In the Czech Republic? Are you going to study or work? Or maybe you are simply attracted by the sound of Czech speech? In any case, you are faced with the question “How to learn Czech?”.
In order to understand the variety of language teaching options, you first need to have an idea of what the Czech language is, what group of languages it belongs to, and what related roots it has with the Russian language.
For a tourist trip to the Czech Republic, learning the language using a phrasebook is the best option. In the phrasebook you will find the basic necessary phrases, signs, making purchases in a store, calling an ambulance, paying in a restaurant, and also performing other necessary operations. You will learn basic phrases and necessary words. In the phrasebook, all words and phrases are divided into thematic groups, so it is quite convenient to learn phrases by comparing them with the situation. 
In the modern age, all this has become accessible. To immerse yourself in the Czech language, you can tune in to the frequencies of the Czech radio and listen not only to Czech news and music, but also on the Internet pages of the Czech radio Rozglas you can also find audio books. Czech films can be downloaded in a VKontakte group specially created for this purpose, on torrent resources and in other places. From the films offered, you can also choose Czech films with Russian translation or Russian subtitles. Watching national films is very useful, because... Almost all Czech films have a unique, characteristic flavor only for them. Specific humor, Czech realities, peculiarities of mentality - you can experience all this when watching Czech films. 
If you go to study and think that in a language environment the language will learn on its own, then you are deeply mistaken. Without systematic, high-quality studies, the only thing that awaits you is that you will learn to perfectly understand those around you, but will develop linguistic muteness in yourself. Or you will speak with gross errors so that it will be very difficult for a foreigner to listen to you. And also remember that if you have chosen Prague for immersion in the language environment, then communication in Czech can be kept to a minimum. What prompted me to think about this issue is that it is believed that the Czech language is very easy for students from the countries of the former CIS to learn. In this article I will try to talk about the arguments both for and against. By the way, I have been studying languages for a long time - I studied at a school with in-depth study of English, I even won a couple of Olympiads, I took French and German courses for a couple of years (and I still remember a little of them), I studied Spanish at the institute - in general , you can trust me :)
First, I would like to talk about a couple of myths, where they come from and confirm/refute them.
The Czech Republic is a fairly attractive country for tourists. Of course, the main flow of tourists goes to Prague. She is especially popular center. Entrepreneurs are not fools at all, so their services provide in different languages. Russian, English - including. An unprepared person will draw his first conclusions here, hearing Russian speech and seeing many signs. In fact, this is, nevertheless, a purely tourist place, and drawing conclusions here is stupid.
Those who are lucky enough to get outside of Prague will also not experience huge problems. For example, what can be seen in Poděbrady - the words “museum”, “církev”, “ostrov” (see the sign on the right) - are quite clear, and if something is not clear, you can guess it from the pictogram. From this we can also conclude that Czech is a very understandable language, however, this is not the case. In fact, all signs are made in order to attract the maximum number of people, so they are written as simply as possible. In such cases, international variants of words are often used.
In fact, the vocabulary hidden from tourist eyes is not as easy as it might seem. For those who want to try their hand at understanding Czech texts right away, you can try reading the news on http://ihned.cz/ - it’s unlikely to be very easy.
Speaking of what language Czech is similar to - it is similar only in Slovak. With the others there is only similarity, which does not always help, and more often it only hinders.
This myth is born mainly among those who have already tried to start learning this language. And it’s hard to argue here - the first period of study is quite easy for Russian-speaking students - in the first month of our study, almost everyone had excellent grades.
Then, very often, everything falls into place - the grammar becomes complex. The main problem (for me personally) is the frequent illogicality. If a rule applies in one case, it is not a fact that it can be applied in another. However, this feature is inherent in many Slavic languages, including Russian.
The test results at the end of the year are proof of my words. Rare student more than 90%. As for admission to top universities in Prague, I’m just silent.
(If you want to find out whether a Czech student can work -!).
Here, too, everything is quite controversial. Firstly, working in the Czech Republic without knowing the Czech language is strange, to say the least. Secondly, you need to be very lucky to immediately get to a foreign country like this. Thirdly, you need to study, and here you can’t go without a language - foreign students have the same rights as Czech students (and, therefore, the same responsibilities), which means their studies will take place in Czech. And in the end, sooner or later you will also want to talk to someone.
One of the subtypes of this myth is the myth that knowing English is enough here. I admit, I thought so too. It seemed to me that if I knew the language, then everyone knew it too. And this is Europe, civilization. Oh, how wrong I was. English is mostly spoken by educated people, which means they are unlikely to help you in everyday tasks - in shops, banks, at the post office - everything is in Czech. And if suddenly a person knows English, this is also unlikely to help you. Usually, it was taught at school and forgotten without practice, so you won’t be able to show off your knowledge.
It just so happens that I am now (yes, which is the antivirus). The working language is English; you can also speak Czech with colleagues. Do you think there are many techies here who boast that language is just a tool? In a nutshell: if you don’t know the language, well done, go work where you don’t need to communicate.
Well, I guess I talked about myths. Now, I think it’s worth talking about the Czech language and looking at it with my Russian-speaking eyes :)
The Czech language belongs to the Indo-European family (like Hindi, Farsi, Spanish - do you think they are all similar?). This is a very large group of languages, and they are quite different. Czech belongs to the Slavic group of languages (that is, it still has something in common with Russian), and more precisely, to the West Slavic group (together with Slovak and Polish, which actually already have a lot in common with Czech).
Czechs write in Latin letters with diacritics. There are 3 diacritics: charka (á), gachek (č) and krouzek (ů). There are 42 letters in the Czech alphabet, it is very easy to begin to understand the Czech letter.
This phenomenon has been known for a long time. For example, the word “město” (read as mnesto) is translated as city. Everyone will definitely come across the word “pozor” (read as disgrace) - this is a call to be more attentive. In fact, it happens very often, so it’s a shame!
As you can see in the picture, there are a lot of them. There is no need to learn everything; it comes naturally with the experience of living in a particular place. In Russia, the situation is different; in the Far East, most likely, you will be understood just as well as in Moscow (if they still speak Russian in Moscow 🙂).
On the other side, single standard, nevertheless, exists - it is what is studied in schools, universities, and used in official documents.
From my own experience, knowing these things is very important for learning a language. Sometimes only history helps to understand why a word is called one way and not another. And knowledge of the realities of recent years is generally necessary in order to understand peers.
So, let's summarize. Czech is a difficult language. Only Slovaks understand it relatively easily; the rest need to work on themselves. Knowledge of the Russian language does not always help, and even more often it confuses. Knowing English helps very little. On the other hand, if you use this knowledge correctly, success in learning Czech is much easier to achieve. It is worth learning a language (any) in the country in which it is spoken. However, if you need it not for practical use, but as a hobby, you can do it at home. It’s also worth saying that you shouldn’t judge the Czech Republic and the Czech language by the center of Prague - there are a lot of interesting things around, take it at least.
To receive free education at universities in the Czech Republic, language proficiency at level B2 is required. Every person who wants to become a student at a prestigious university faces the question of how to quickly learn the Czech language and how realistic it is to achieve good results within a year.
offers everyone from Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan and other CIS countries preparation courses for studying at universities in the Czech Republic, including language teaching. Our many years of experience will allow you to master all the subtleties of speech and learn to listen to lectures, communicate and write fluently in Czech.
Ways to learn Czech
Czech is part of the group of Slavic languages. It is similar to the Russian and Ukrainian languages, but at the same time it has its own difficulties and features. They consist in differences in stress, grammatical structures, differences in the meaning of lexical units that sound similar.
Establishing correct pronunciation is of great importance. Phonetic errors and distortion of words lead to misunderstanding and difficulties in communication. In addition, when learning the Czech language, you need to master writing and reading the Latin alphabet.
Learning the Czech language requires a lot of hard work and attention, systematic hard work, and daily practice in communicating with teachers and other students. What are the ways to learn this language?
Despite the fact that the Czech language is not the most difficult for the Russian- or Ukrainian-speaking population, learning it can cause certain difficulties, namely:
These and other mistakes and difficulties can be easily overcome if you study speaking practice by enrolling in Czech language courses in Prague. In a relatively short time, you will master the necessary base and overcome the fear of mistakes and the feeling of self-doubt.
We offer a large selection of programs for learning Czech throughout the year. They all involve intensive language and speech practice in listening, reading, speaking and writing. You will receive the necessary skills to successfully pass entrance exams and enroll in the best specialties of leading universities in the Czech Republic.
Annual Czech language courses at the Association Educational Center they provide excellent practice for training grammatical structures, mastering and using lexical units, developing phonetic skills, and listening comprehension. Thanks to our programs, you will learn many useful and interesting facts from the history and culture of the country.
Czech language courses in Prague help to quickly and effectively overcome the language barrier, increase motivation in learning, and arouse interest in further deepening and improving acquired skills. Being in a natural language environment makes language learning lively and very effective, and the creative, friendly atmosphere of classes makes them educational and exciting.
Already hundreds of graduates of our center are successfully acquiring knowledge at the best universities in the Czech Republic. You can become one of them if you fill out an application on the site.
The words are similar, and so is the grammar. Nevertheless, you need to study Czech seriously. Czech has a complex system of declensions, a lot of exceptions, the particle se, as well as the letter “ř”, “haceki” and “charki”. Teacher at the GoStudy training center Dagmar Šigutová talks about Czech as it is.
Learning Czech for Russian-speaking students is, of course, much, much easier than for English or German students. Russian and Czech belong to the group of Slavic languages, therefore, from the very beginning of their studies, Russian-speaking students understand Czech speech well.
Very often, Russian-speaking students think that since they understand Czech, that means they speak it. This is far from true. Due to the similarity of languages, Russian students develop receptive skills much faster than native speakers of non-Slavic languages. The similarities in the grammar and vocabulary of Czech and Russian are very helpful - especially in the development of passive speech skills. At the same time, language similarities, on the contrary, can interfere with the formation of active skills.
Similar Czech and Russian words often have different meanings. For example:
čerstvý – fresh
shame - attention
pitomec - fool
ovoce – fruit
zápach – stench
vůně – aroma
vedro – heat
rodina – family
сhytrý – smart
davka – portion
chudý – poor
úkol – task
sour cream - cream
Let's say a German, Englishman or Korean masters the Czech form of the past tense without any problems, quite quickly. A Russian-speaking student will immediately remember that the verb should end in -l, but will forget to include the verb být, which in Czech indicates a person. This is how systematic errors arise that interfere with the understanding of speech utterances.
In present tense constructions, the Russian-speaking student likes to add Russian endings to Czech verbs. For example, the Czech verb dělat in the present tense has the ending -ám. But based on the similarity with the Russian verb “to do,” the Russian-speaking student adds -aju. It turns out dělaju.
Or I’ll give an example of systematic declination errors. The Czech preposition -proti is used with a noun in the dative case. The Russian preposition “against” with the same meaning is used with the genitive case. A Russian-speaking student, under the influence of his native language, automatically uses nouns, adjectives and pronouns in the genitive case with Czech -proti. And there are many such examples.
Absolutely all foreign students when learning the Czech language have great difficulties with verbal constructions - with and without prepositions. But, while speakers of non-Slavic languages either learn the correct constructions or don’t, many Russian-speaking students use “Russian rules” - they use Czech verbs in the “Russian case” or with the “Russian preposition”.
For example, the verb zúčastnit se is similar to the Russian verb “to participate.” In Czech, this verb is used in the genitive case without a preposition. But a Russian-speaking student, under the influence of his native language, can use the preposition -v and the prepositional case.
Our teachers attach great importance to the fight against systematic errors. We constantly draw the attention of our students to the similarities and differences between the Czech and Russian languages and perform special exercises. We correct the guys until they begin to speak Czech correctly.
Czech is spoken by 13 million people (66th most spoken language in the world).
The Russian accent is very strong. In classes with Russian-speaking students, Czech teachers pay much more attention to phonetics than in English- or German-speaking classes.
Practicing Czech pronunciation is fundamentally important. Otherwise, Czechs simply will not understand what the students are saying. This way, students will lose the desire to speak and the confidence that the language can be mastered.
We have increased the number of hours of phonics in our curriculum. From the very beginning of training, teachers draw students' attention to the pronunciation of the consonants d, t, n and dě, tě, ně, ending -t in infinitives.
We strive to strengthen students' skills in correct accent placement. The stress in Czech words is always on the first syllable. All students know this, but it is difficult for them to consolidate the rule in practice. In Czech, the stress is forceful and is not related to length, which is unusual for Russian-speaking students. They often place stress in the middle or end of a word - on a syllable with a long vowel.
At the same time, Russian students are often embarrassed to pronounce long vowels (“delki”). We teach the guys how to pull them properly. In the Czech language, vowels are not reduced, as in Russian. The letter "o" should sound like "o", and a Russian student often reads it as "a". And the Czechs don’t understand him.
Czech is also known for its syllabic consonants. There are entire phrases without a single vowel: Strč prst skrz krk (which means “Put your finger through your throat”).
Czech spelling is also not the easiest. We prepare students to study at Czech universities, so in class we practice a lot of spelling - spelling “gaček” and “čarek”, hard and soft “i” / “y”, we pay attention to the order of words in a sentence, the place of the particle se. In the Russian language, word order is free, so it is also not easy for students to master Czech syntax.
Returning to the question of whether the Czech language is difficult, I will say that after a year of classes, the vast majority of our students master it at the B2 level, enter universities and study there. The Czech language is difficult, but Russian-speaking students have many advantages when studying it. You need to use them and take your studies seriously.
