself in the language whilst sitting comfortably at home, but for now, do what you can, it’ll make it easier to remember the words and phrases you’ll need later. And it beats learning from lists.

If you need help pronouncing the words, try locallingo.com which is a complete resource and includes vocabulary lessons with audio. Spend a bit of time trying to mimic the sound of the speaker.
James Naughton is a name you’ll come across often when learning Czech. He’s written two of the best books for the language, which I’ll review at a later date. For now, try exploring the oxford university website for resources, which is where he lectures. One is this little page for learning months and days. Unlike most other European languages, Czech months have absolutely no relation to their English counterparts, being Slavic rather than Roman in origin. This means you’ll have to make an effort to learn them, so keep coming back to this page and test yourself.

I hope these links help you and give you something to build on. Remember, you’re vocabulary is only as big as you make it, so learn those basics!

The strange case of cases.

Aaaarrrrrrgggghhhhhh! Cases! The bane of anyone trying to learn Czech, or indeed any Slavic language. If you don’t know what a cases is, it’s basically when a language sticks an ending onto a noun to tell you what it’s doing in the sentence. Compare:

Restaurace je krasná
BUT
Muž je v restauraci

Notice how the ‘e’ has changed to an ‘i’ in restaurace? That’s because it’s changed from the ‘nominative’, which shows the subject, to the ‘locative’, which, unsurprisingly, shows location. In Czech there are 7 cases, which change for plural. There are numerous ways to ‘decline’ or form these cases. Seems like a lot to remember. However, it can be easier than it looks:

1. The ‘Vocative’ is only used to call someone, as in “Hey! Mark!” In Czech this would be “Marko!” So clearly we only use it with proper names. So really, you can almost forget about it, you’ll pick it up soon enough when talking to people and it really isn’t a disaster if you don’t use it. This brings us down to six cases.
2. The nominative is the form you’ll learn, and so you don’t have to learn how to form it, it’s there for you. Though you will still need to learn the plural. So that gets rid of half a case. Yay!
3. Many of the cases use the same endings. This is more apparent if you learn them in the right order. So really, you don’t have to learn that many forms.

Now, in the Czech Republic itself, the order the cases are taught in school is: Nominative, Genitive, Dative, Accusative, Vocative, Locative and Instrumental. This is not the order you should use. You are not a Czech child or grammarian. You are a foreigner with different needs. This obscures how the cases work and how they are formed. I would say: Nominative, Accusative, Genitive, Dative, Locative, Instrumental, Vocative. Why? Because:

1. You’ll need to use the accusative before the genitive or dative. There’s no point learning how to say you’re giving to someone, when you can’t explain what it is you’re giving.
2. If you’ve learnt Latin or German, this order is similar to the one you will have used.
3. This order shows the similarities between the cases more clearly. For example, the accusative is the same as the nominative in certain words, and the genitive in others, so it makes sense to learn it in between those two. The locative is formed by altering the dative, or is the same. Again, it’s easier to learn them together.

My final tip is: Don’t try and learn them all in one go! This is not fun and very difficult, plus useless. You’ll need vocabulary and phrases before you can learn the case to use with them. Space it out. We learnt all the cases in the first year at university, but we spaced it out, one case a month. Concentrate on the case for that time, learn what verbs it goes with, what prepositions it should be used after and if it occurs in any special phrases. This takes time and cannot be learnt in one go!

A useful web page. What the cases do, when you use them.

The wiki article. Shows the patterns. Useful for reference when you have a bit of a foundation.

So, why Czech?

nionSo, for my first proper post, I thought the obvious topic would be, why Czech? Well, my reason was pretty straightforward, I study at Bristol University and they offer modern language courses in several languages. But, why not Italian or Spanish? Because I already do French and figured there's no point in paying one and a half grand a year to learn a language I could easily do on my own. German, you generally need the corresponding A-level to do. As for Russian, that was just me being pragmatic, it's more expensive and inconvenient to spend the year abroad there.
However, beyond university course options, there are many reasons I have come across that make Czech a great language to learn. First and foremost: PRAGUE! That mysterious European destination that enchants millions a year. I haven’t been yet But I’m definitely planning on going soon, and the fact I’m studying Czech is really going to add to what I take from the experience. Being able to speak the language of a foreign country really does add to the thrill of being there.

Throughout my studies of Czech at university my tutor has recommended a ton of modern Czech films to watch, and they’re a highlight of the language, no other country of only 10 million people has such a rich and varied cinema history, winning 3 Oscars for the Best Foreign Language Film category including those from the former Czechoslovakia, and it shows in the massive variety of styles, stories and budgets. I’ll post more about some of these films later, but for those who are curious, the film Kolya is the latest to win the Oscar and is definitely one of the most accessible Czech films and also introduces a period of massive change in Czech history.
Czech is also a difficult language and so knowing even enough to hold a simple conversation in it is a definite way to impress people. It is a HARD language and achieving even an intermediate level of skill in it will be difficult, but the culture and the language itself is enchanting enough to inspire you to success!

I'm currently studying this crazy language at university in England and when I started I was instantly shocked by the incredibly small amount of resources available on the Internet. This blog isn't a course in the language- I've onlydonee a year of it myself, but I'm hoping that eventually it will become a site to learn a bit more about the language, find out exactly what is on offer and read about my own experiences with the language.

Na shledanou!