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!
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