Remarkable Language
I have started to realize how important is to handle even little
bit local language. Czech language is really hard language and
foreign need to study many years before he/she can even hope to
speak correctly. Our own studies were limited for only basic words
and phrases (and how to understand menu in restaurant), but it
was enough. Czech will like you more if you can say even something.
I don’t know why, but I get along especially good with
old ladies. In a cloth shop I had a very fun time with the eldest
saleslady when I was brave enough to talk with her using some
kind of czenglish. In the underground one grandmother liked so
much about our discussion (where I used all my vocabulary) than
she turn to wave me in the stairs. In Strahov monastery one local
inhabitant lead us through the mysterious gates and wonderful
closed courtyards to our right way just because we speak Czech.
Hard thing in Czech is different bending forms and strange letters
like for example special č and ř. Especially that ř
is good to know, because from pronunciation of that you can recognise
the real Czech. Try something like [rsh] before you hear it correctly
from native speaker. Also recognition of words is harder because
they use their own forms instead of common forms. I mean that
when people in other countries go theatre or teater or some that
sounds similar, people in here goes actually to divadlo (lookery).
Masculine, feminine and neuter are even harder to learn…
or maybe they are not so hard but you need still to remember all.
I have never understood that need to separate men and women in
spoken language: “he” and “she” and so
on. I still confuse them quite often, because in Finnish we have
only one word and form. In Czech this is even more complicated
because words will be bended according to who is saying it or
what is the gender of word. E.g. masculine: bilý autobus
– white bus, feminine: bilá hora – white mountain,
neuter: bilé pero – white pen. The best examples
you can find from the map of Prague: ”Karlovo Námesti”
square in other words námesti is neuter, so the world Karlov
(Charles) gets form Karlovo. But because street is feminine, have
street names usually a –ending. E.g. Karlova, Masarykova
(Masaryk was a first president of Czech), Nerudova (according
to local writer Jan Neruda) and so on. And most funnies example
was in movie commercials: You can go look to movie named Bridget
Jonesova!
Czech has also many funny sentences. With them you can practise
your pronunciation or just show up for your friends. The most
famous is maybe ”Strč prst skrz krk!” that means,
“Put the finger through your throat!” There are no
vocals in that sentence at all. Best way to practise special ř–letter
would still be ”Tři sta třicet tři střibrnýcn
střikaček střikalo přes tři sta třicet
tři střibrných střech.” That means “333
silvered pipes sprinkles water to the 333 silvered roofs.”
I just wonder how this people would make out Finnish version ”alavalla
maalla hallan vaaraa”? That means, “Open lands has
a danger of frost”.
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