A while ago I received an email from a lady who’s boyfriend was struggling with learning Czech (I think he was American). She asked about my own personal experience and relationship with the Czech language. As I haven’t written a new post here for quite some time (sorry!), I thought I would share the thoughts I had with you too. So here goes…
My Czech learning has been rather passive for the last few years I’m afraid but here’s the brief version of my story.
I met my wife while we were both living in Cambridge and she was living with other Czechs and Slovaks. I had also previously travelled in both Slovakia and the Czech Rep. While travelling I learnt some basic pleasantries; please, thank you, two beers and where’s the toilet! When I met Radka, I quickly learnt colours, numbers, animals and bird names plus a few useful phrases. After three years together and with our first daughter we decided to move to the C.R. Before the big move we took a two week holiday, staying with her father in Prague and I went to a language school in Žižkov for three hours per day for two weeks. I was also self studying after the sessions and sitting in the evenings watching TV with Radka’s dad where I picked up a few more words and practised what I had learnt.
So, cut to moving here (ten years ago now) – we lived with her father for about 3 months while looking for a house to buy. During that time I was again practising with her father, mainly while watching football on the telly. 🙂 I also saw a Czech teacher for face to face lessons but only saw here two or three times because she wasn’t very reliable. Since then I have done a bit of self study at home sometimes using an app called Memrise or by watching TV and noting down new words. I have found that the longer I have been living here the easier it is to remember new words the first or second time I hear them.
All that said, I still don’t understand most of what people say. One to one, I can often get the gist (general meaning) but in group conversations it’s very difficult. I can usually get my point across and say what I want to but often with bad word order and the wrong case endings! I read something recently that said Czech (and I guess other Slavic languages) is one of the hardest to learn as a non-Slavic foreigner.
Anyway, my advice to her boyfriend was to be a bit more proactive than I have been in recent years. Time will help massively and be brave enough to try speaking even badly because people are usually quite happy that you are even trying. Young people will understand your bad Czech better than older people (50 plus) and often have a bit of English to help you understand. Get to the pub, relax and tell friends funny stories using any words you have (I used to say zeleny koberec venku because I could never remember the word for grass!)
Anyway, I just thought you might find that interesting and it’s about time I posted something right? 🙂
