Appendix 1: Building your Czech muscle

Appendix 2: Building your Czech muscle

This guide introduces strategies and guides that are specifically useful for students of Czech. Some of the strategies may also be useful for students of other Slavic languages.

Czech grammar muscle

Cases

If you’re reading this, you already know that Czech words change their form. A lot. In fact, most of the time you encounter a word, it is going to be in another form. There are 14 possible forms for any Czech noun, adjective or pronoun and even number depending on where in the sentence it is used. But no word actually has 14 different forms. For instance, the plural for a word like water (voda) is the same as the form that you get when it follows the preposition from (z vody). Paradoxically, this makes it even more confusing.

You probably already know that is called cases. Officially, Czech has 7 cases and they have different forms in singular and plural which gives you the 14 forms. You can read more about cases in the Czech Navigator which will show you all the different forms and how they work.

Aspect

So that takes care of the first of the two biggest issue learners run into. The other one is aspect. It is worse because it is much less rule based. It is similar to what happens in English with the difference between I have seen and I saw. It has to do with whether the action is completed or ongoing which sounds simple enough but in practice almost anything can happen.

But even here, there’s a hack that can make it easier. Learn the aspect in context. That is too much to explain here but the Czech Navigator will explain how it works. But again when you practice, don’t just learn the verb, learn the most common context.

What you will then need to do, is find examples of those sentences in context and use them to learn from.

Czech vocabulary muscle

The grammar of Czech may seem like it will take you most of the time but it shouldn’t. It will take you a bit more time to get started but after a while it should be no different from any other language. Czech children do not take any longer to learn Czech grammar than English children take to learn their own grammar, so why should you be any different?

But no matter how much time you spend worrying about the grammar, you need to think about building up your vocabulary above all. There are two things that can help you: 1. collocations and 2. word building prefixes and suffixes.

Czech collocations

Collocations are words that appear more frequently alongside each other. So when you’re learning a word, learn some common words that often show up nearby. For example, this is what you see in the Czech corpus Word at a Glance tool when you search for číst (read).

It shows you that the most common thing people read is noviny (newspaper) followed by kniha (book). But a textbook will only give you kniha. So, when you practice the word číst, do it in context with both. Note that on the right of the tool, you see some real examples of use. They might give you some more ideas.

Czech prefixes

Another way to build up your vocabulary is to pay attention to prefixes and suffixes that make up so many Czech words. These suffixes will not be perfectly regular or always make sense but anything you can use to help you build up your vocabulary is fair game.

For example, in Czech the suffix for a place where you can get something is -na with a little bit in front of it like -árna, -ovna. Káva (coffee) gives you kavárna (coffee shop) and kniha (book) gives you knihovna (library).

Prefixes are even more important for verbs. Similar to English where a lot of verbs are made by adding a little particle or two to them. Go up (in flames), go down (like a storm), go in on (a purchase). You can find a list of these in the Czech Navigator. It’s worth spending some time with them.

Czech pronunciation muscle

Czech pronunciation may not seem like a big deal. But do spend time practicing it and paying attention to the rhythms of the language.

For example, some languages like English have irregular stress. Czech doesn't. It’s always on the first syllable. Some languages change the way the vowels sound based on stress. Czech doesn’t. They’re always the same. You’d think this would make it easier. But no. You must practice this a lot if you want to get into the rhythm of the language.

These things are more important than the famously difficult bits such as ř and consonant clusters like zmrzls.

One place where you can get a sense for the rhythm of spoken Czech is the corpus, where you will find recordings of naturally spoken Czech for many of the words you search for in the Word at a Glance tool.

Czech corpus: Dictionary and grammar in one

The previous sections spent a lot of time mentioning the Word at a Glance tool. It is based on the Czech national corpus and it can be very helpful to you as a learner.

Corpus is a neglected tool for language learners. And here Czech has a leg up on other languages because it has one of the best corpora around (yes, corpora is the plural of corpus). The Czech corpus contains tens of thousands of real texts totalling over 6 billion individual words. There are even texts from recordings of real conversations some of them with audio you can listen to. This will give you a much better picture of how Czechs speak than a dictionary.

There are several tools aimed at learners you can use to give you a boost in your learning.

Word at a Glance: Word analysis tool

Word at a Glance is a tool aimed at learners that will give you all the collocations along with real examples and frequency info for any word in Czech.

This is what it gives for the word school.

Wow. This is much better than a dictionary or a thesaurus. You can have hours of fun with this. It is much better than what most textbooks or dictionaries will give you. There are links to real uses in written language and authentic samples of speech recorded in real conversations.

And there's another benefit. Remember how all words in Czech change. Any noun can have 14 forms. But not all the forms are the same frequency. And a corpus will also tell you which form is the most common.

You should use the Czech corpus Word At a Glance instead of a dictionary. It will tell you everything you need to know about the word including the all important collocations, how it’s used in written and spoken Czech, how common it is, etc. But most importantly it will give you lots of real examples that you plug straight into your practice. Much better than the made up ones you find in a dictionary.

Treq – Dictionary with real translations

Treq searches through thousands of parallel texts translated between Czech and English (and other languages too). For any word you search for, it will show you all the ways in which it has actually been translated.

Notice that the options Lemma and A=a are ticked to search for all forms of the word kočka.

But what’s even better is that when you click on the translation, you will get a list of sentences in which it was found.

Lemma search – when you get stuck

Another thing the Word at a Glance tool can do for you is find the dictionary form of any word you see. For example, if you look up the word kočce in the dictionary, you won’t find it. And you won’t even be looking all that near the right answer.

But if you type it into the Word at a Glance tool, it will find the lemma which is Corpus speak for dictionary form.

As you can see, it will also show you that you happened on a very rare form of the word. It does not appear in the top 6.

Czech language resources

These resources are selected for helping you get as much comprehensible input as possible as soon as possible. Many of them will seem too advanced but don’t wait too long to start using them even at the beginning.

Reading resources

Reading is essential for getting enough input to build up vocabulary and a sense of how it is put together in a sentence. Here are some sources of readings for Czech.

Czech Wikipedia

Czech Wikipedia is a good source of little profiles written in relatively simple language. Look for people you already know.

Czech online news

Czech online tabloids are great for reading material. They use relatively simple sentences and they will give you a good start in getting to know what goes on in the Czech Republic. Start with novinky.cz which is a more genetic news site. But for celebrity gossip, there’s blesk.cz. If you’re interested in sports, sport.cz is the place to go.

Czech Readers

But there are now more and more adapted texts from Czech literature you can look at for sources of reading in Czech. Some you can buy in online bookstores, but some are even available online for free.

There is also the AHOJ magazine which is designed specifically for Czech learners working with teachers.

Comic books

Czech comic books are not as plentiful as in the English speaking world but they do exist. Here are some free ones but you should look for more.

Listening and watching

Czech YouTube

YouTube is a source of a lot of Czech. There are many Czech Youtubers – here’s a list of Czech Youtubers and some of them may be interesting.

Vloggers are great. Here’s a great vlog where even beginners get something and it has a real message. At the very least you’ll see a lot of ways of saying hello. Don’t try to understand everything but see if you can get something. Let’s play can also be great because you see what’s happening. Here’s an example.

But YouTube also contains many Czech movies and TV shows, as well as some great Czech music.

One source of learning could be children’s shows you may know dubbed into Czech. For examples, this episode of Peppa Pig in Czech is great for greetings.

Czech Radio

Czech Radio has a great daily 20-minute podcast but you only need to listen to the first 20 seconds to get some useful practice.

Czech digital tools

Czech keyboard – learning to type

You must learn to type in Czech. Install the Czech layout on your computer. By default, the Czech keyboard swaps the Y and Z, so make sure you choose the QWERTY option.

The special characters are along the top row and numbers are typed with a shift. The special characters are typed while holding down the right ALT key.

But before you learn the positions you can type the Czech accented characters by using the pivot characters.

For čárka, type the = sign first and then the vowel. For háček and kroužek type the + sign first (meaning shift and =) and then the letter you want to change.

If you’re ever stuck on the web needing to type in some Czech, go to https://czech.typeit.org which will give you a way to enter the accented characters.

The best keyboard for the phone when using multiple languages is Swift Key but the default keyboard on any smartphone will be enough.

Useful websites for different purposes

There are many websites that you can learn from just by using them to find information. These are all aimed at Czechs finding out useful information.

Mapy.cz and IDOS.cz

These two sites are great for learning about Czech geography. Mapy.cz is the Czech Google Maps and IDOS contains all the public transport timetables. Spend some time looking at them and searching for connections between places. They will expose you to a lot of place names and give you a good sense of what the country looks like.

Chaty a chalupy

Chatyachalupy.cz is the Czech Airbnb for countryside breaks. This is an essential part of Czech culture and by searching through it, you will find a lot of useful vocabulary related to accommodation. There are many other similar sites to choose form, as well.

Jobs.cz

As the name suggests, this is a jobs search site and its use should be obvious. It will give you a lot of vocabulary related to work.

Alza.cz

Alza is the Czech Amazon (or one of several). It’s a great place to get a sense of what people shop for.

Seznam.cz

Seznam is the Czech Google and it should be your search engine of choice for all Czech related things.

Rohlik.cz

Rohlik is a service that delivers groceries. You should spend some time there to see what Czechs eat and what words they use about it.