Talk:Czech language

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[edit] The complexity of the Czech language

Due to its complexity is said to be one of the world's most difficult languages to learn. The complexity originates from several sources:

extensive morphology (some words have over 200 possible word forms)
free word order (often all the permutations are valid)

Both are true for almost all Slavic languages, so why Czech is considered more difficult than other Slavic languages here? For me it was not not more difficult than Polish for example. So I propose to delete this paragraph as the author's private point of view.

People seem to like calling every Slavic language "[one of] the world's most difficult languages to learn". Indeed, it's largely opinion and may be freely discarded. --Brion

And there's a lot of other candidates too. People often call Chinese one of the world's most difficult languages to learn, and some African languages are occasionally cited as candidates as well. --Delirium 05:04, Oct 29, 2003 (UTC)

Could someone give an example of a word which has over 200 possible word forms? I am a Czech native speaker but I do not remeber any. --Pajast 15:51, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

One man's meat is another man's poison. Something like that. It is my personal experience that claims about one language being more difficult than the other (let alone one of the most ... stuff) are usually groundless myths. Whether a foreign language will be difficult for you to learn, depends upon numerous things.

First of all, what is your native language? If the language you want to learn is similar to yours (belongs to the same language family or group etc.), it will be much easier for you to learn it than a very different language from another part of the world. It will be naturally much easier for a Polish guy to learn Czech than for a, say, Spanish guy. Chinese is said to be very difficult but for whom, let me ask? Japanese people learn Chinese quite easily while Americans don't.It must be made plain the Chinese Language(s) and Japanese language belong to completely seperate families,there is no genetic relationship between the two.

Secondly, how good are you at learning languages? If you have the talent, you can crack Czech and Chinese alike down pretty quickly if you are really eager to learn them and have some free time. Finally, there are even more factors that determine this, like your surroundings, people around you, even political situation in your country.

So, there can be no ideally motivated claim that a particular language is more difficult than the others. These things are hard to judge about, they are relative. I've been learning English for over eleven years (I'm Lithuanian) and guess what, I don't feel confident with my English at all.

Now about the arguments. *free word order (often all the permutations are valid) It was free in almost every ancient language. Czech is by no means the only language to retain this feature. Word order is free in most other Slavic languages and in all Baltic languages (only two of them survive, though. Word order is absolutely free in them and in extinct Baltic languages). Possibly there are non-Indo-European languages with free word order as well.

*extensive morphology (some words have over 200 possible word forms) Again I must say there is nothing unusual about this fact. Ancient languages also had this many word forms (to have many different word forms is an archaic feature, their number decreases in all languages in time for some reasons not yet discovered by linguistics). Most notably, Sanskrit verbs could have over 700 forms. Other Slavic languages also have many different verb forms (one of them has retained dual).

Therefore, the it is said ... is to be removed. Such phrases are considered weasel terms. 213.226.138.241 12:36, 11 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I just visited the page about the Czech language and I think the article is not very good. In my opinion, the article should be an objective linguistic info about the language for any interested person. Please avoid writing articles like this from the point of view of an English speaker who "considers" learning that language. All this stuff about the difficulty of a language or any other part of it does not belong to this article. I suggest you create a chapter like: learning Czech for foreignors. The same applies to all those tongue twisters and all consonants words and sentences. Please stop this - I think this is not that important at all, not worth mentioning - rather for jokes, no serious interest. You can mention it in one short sentence only. I did not read the article nor the discussion here in a detailed way, so these are just my first ideas. I definitely agree with the opinions above - I propose a clean up of the article to a more "objective" one putting aside all the stuff for English learners of Czech 62.240.165.134 17:34, 23 November 2006 (UTC) aswler

Just a word: word order in Czech is hardly free at all, considering each different word order shifts the focus of the sentence, and some of the permutations are frankly nonsensical. Not to mention such things as placing adjectives behind nouns, which is never acceptable in Czech, or separating prepositions from the nouns they govern, which produces utter jibberish in Czech, as it would in every other language. In my humble opinion, every mention of "free word order" ought to be stricken, as it is a myth. What is true, is that Czech changes in word order change the meaning of a sentence more than it would in English. jiři černý June 10 2006

I would not say that placing adjectives behind nouns is never acceptible in Czech. It's possible but unnatural (unlike Polish). We can meet with such a word order in an artistic or archaic style. The inverted word order is common in biological or chemical terminology (as in Latin), e.g. meduňka lékařská, Melissa officinalis, lemon balm. Pajast 07:54, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

The adjectives can stay behind nouns for example in enumeration and it doesn't sound strange (slovníky německé, anglické, italské... - german, englisch, italian dictionaries)

Well, then this use is NOT FREE, but BOUND to a concrete usage. Clitics aren't free either, e.g. "bych" or "se":

Tomáše bych se býval zeptal na cestu

Tomáše bych se na cestu býval zeptal

Tomáše bych se býval na cestu zeptal

Býval bych se zeptal Tomáše na cestu

Býval bych se Tomáše zeptal na cestu

Býval bych se Tomáše na cestu zeptal

Na cestu bych se býval zeptal Tomáše

Na cestu bych se býval Tomáše zeptal

Na cestu bych se Tomáše býval zeptal

--Pet'usek 08:42, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

The real problem is the irregularity of Czech morphology. In comparison with Russian, Slovak, etc. (official) Czech morphology is extremely irregular (I would say it is a mess). However nobody is a native speaker of that language. Morphology of colloquial Czech is much simpler.

So I would say that morphology of Czech is extremelly hard to learn. But I agree, that it is silly to say it about the whole language -- for me, the hardest thing about any language is the usage, registers, etc. -- Jirka

I don't think that the Czech morphology is irregular. It's regular but there are a lot of paradims of declensions and conjugations with relatively frequent exceptions. For instance: as compared with English, there are only few irregular verbs in Czech. Pajast 07:54, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

You're Czech, so you should know, that the four Czech irregural words (být, chtít, jíst, vědět) are irregular in their conjunction, what is difficult to be compared with English, because there the conjunction doesn't exist - only the word to be can be conjugated and also the -s in 3th person of singular is a remainder of conjugation. You're right, when you say, thed they are many paradigms for nouns and verbs in Czech, but I thing, sometimes would be better to remember some word as irregular, than to learn many principles and paradigms. And, by the way, I thing that in creating the aspect pairs of verbs is much more irregularity than in all English.

Is this article about "Czech" or about "Learning Czech"? ;-) --Pet'usek 08:42, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

You are right, it is ineffective to learn paradigms. But you cannot call it irregularity. Native speakers use the inflexions intuitively. Yes, Czech irregular verbs have difficult conjugations which must be learned. But if we learn English, we must learn tens of past and passive forms of irregular verbs which native speakers also use intuitively. But I agree that learning Czech may be more difficult that learning English.

Have you ever tried to learn Hungarian or Finnish? I think that their grammar is also very strange and complicated for both English and Czech speakers. --Pajast 15:51, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

This is not quite relevant, is it? Considering whether a language is difficult or not is a function with (at least) two complex arguments: the language of the learner and the language learned.--Pet'usek 08:42, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

I am a Czech studying Finnish. As I can compare these two languages, I dare to say Czech language is definitely much harder, more complicated and much more irregular than Finnish is, although for many people Finnish remains a synonym for incomprehensible. In fact, Finnish is very regular. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bara.huncovska (talk • contribs) 21:59, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

When it comes to Czech, I am a beginner. I'm an American who has studied Czech for several months now. I am only learning the cases now. Yet I do know one thing that will help those trying to learn the "ř" sound. I know, it's a very difficult sound. Heck, even Czech children have to have special speech therapy to say it in some cases. Lucky for me I ran into one of these when I was teaching English at an English Camp. She was very impressed that I was learning Czech, and that I had made quite an effort with that sound. Indeed, I did make quite an effort, I spent hours in front of Routledge Series Colloquial Czech trying to say it. I was making progress, but not quite there yet. This is how she taught me to do it:

* LEARN THE Ř * *

If you know how to roll your Rs, you'll be able to learn the sound (eventually). For those who do not, learn that first.

First, roll your R.  Then, move your tongue forward and clench your teeth.  Sounds very much like a suppressed 'Ř', doesn't it?  Now, open your clenched teeth slightly, to the position you would use for the 'Ž' sound.  If you did these steps right, you are making the Ř sound, the big one.  From here, do not be discouraged if it does not work sometimes.  Some words in Czech are just plain tongue-twisters; but with practice, with even these you will be able to say it.

Eric Hendrickson, USA

It ain't a combination of "r" and "ž". It's pretty close, but it isn't the same. If you look at the IPA for 'ř', you'll learn that it's a 'raised' 'r'. What does that mean? It means that the gap between the palate and the tip of the tongue is narrower than when you say 'r', which increases both the frequency of the trill and of the vibration heard.

Also, it is necessary to know two things: there's voiced "ř" and voiceless "ř". You won't be able to use voiced "ř" in words like "přítel" (=friend), where the "ř" is voiceless (because the preceding "p" is also voiceless), as it would almost sound like "břídil" (=wanker), where the "ř" is voiced.

Practising the sequences "rž" and "rš" is useful, because it teaches you to put the tip of the tongue closer to the palate while, at the same time, keeping the vibration or trill. Once you learn the real "ř", it won't be a sequence of two other consonants any more, i.e. the position of the tongue will not change during the articulation.

--Pet'usek 08:42, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Czech can be a difficult langauge for some speakers. I for example am a native speaker of English and have learned quite a bit of German as well as some Czech, and can safely say that Czech was much more difficult. This, of course, is due to the fact that the structure of English is much closer to the structure of German than to the structure of Czech. Speakers of other slavic languages, as has already been stated, would have a much easier time learning Czech than they would learning English or German. I have no problem with leaving in the phrase "Due to its complexity is said to be one of the world's most difficult languages to learn" provided that we qualify it in some way. Perhaps by saying it is quite difficult for speakers of less morphologically complex langauges to learn. -Ryan

Sorry for beating a dead horse, but the notion that some languages are more complex than others is simply not true. (Except for very young pidgins, but they'll probably mature into creoles or die, so it's a moot point.)

It's not necessarily untrue, it's just that we don't have a good way to measure complexity in a language. Until we have, we should leave out comments about complexity. --hcholm 14:24, 13 January 2007 (CET)

Let me quote from Language Files from the Department of Linguistics of the Ohio State University, 8th edition, 2001. On the first page of the introduction, it lists "Every language is enormously complex" as one of the "very general principles of human language that will be explained and illustrated throughout this course." It's first on that list. "[t]hey are the underlying themes of many of the lectures you will hear and the assignments you will read."

Every language is enormously complex.

They should teach this in school. --Kjoonlee 16:40, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Nice, but e.g. ancient Greek is much more difficult to learn for me than English. Of course, in booth languages you can express the same ideas, but in English you don't have to learn how to create about two hunders forms of every verb - and there are many irregular verbs in Greek -, when they are at most five forms of one verb in English (and seven forms of word to be).

Be careful with that. Chinese has no morphology and a quite strict word order. That's right, no morphology: each verb has one form, participles included (assuming that the term "participle" makes sense when applied to Chinese). Is it easy? The pronunciation is challenging, the grammar requires total rethinking if you come from Indo-European (there is no relative pronoun, you have to turn the phrase into an attribute, sorta kinda) and… And I didn't even mention the writing system. David Marjanović 18:45, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Pronunciation of Polish RZ

QUOTE It also features the consonant ř, a phoneme that is said to be unique to Czech and quite difficult for foreigners to pronounce (it's close a sound that would be written as rzh in English). /QUOTE This is one of our (Czech) national myths, but is it true? I know very little Polish, but what about Rzeczpospolita (republic) and przepraszam (please) ?

Polish rz is pronounced like Czech ž. --Chris 22:15, 19 Aug 2004 (UTC)

No, it's differend sound. It's retroflex fricative.--88.101.76.122 20:51, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

The rz in the Rzeczpospolita is pronounced as ž but rz in przepraszam is pronounced in the same way as our (czech) ř is. But Polish is the only other language I know which uses it... --Lukas 13:27 5 Oct 2004 (UTC)

No, it isn't. Polish "rz", very much like Czech "ř", changes its voicing depending on the environment. If voiced, it sounds like Czech "ž" (e.g. in English "vision"), when voiceless, it sounds like Czech "š" (e.g. in English "she"). Przepraszam is thus pronounced "Pšeprašam" (especially those who were born and live in the Czech Republic). The orthography may well be puzzling even for some native speakers of Polish, but it's really a "š" or "ž", not "ř". --Pet'usek 08:52, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

It's different from both š and ř. It's similar situation like with english th - to some foreigners it sounds like s, for some like f and for some like t.--88.101.76.122 20:54, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

What's the difference between czech ř, and ž? is it a 'voiced/unvoiced' pair (such as in the Rzeczpospolita/przepraszam pair). In polish 'ż'/'rz' mark the same sound, with morphology acting different on it (as in the pair 'może' (maybe) != 'morze' (sea), which are pronounced the same, but 'ż' declines to 'g' while 'rz' declines to 'r'), and both 'rz' and 'ż' can be voiced or unvoiced in accordance to possition. As for other languages - at least the voiced 'ż' is present in bulgarian/russian/ukrainian, marked as 'ж'. In Czech, is it that ř is always unvoiced and ž always voiced?

No. ř can be both voiced or voiceless (compare tři three and dři rub). (However, phonemically ř does not distinguish voicing - there is no minimal pair). The voiceless counterpart of ž is š. All (ř, ž, š) are fricatives; ř is a trill, ž and š are not. -- Jirka

Zmrzl, ztvrdl. Do you know of anything which does the opposite, softens when it freezes? -phma

Yes, the anger ;-) --Pet'usek 08:52, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

OK, I give up. Stupid link to Croatian page on Czech didnt work. Maybe because of diacritical mark (haček). Later.....Mir Harven 17:27, 11 Feb 2004 (UTC) --

[edit] Languages other than Czech with the ř sound

According to M. G. Kossmann and H. J. Stroomer (Phonologies of Asia and Africa, ed. Alan S. Kaye, vol. 1, p. 470), the Berber language Riff has this sound where Tamazight and related languages have /l/. Its tense/geminate counterpart /ll/ (or /l:/) becomes an affricate [dž].

A voiceless relative of ř, /rš/, is found in Nivkh, and is apparently a voiceless /r/ phonemically. -- LudwigVan 15:55, 2005 Jan 28 (UTC)

Oh dear. How many times will I have to repeat that CZECH "Ř" IS NOT A SEQUENCE OF TWO CONSONANTS? It's a RAISED ALVEOLAR TRILL. Polish does NOT have it, since "rz" is pronounced either as "ž" or as "š". As for Riff, check for the IPA, please, so that we don't mystify the readers.--Pet'usek 09:07, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

"Of unique and difficult sounds, Czech boasts ř, basically trilled r which is not in any other language (except for Polish and some dialects of French)."

It's not in any French dialect - check for the IPA.--Pet'usek 09:09, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Source: [1]

PS: This whole site is great: Yellow Pages of The Czech Language

Adam78 01:28, 30 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I was always under the impression that Polish rz is now pronounced as Czech ž (a voiced postalveolar fricative) in the standard dialect. I wasn't aware of it being in any French dialects either; I only learned Parisian pronunciation, where r is a voiced uvular fricative.

Polish "rz" IS pornounced as Czech "ž".

Something else I should check into...

About the sound being found in Riff: there's not much written on that particular Berber language; most linguistic writings seem to focus on Central Atlas Tamazight (and Tachelhit, which is very closely related) as Morocco's unofficial indigenous language. I'd like to see more written on Riff (also known as Tarifit), or actually hear the language spoken; I don't like to base my conclusions on a single citation.

That's right.

On a side note, Arabic, like Czech, boasts a unique consonant: a voiced velarized alveolar stop, the sound of ض dād. It's rare indeed, but not quite unique. Most varieties of Berber have that sound, but they originate as two different phonemes in Proto-Afro-Asiatic: The Arabic consonant came from Proto-Semitic *ṣ́ (most likely a glottalized voiceless lateralized alveolar affricate, the sound of Navajo tł’); the Berber sound from Proto-Afro-Asiatic *ṭ (a glottalized voiceless dental stop). LudwigVan 03:34, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I'd like to know how often do Czechs say things like "strc^ prst skrz krk"? V. Kodytek 18.02.05 15:08 CET

Not often, but how often do we say our English tongue twisters?--D. Kapusta 20:53, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

And how often do people say things like "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog."? Hexagon1 22:57 22 Aug 2005 (AEST)

Dutch has a very similar sound; when "r" is "followed" by "s", it sounds remarkably similar. --D. Kapusta 20:53, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Upper Sorbian has the letter Ř and presumably pronounces it the same.

... No, the Upper Sorbian "ř" only occurs after letters "p", "t" and "k" and is pronouced in the same way as "š" in Czech.

I don't know if the Nivkh sound really is a sequence – if so, I imagine it would be written рш instead of р̆ (that's a brevis on top of a Cyrillic r).

I am a Czech native speaker studying Norwegian and living in Norway - and in Norwegian language the "rs" is very close to Czech "ř", for example in the word "norsk". finrod.felagund@epost.no

I think you mean retroflex s (ʂ) (that harsh š which Poles use in words where we have ř)--Praseprase (talk) 19:03, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

David Marjanović | david.marjanovic_at_gmx.at | 15:53 CEST | 2006/9/23

If everyone would add four tildes ~ after their posts, it would makes things much easier to read. Without that, it's unclear whether a comment is part of the original post or something added by another editor. Interlingua 14:46, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] NPOV?

Maybe it's just me, but the following sentence (in the recently added "Slang and Dialects" section) isn't exactly a stellar example of NPOV: "[Bohemian Czech] is by far the worst-sounding of the three main dialects, and breaks many grammatical rules." And "Moravians speak correct Czech, unlike their Bohemian brothers" seems like a needless attack. (Not to mention "This type of slang is unique in that non of these pronunciations are easier to say, and make no sense whatsoever. When asked about this Czech people only tell you you're being stupid.") Should this just go away? HDC 03:14, 27 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I think it is just a joke. Moreover none of the three are slangs. I will put there some information about official, colloquial and regional dialects of Czech. --Jirka 23:03, 18 July 2005 (UTC)

I edited that a bit, having been inspired by an article by one Czech linguist from Charles University who did some research on interdialects in the Czech Republic. It is untrue that the Moravians speak "correct" Czech. There is no thing as "correct" Czech. Moravians have more forms that resemble "standard" Czech (or literary language), but it does not mean they speak "correct" Czech, because on the other hand, they have MANY forms that are totally out of standard (especially in the vocabulary field). --Von klein 20:42, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Čtvrthrst?

Can a native Czech speaker attest to whether this is in fact a legitimate Czech word? I assume (by breaking it up) that it means "a quarter of a fistful," but it's not familiar to me (a pseudo-native Czech speaker) nor is it in my pocket Czech-English dictionary. HDC 02:55, 20 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Čtvrthrst

"Čtvrthrst" "a quarter of a fistful" is a legitimate word, approved by Ústav pro jazyk český, but as a linguistic construct, used only for fun. Similar nonsense word is 10-consonant "čtvrtsmršť" - "a quarter of whirlwind".
The longest "live" consonant only word, although rarely used, is 8-letter "scvrnkls" "you have shot off" (e.g. marble from the table), derived from commonly used "cvrnkat" "to fillip".

I wouldn't call it "live", because in common czech it is "scvrnknuls"

I'd say it "scvrnks" in common speech because the ending "-nul(s)" simply falls off in commonly used Czech. Therefore, I for exaple often say "uh" (he bended aside) instead of "uhnul".

[edit] Learn the Ř

I removed the following text from the main article because it doesn't belong there. Edinborgarstefan 18:58, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

If you know how to roll your Rs, you'll be able to learn the sound (eventually). For those who do not, learn that first.

Some of you know of the umlaut sounds. Whether you've thought of it or not, it is actually a hybrid between the English "ee" and "oo". The 'Ř' is similar, only with consonants. As you know with the rolled r, the tongue is flapping freely in the middle of the mouth. Now, there is another sound to focus on. In Czech, the letter 'Ž' makes the sound, in English, that is part of the word "vision". This sound is a combination of the two. First, roll your R. Then, move your tongue forward and clench your teeth. Sounds very much like a suppressed 'Ř', doesn't it? Now, open your clenched teeth slightly, to the position you would use for the 'Ž' sound. If you did these steps right, you are making the Ř sound, the big one. From here, do not be discouraged if it does not work sometimes. Some words in Czech are just plain tongue-twisters; but with practice, with even these you will be able to say it.

Eric Hendrickson

[edit] History of the Language

This article complitely lacks the history of the Czech language! -- Petri Krohn 03:31, 17 October 2005 (UTC)

That's true. I'd really like to know more about what the linguistic situation was like during the Hapsburg years. --Lazar Taxon 17:18, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Well, I created an article on the history of the Czech language (cs:Historický vývoj češtiny) on the Czech Wikipedia. I intend to translate it into English, but I am busy now. Please be patient. Or someone could help me.--Pajast 17:02, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Bohemian or Czech?

When did the Bohemian language start to to be called the Czech language. I doubt the that Jan Hus preached in the Czech language, as the Hus article now states. -- Petri Krohn 18:37, 10 October 2005 (UTC)

I beg your pardon...so, what language do you think Jan Hus preached in? German??? Latin?????? He was the actual inventor or founder of the Czech diacritical orthography.

As for the time, when the language started to be called the Czech language, do you mean in English? --Pet'usek 11:12, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Quoted from the Bohemian article:

The word "Bohemians" was never used by the local Czech population. In Czech, the region was since early Middle Ages called only "Čechy" - Bohemia or "Království české" - Kingdom of Bohemia, and its mainly Czech-speaking inhabitants "Češi".

This goes for English too, the English name has always been Czech, however the Latin name was more frequently used in the Middle Ages and before. The original English word came back into common usage in order to distingish Czechs the people, and any inhabitants of Bohemia. -- Hexagon1 07:01, 24 October 2005 (UTC)

Please note: There is no word as "Bohemian" in Czech language. The word "Čech" would now apply to all the inhabitants of the Czech Republic. Germans, however, distinguished "Böhme" (inhabitant of the Kingdom of Bohemia of any language) and "Tscheche" (person of Czech nationality speaking Czech language). Remember, there were 3 million Germans in the Czech part of Czechoslovakia from 1918 to 1938...--Von klein 15:13, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

"Bohemia" is derived from the German "Boehme", meaning the region called "Cechy" in Czech. This confuses things, but a person who studies the Czech language and literature in university is a "Bohemista/Bohemistka". --D. Kapusta 20:28, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

"Bohemia" is from Latin, from the era of Roman Empire, when Boii tribe lived in region of today's Czech Republic. See Boii. German "Boehme" is derived from it. AntOnTrack 18:39, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

Bohemia comes from Boiohaemia (the homeland of the Boii)--Pet'usek 11:12, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Yes, you are right; I was thinking that there was a Latin root when I was typing it. Thanks. Sladek 17:23, 30 January 2007 (UTC)20:28, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

The Czech Republic consists of BOHEMIA, German Böhmen, Czech "Čechy", MORAVIA, German Mähren, Czech "Morava", and SILESIA, German Schlesien, Czech Slezsko. Bohemia was the medieval Czech Kingdom, Moravia was the medieval Moravian Margr., Silesia is the southernmost part of the former Silesian Kindgom.--Pet'usek 09:17, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Call for verification

I suspect that some of the examples of Czech languages are inexact, can someone with actual knowledge of the language check them?

zmrzl (froze to death) - might be freeze to death
čtvrthrst (quater-handful) - probably quarter-handful

-Homer Jay 03:32, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

Zmrzl does mean "froze to death." It is the past-tense form of zmrznout, which means "freeze to death." And yes, čtvrthrst means "quarter-handful," I suppose, although it's as much of an invented word as "quarter-handful" is in English. —Bkell 04:15, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

minority lang in Germany? Tobias Conradi (Talk) 08:13, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

What do you mean minority lang in Germany? -- Hexagon1 03:24, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

'Zmrzl' doesn't mean 'froze to death', it means '[he] froze'. The 'he' is not necessarily animate so the freezing doesn't always have to result in the death of a person... Jonas

The word 'zmrzl' has perfective aspect and in the most context implies complete finishing. Therefore only for persons (and animals) has primary meaning 'froze to death'. But for this meaning the more suitable word exists - umrzl.

I'm changing the translation to "froze solid", which expresses the perfect aspect without being specific to living things. After all, the plumbing can freeze, too.

[edit] Nasality of Czech pronunciation?

[My background: I studied Czech for a while, many years ago — though it's all gone "rusty" by now, and I can't say I understand more than a handful of words. I also hear some Czech fairly often nowadays because a Czech news program (Nova's "Televizní noviny") is shown on my cable TV system right after a Romanian news program I watch regularly.]

One thing I've noticed, from the beginning, is that most Czech speakers seem to speak quite nasally. Has anyone else noticed this? Am I right, or mistaken? Is this a regional feature?

Richwales 08:48, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

From my unscientific observations I believe that the nasality you are speaking of would be more of a regional dialect, specific to the area of Prague. I spent most of my time in Moravia and noticed that the people on TV didn't sound much like the people around me, but that's just a personal observation.

Sgthone12b 9 June 2006

Nasal vowels do not occur in Czech, that is, not as a distinguishing feature. That which you might construe to be nasality is, I'd expect, the very Czech tendency to stress the first syllable (though lightly), which in case of longer words or phrases leads to a whole string of unstressed or moderately monotonous syllables. Coupled with vowel length as a distinguishable feature, this often leads speakers who have another language than Czech as their first tongue to feel that the language sounds "tight" or "constricted", which could be mistaken for nasality. In the local dialect of Czech Silesia, of course, vowels can become moderately nasalized under certain circumstances owing to the fact that this particular dialect of Czech lies, in pronunciation, closer to Polish than anything else. Another possibility is that you're used to Prague Czech, which I've often heard described by Moravians as being "extremely open" in pronunciation, and thus you might think that Moravian Czech sounds a bit obscure. But the short answer is: no, officially there is no such thing as nasality in the Czech language.

Jirziczerny June 10 2006

Your "unscientific" observation is correct. Especially women (though not universally, of course) tend to unintendedly nasalize the vowels in the area around Prague, which is quite interesting. In some eastern Moravian dialects, there are "pockets" of slightly nasalizing populations, but this feature, unlike in and around Prague, has much to do with velarization, which is quite common there. In Silesia, nazalization (or rather its absence) is certainly one of the features that distinguish local Czech from Polish.

The individual dialects are remnants of the Slavonic dialectal continuum that once stretched from the Adriatic to the Baltic Seas. Eastern Moravian dialects are a transition between Czech and Slovak, Northen Moravian (or Silesian) dialects are a "bridge" between Czech and Polish. In Germany, Upper Sorbian, which is closer to Czech than Lower Sorbian, which is closer to Polish (oh, that's a silly sentence...but I'm tired and can afford it ;-)), may be seen as remnants of this continuum, too.

Nasalisation is thus a regional phonetic rather than general phonological feature. --Pet'usek 09:31, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Preposition Problem

This phrase:

"The most notable difference is a shift in used prepositions and case of noun, for example k jídlu (to meal - dative) (as in German zum Essen)"

needs help, as k jidlu (e.g., Co si dame k jidlu?) doesn't mean "to meal," but "to eat."

Napoleonbe 03:25, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Pretty Consonants all in a Row

I suppose many people come to this page not to know how to pronounce the ř but to pronounce all those Czech words that seem to have no vowels. Neither is this page any help, nor the one that it seems to be cribbed from. The two sources each say that words in this language are stressed on the first syllable... all right, is the first syllable in "Dvořak" a schwa and how can that be emphatically pronounced? I read that the US philologists had an historical tiff with the International Phonetic Alphabet (vowels high and low vs. vowels closed and open, etc.) but that does not compare with Czech impudence. Listing those words and sentences without IPA transcriptions only redoubles incomprehension. --Sobolewski 20:44, 13 January 2006 (UTC)

Schwas don't exist in Czech as far as I am aware of, and Dvořak is pronounced very close to 'Dvoh-řaak'. And the IPA is annoying, and impossible with all those sounds so similar to each other, you'd have to get someone really good in the IPA as well as Czech to transcribe it correctly. AND, does anyone know how-to transcribe ř into the IPA (just out of curiosity)? And there really is nothing to pronouncing Czech consonant clusters, you just read them one after the other (as Czech is phonetic) without insterting any wovels. -- Hexagon1 04:29, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

Well, shwa doesn't occur in the alphabet, but it's usual to spell consonants with a schwa, i.e. "p" would in colloquial Czech be called [p@] rather than [pe:].--Pet'usek 10:30, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Actually, there is one thing to pronouncing Czech consonant clusters: usually the whole cluster will be voiced or unvoiced, not mixed… See Czech voicing assimilation --Sabik 09:24, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

Czech has no schwa, Dvořák is pronounced exactly as it is written; short o, voiced ř, long a, stress on the o. Czech has no difference between open and closed vowels, only short ones and long ones. á sounds like a long a, é sounds like a long e. Simple as that. jiři černý June 10 2006

Well, Czech has qualitative non-phonological differences between the short "i" [I] (as in English spin, tin, kin), and long "í" [i:] (as in English bean, read, seed), between the short "u" [U] (as in English bull, pull) and long "ú/ů" [u:] (similar to the sounds in the English verbs "loose" or "choose"). Short "e" is a mid-open vowel [E], the long "é" tends to be a little closer. Various dialects can have various vowel qualities.

Bohemian dialects tend to have opener vowels ("e" has tendencies towards [E], even [ae]/[ä] around Pilsen, "o" has tendences towards "a", "i" towards "e"), Moravian (especially in the south) closer (short "i" is really [i], not [I]) etc.--Pet'usek 10:30, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

Although There is no schwa in "Dvořák", Czech have schva. It is that sound in "prst", "hrst" "blb". Where we say that r/l is used instead of vowel, there is schwa after l/r. Try to say loudly (v,na)"stromě" and "strmě". There is indeed schwa after r in "strmě".

Just to make it clear - I did not write the above false claim. P. And, indeed, there is no schwa in those words.

Oh, no! Do not confuse schwa with syllabic r/l. If there were schwa, the the pronunciation would be different. The consonants (r, l) are the nuclei of syllables, not schwa. --Pajast 15:56, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] CH is a single letter

Perhaps minor but nonetheless confusing may be the fact 'ch' is considered a single letter and alphabetically comes after 'h' and before 'i'. For example, 'chemie' (chemistry) would come after 'fyzika' (physics) in an index; names beginning with 'Ch' are listed the same way in a phonebook. 'Ch' also goes to a single square in a crossword puzzle.

156.152.45.90 20:15, 17 March 2006 (UTC) Aleš - Portland, Oregon

Feel free to edit that in at the Czech alphabet article. Even though it aready mentions it, you can always expand and improve upon the information in Wikipedia. Oh, and I strongly recommend getting an account here. +Hexagon1 (talk) 02:35, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Record ř

Someone post a recording, it's probably the only way to really know how to pronounce it. -Iopq 09:50, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

Hi, I can record it for you, but where should I send it to? --Pet'usek 10:31, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

The wikipedia commons: [2] -Iopq 18:25, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Complexity of Czech, word order

Why is there a pecking order of "difficulty" of languages? Why is it a contest? I've heard many condescending English-speaking expats use this "ranking" as a way of saying that Czech is a backwater language, needlessly obtuse, and should thrust themselves into the modern world by making their language "easy" for the lazy English speakers. I object to this "one of the most difficult languages" nonsense. Why isn't English considered so? If you are a Slavic language native speaker, English articles, perfect and continuous aspects, phrasal verbs, etc., are quite daunting.

Also, having learned a bit of Czech and lived there, "Czech word order is free", which is touted by Czechs themselves (I think they mean relative to English), is utter nonsense. You can change the word order, which we can't do as much in English, but it communicates different things; that being said, there ARE strict rules about word order, such as placement of the reflexive "se/si", the order of the past-tense verb forms, and the personal pronoun, depending on its placement in the sentence or relation to preposition ("ti" versus "tobě", for example). Sladek 17:25, 30 January 2007 (UTC)20:26, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

In Czech, we say "volný, ne však libovolný" (free but not arbitrary). Free word order means that it need not necessarily be "SVO" (subject-verb-object) as in English, this is enabled by the treasure of inflexion forms (which makes the grammar complicated, often also for Czech themselves). First of all, the word order should respect logical links between words (we should not split up word groups that form semantic units) - this is an essential condition for keeping of the meaning and the comprehensibility of the message. For rhytmical reasons, unstressed words (as mentioned "se, si") cannot be the first words in a sentence (if so, this does not affect the comprehensibility of the sentence, this sounds oddish only). It is usual that sentences begin with facts which are known. New or emphasized facts are placed at the end of sentences. We should also avoid such a word order which enables double interpretation. --Pajast 15:06, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Tenses and Conditionals

I've just been browsing through this page quickly, and the section on Tenses and Conditionals is not very accurate nor very well written. Apart from being less formal and scholarly in tone than editorial policy requires, my main criticism is that it alludes to "oddities" of the Czech language when they are in fact common among Slavic languages. For instance, the "conditional marker" is in fact the verb "to be" in the conditional. This feature is also found in Russian. Another example is the reference to the pairs of corresponding verbs which indicate either single events or repetitive actions. All students of Russian would also recognise this as the nightmarish "verbs of motion" that one must learn. As for the "fickle" future tense, the author has failed to realise that Czech, as with many Slavic languages, has verb aspect. Perfective verbs by definition cannot express the present, and the present conjugation expresses a completed action in the future. The standard present tense is expressed by imperfective verbs. This is also found in Russian, for example. (Apologies for only referring to Russian; that's the one I know most about in relation to tenses. Other readers may be able to provide further examples.)

The "See also" section of this page has a link to a much better "Czech verb" page. Perhaps the current "Tenses and Conditionals" section should be rewritten to give a short summary of that page instead.

I absolutely aggree with what has been written above. One more error - it is not true that Czech conditional has no indication of time. If the speaker feels there might be some confusion about the time, he can indicate that a past action is discussed. See the difference: I would help = Pomohl bych, I would have helped = Byl bych pomohl. Jan.Kamenicek 00:54, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Teshen Silesian

These shortened vowels are also sometimes emphasised, as opposed to emphasising the initial syllable as common in all other variants of Czech.

This not correct. Teshen Silesian simply doesn't stress the initial syllable, but the penultimates (like Polish).--Pet'usek 11:12, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Question on Czech origin

I had heard ideas from my family for a while that my last name, Dzurick, is of Czech origin. Earlier today I had a friend, who studies words and such, ask me if indeed it was, and if so, it would have been pronounced "jur-itsk". Is this correct? I thought that maybe this would be the place to find out. Genius00345 21:08, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

Your name reminds me of no Czech surname. I think it could be Slovak name Dzúrik [ˈdzuːrɪk] (dzoo-rick). Unlike Slovak, dz and dʒ (as J in jam) are uncommon in Czech. --Pajast 10:03, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] word forms question

Can someone explain the following to me? (I don't speak Czech, but I'm currently perusing a Czech cookbook.) "Roast pheasant" is given as "Pečený bažant", "Roast capon" is given as "Kapoun pečený", "Roast partridge" is given as "Koroptve pečené", and "Roast goose" is "Pečená husa". I'm guessing that the "ý", "é" and "á" have something to do with gender. I know Czech has many different forms of words, and word orders, depending on the context, etc., but these 3 phrases seem like they should have the same form for "roast xxx"...?72.192.135.104 05:09, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

You may easily find the answer in the Czech_declension article, section Adjective, sub-section Hard declension. – Yarp^Talk 05:25, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Pečený bažant, pečený kapoun (sg. nominative masculine), pečená husa (sg. nominative feminine), pečené koroptve (pl. nominative feminine), word order is not important ... and you should avoid Czech cuisine ;-) --Cepek 05:50, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Thanks! I'm half Czech, and remember my grandmother's cooking, so I know to avoid the cuisine. But the language is intriguing.72.192.135.104 03:11, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:Czech Wikipedian's notice board

You are invited to join Wikipedia:Czech Wikipedian's notice board! The Czech notice board can be used for discussions on Czech-related topics; to plan your Czech-related projects; and ask for, or offer assistance for Czech-related subjects. Editors are encouraged to sign their nickname on the list of active participators. --Thus Spake Anittas 02:40, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] IPA and the real world

I visited this article to find out how to pronounce the Czech name "Jiri", but since this article, in typical Wikipedia elitist-pedant style, uses the incomprehensible IPA rather than actually telling the reader how Czech letters are pronounced, I was none the wiser. If anyone actually wants to know, there is a proper pronunciation table here. Intelligent Mr Toad 20:06, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

It says simplified table for reason. This table tels you closest sounding letters, it is not proper pronunciation. 88.101.76.122 12:14, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

It would give you a very, very strong English accent. Sometimes you wouldn't even be understood, because the table for example largely neglects palatalization. That's why the IPA is there: it is precise. Learning IPA is not difficult; start at International Phonetic Alphabet, read that article, and read those it links to. Lots of audio files of lots of weird sounds are, for example, here. David Marjanović 19:05, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Notification of discussion at Czech Rep. article

Just a quick heads-up that the status of official language is being discussed at Talk:Czech Republic. +Hexagon1 ^(t) 12:01, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Are Czech and Slovak very close?

Is there any objective research showing that mutual intelligibility of the two languages is really falling after the dissolution of Czechoslovakia in 1993? I have read some opinion that it may not be truth. Yes, present-day children say they don't understand Slovak. My generation (born in 1970's) listened to Slovak language in the radio and TV, used Slovak text-books, etc. We also said we didn't understand Slovak. We cannot listen to the Slovak language so often today, but there are a lot of Slovak people living and working in the Czech Republic. They usually speak Slovak.

Czech and Slovak dialects also form continuum. Differences between their standard (literary) forms are described as those between individual dialects of German.

So, I think there is no doubt that Czech is closely related to Slovak, more than to any other language. Comparation to a conversation in Bulgarian (another Slavic language) is exaggerated. (This is a reaction to changes made by 88.103.88.21 (155584214, 16:50, 6. 9. 2007).) --Pajast 08:05, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Czech Conditional

It is NOT true, that Czech doesn't distinguish time in conditional phrases. This indication of time is only omitted in such cases when the time sequence is clear from preceding text. From the view of grammar there are 2 types of conditionals - past, formed using plusquamperfect, and present, formed using perfect (usual form of past tense in modern Czech; when one says "past tense" the "past perfect tense" is meant): 1. Byl bych šel domů - I would have gone home ("bych" + pluperfect of the verb "jít" (to go)) 2. Šel bych domů - I would go home ("bych" + perfect of "jít")

The auxiliary verb "byl" in the first form is usualy rewritten to "býval". "Býval" has the same meaning as "byl" and can be used in standalone constructions outside conditionals as well, however, it gives much more "pluperfectoid" and "continuous" or "repetitive" stress to the sentences when it is used at the place of auxiliar "být".

In conditional clauses, future tense is possible in the same sense as in English - using present/future tenses: Jestli mi ujede vlak, půjdu domů - If I miss the train, I will go home.

The translation of all types of English conditionals to Czech is straight - every type of English conditional has its unique Czech counterpart even from the grammatical view.

Note: usage of plusquamperfect as a standalone verbal tense outside conditionals is very rare in the modern Czech language and gives a hyper-correct (in scientific writings) or archaical (in fiction literature) timbre to the text when it occurs. -- 2 November 2007 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.70.28.199 (talk) 22:35, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

This is technically true, but plusquamperfect is archaic, it's not used in modern Czech. You may find it in some books, but not in speech.--88.101.76.122 (talk) 00:40, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

I would not be that strict. Sometimes, when really needed, we still use it to highligt the distinction. At least I do ;) Reo ^ON | +++ 21:27, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

I don't agree. It is used in common speech outside Prague, especially in Eastern Bohemia can be found many grammatical forms in colloquial speech, which are considered archaic in modern literary language (plusquamperfect, supine, old-Czech form of accusative and genitive, distinction of [w] (not used in official modern Czech) and [v], etc.). However, past conditional cannot be considered archaic in any case even in other parts of country (except Central Bohemia).

[edit] ayin???

Can you give some examples of words which you think are pronounced with the ayin sound??--Praseprase (talk) 18:35, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Where is it mentioned in the text that the ayin sound occurs in Czech? --Pajast (talk) 13:59, 14 May 2008 (UTC)

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Czech_language&diff=211080344&oldid=210926367 —Preceding unsigned comment added by Praseprase (talk • contribs) 14:52, 14 May 2008 (UTC)