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?