Good morning in Czech. Czech language - is it easy to learn? Now - about the difficulties that any Russian-speaking student is likely to face

Therefore, remembering some school curriculum one of European languages, to clarify the way if you get lost in the narrow streets of Prague is not a problem. Almost all restaurants and pubs have a menu in English or at least one waiter who speaks good English, the same is the case with shops, a little worse with. And, fortunately for tourists from Russia, most of the older generation of native Praguers understand and speak Russian quite well, thanks to our common socialist past. In general, you can go to Prague without knowing the Czech language - in any situation there is an opportunity to explain and understand the interlocutor.

However, when going on vacation, it is always better to know some of the most necessary expressions and words in the language of the country you are going to. The easiest way, perhaps, is to buy a small phrase book, or pick up the phrases you think you need on the Internet before leaving. If you didn’t remember about it in time, or simply didn’t have enough time, here is a small selection of simple phrases and words that may come in handy during your holidays in beautiful Prague.

Words and expressions that you will definitely need (stressed vowels in bold):

Phrases that may come in handy when shopping:

Phrases to help you navigate the city:

Phrases that we hope you don't need:

Czech language, along with Russian, Finnish and Thai, is considered one of the most complex languages in the world. Czech, like Russian, belongs to the Slavic languages, however, despite this, Czech is rather unusual for Russian ears in the presence of a large number of consonants, and in some Czech words there are no vowels at all: for example, finger is prst, neck is krk, and wolf is vlk. Also, many Czech words and their meanings may seem funny to you, or they may confuse you:

Today, the study of the Czech language is gradually becoming fashionable among our compatriots. And the reason for this is not least the fact that Czech belongs to the West Slavic language group, which means it has much in common with Russian. In just a few minutes of your stay in the Czech Republic, you will begin to understand the meaning of many signs, the meaning of individual words and expressions, and after a few days you will probably be able to exchange a couple of phrases with the locals.
Those who know some other Slavic language, such as Ukrainian, will be especially lucky: these travelers will be able to almost fluently understand most conversations on everyday topics.
However, before diving into language environment Let's take a closer look at its features.

All Slavic languages ​​have one common source - the Old Church Slavonic language, which was spread by the well-known Cyril and Methodius. However, if the Russian alphabet inherited the so-called Cyrillic writing of letters, then in the Czech Republic, as a European country, they began to use the Latin alphabet, adapting it to the features of the local pre-existing language with the help of superscripts apostrophes and acute. Apostrophes were placed above consonants to indicate their hardness (for example, the word lekař (doctor) sounds like "healer") and above the vowel "e" to indicate the softness of the preceding consonant. Acutes, which look like an accent mark, to indicate long vowels (á, é, í, ó, ý). To indicate a long "u", a small circle (ů) was placed above it. These rules exist in Czech to this day.
Unlike Russian, the Czech language has retained a large number of archaic forms. For example, in addition to the six main cases of nouns, it also has the so-called vocative case, the analogue of which in Russian is the appeal.

A few words about the peculiarities of pronunciation in the Czech language. First of all, it should be noted that, unlike Russian, the stress here always falls on the first syllable (an additional stress occurs in polysyllabic words). Now about what sounds correspond to individual letters:
the letter "c" corresponds to the sound [ts],
č is pronounced like [h],
the combination of letters ch denotes one sound [x],
the sound of the letter “h” resembles the Ukrainian [g], which in Russian is preserved in the exclamation “Wow!”,
"ř" means either the sound [rzh] or [rsh], depending on its position in the word,
"š" sounds like [w],
"ž" sounds like [zh],
"j" sounds like [th],
the letter "ň" corresponds to the sound [n].
In addition, there are a huge number of nuances associated with pronunciation, which it is simply not possible to talk about in one article.

It would be nice, of course, to know a few words and expressions that can be useful in different situations when communicating with the staff of a hotel, restaurant, shop and others.
Here is a small phrasebook, containing the most common of them:

Everyday
Good morning! Dobré rano! [Good early!]
Good afternoon Dobrý den! [Good dan!]
How are you/are you doing? Jak se mate/maš? [Yak se mate/mash?]
Thank you, good Děkuji, dobře
My name is… Jmenuji se… [Ymenuji se…]
Goodbye! Na shledanou! [To hello!]
Morning Ráno [Early]
After dinner Odpoledne [Odpoledne]
Evening Večer [Evening]
Night Noc [Noc]
Today Dnes [Dnes]
Yesterday Včera [Yesterday]
Tomorrow Zitra [Zitra]
Do you speak Russian (English, German)? Mluvíte ruština (anglicky, německy?)
I don’t understand Nerozumím [Ne razumim]
Please repeat again Řekněte to ještě jadnou, prosim
Thank you Děkuji [Dekui]
Please Prosim [Please]
Who / what Kdo / co [Gdo / tso]
What Jaký [Yaki]
Where / where Kde / kam [Where / kam]
How/how much Jak/kolik [Yak/kolik]
How long / when? Jak dlouho / kdy? [Yak dlougo / where]
Why? Proc? [Other?]
How is it in Czech? Jak ten to Czech? [Yak ten to chesky?]
Can you help me? Můžete mi pomoci? [Can you help me?]
Yes/no Ano/ne
Sorry Promiňte [Prominte]

Tourist
Do they provide information to tourists? Je tu turistická informace? [Is there any tourist information?]
I need a city plan / list of hotels Máte plan města / seznam hotelů? [mate plan mest / sesame wish]
When is the museum/church/exhibition open? Kdy je otevřeny museum/kostel/výstava? [Where are the museum/kostel/exhibitions located?]

In the shop
Where can I find… ? Kde dostanu… ? [Where can I get... ?]
What is the price? Kolik to stoji? [Will you stop?]
It's too expensive To je moc drahé [To ye moc drahé]
Dislike/like Ne/libi [Ne/libi]
Do you have this item in a different color/size? Máte to ještě v jiné barvě/velikosti? [Mate to yestie in ine barvie/greatness?]
I take it Vezmu si to [Vezmu si to]
Give me 100 g of cheese / 1 kg of oranges Dejte mi deset deka sýra / jadno kilo pomerančů
Do you have newspapers? Mate new? [Mate news?]

At the restaurant
Menu please Jidelní listek, prosím
Bread Chléb [Bread]
Tea Čaj [Tea]
Coffee Káva [Kava]
With milk/sugar S mlékem/cukrem [With milk/zukrem]
Orange juice Pomerančova št’áva
Wine white/red/rosé Vino bile/Červené/Růžové
Lemonade Limonada [Lemonade]
Beer Pivo [Beer]
Water Voda [Water]
Mineral water Mineralní voda
Soup Polevka [Polevka]
Fish Ryba [Fish]
Meat Maso [Maso]
Salad Salát [Salad]
Dessert Dezert
Fruit Ovoce
Ice cream Zmrzlina [Zmrzlina]
Breakfast Snidaně [Snidaně]
Lunch Oběd [Dinner]
Dinner Večere
Account, please Účet prosím [Account, please]

At the hotel
I booked a room with you Mám u vás reservaci [Mom you have reservaci]
Is there a double room? Máte volný dvoulůžkovy pokoj? [Mate are free two-luzhkovy peace?]
With a balcony S balkónem? [With balcony]
With shower and toilet Se sprchou a WC
What is the room rate per night? Kolik stoji pokoj na noc? [Kolik stand still on the night?]
With breakfast? Se snidani? [Let's take down?]
May I see the room? Mohu se podívat na pokoj? [Can I take a rest?]
Is there another room? Máte ještě jiný pokoj? [Mate is there any rest?]
Where can I park? Kde mohu parkovat? [Where can I park?]
Bring my luggage, please Můžete donest moje zavazadlo na pokoj prosím? [Muzhete mi donest my zavazadlo to rest, please?]

different situations
Where is the bank / exchange office? Kde je tady bank / vyméný punkt? [Where is ye tady bank / udder point?]
Where is the phone? Kdye mogu telefonovat? [Where can I phone?]
Where to buy a phone card? Kde mohu dostat telefonni kartu? [Where can I get a phone card?]
I need a doctor/dentist Potřebuji lékaře/zubaře
Call an ambulance/police Zavolejte prosím zachrannu službu/ policii
Where is the police station? Kde je policejní komisařství? [Where are the policemen of the commissioner?]
They stole from me ... Ukradli mně ... [Stolen mne ...]

Download and print out a phrase book (.doc format) that will come in handy on your trip.

A bit of history
Every National language is directly connected both with a single person who speaks it, and with the whole people as a whole. And, like people, it tends to change over time develop or, conversely, fade, be influenced by other languages, transform in every possible way own rules and so on.
Before acquiring its current form, the Czech language underwent a variety of reforms and improvements. However, the most interesting fact of its history is, perhaps, that the official official language he became twice. First, in the 15th century, after the main literary norms and rules, and then at the beginning of the twentieth century. Why did this happen, you ask. The thing is that at the beginning of the 17th century, after the fatal battle at the White Mountain, the Czech Republic was part of a powerful Austro-Hungarian Empire, which was ruled by representatives of the German House of Habsburg. In order to strengthen their power in the occupied states, the Habsburgs tried to strengthen the influence of the German language in these territories. Despite the fact that members of the government were selected from the circles of the German nobility, the main population of the Czech Republic still spoke mother tongue, moreover, it continued to develop: books and treatises were published in Czech, grammatical rules were formed, and in late XIX century, the first Czech encyclopedia was published.
By the way, traces of the historical past are visible in the Czech Republic to this day: there are still tourists speaking German understand better than those who speak English. In 1918, the Austro-Hungarian Empire collapsed, the independent Republic of Czechoslovakia was founded, and two years later, the Czech language (to be more precise, Czechoslovak) again acquired official status.

Deceiver words
Despite the fact that Russian and Czech have a very strong similarity in vocabulary and the meaning of most words can be determined simply on a whim, there are many so-called deceiver words in Czech. Such words sound or are written almost the same as in Russian, but have a completely different meaning. So, for example, the word "stůl" means a table, "čerstvý" fresh, and "smetana" cream. Most often, the difference in meaning causes only slight bewilderment, but there are times when it causes great fun among our fellow citizens. It is not surprising, because when you find out that in order to buy a fashionable dress in a store, you need to ask for a robe (Czech “roba”), the phrase “ pleasant smell"Does not exist in principle, because the word" zapach" means stink (at the same time, perfume in Czech sounds like "stink"), and "pitomec" is not a pet at all, but a fool, it is simply not possible to hold back a smile.

Interesting statistics
Many linguists argue that language statistics is not such a useless exercise as it might seem at first glance. In particular, according to the frequency ratings of the use of certain parts of speech or even their percentage ratio, one can get some (albeit incomplete) idea of ​​the psychology of people who speak a particular language.
What is he national character Czech people, we will leave the right to judge you. We have collected here the results of some statistical studies of the Czech language and seasoned them with some interesting linguistic facts.

The most frequently used words in the Czech language:
a (conjunctions “and”, “a” and “but”), být (to be, to be), ten (that, this), v (prepositions “on”, “by”, “in”), on (pronoun “he”), na (prepositions “to”, “in”, “for”, “from”), že (prepositions “from”, “from”), s (se) (preposition “from”), z (ze) (preposition “from”), který (what, which).

The most common nouns in Czech are:
pan (pán) (master (before surname)), život (life), člověk (person), práce (work, business), ruka (hand), den (day, date), zem (země) (country), lidé (people), doba (period, century, time), hlava (head).

The most common verbs in Czech are:
být (to be), mít (to have, to have), moci (to be able, to be able), muset (to be obliged to do something, to be able to), vědět (to know, to be able), chtít (to want, to desire), jít (to go), říci (to say), vidět (to see), dát se (to begin, for example, dat se do pláče start cry).

The most common adjectives in Czech are:
celý (whole, whole, full), velký (veliký) (large), nový (new), starý (old), český (Czech, in Czech), dobrý (good, kind), malý (small), možný (possible, feasible, probable), živý (živ) (lively, cheerful, temperamental ).

In terms of frequency of use
Most synonyms describe character hardness. álý, ustálený, fixní, stabilní, trvalý, zajištěný, jistý, bezpečný, nepoddajný, nezlomný, nezdolný, neoblomný, nesmlouvavý, houževnatý, sukovitý, neochvějný, rá zný, rozhodný, důrazný, odhodlaný, energický, průbojný, průrazný, tvrdý, hluboký.
The longest word without vowels: scvrnklý (shrunken, shriveled).
The longest word that can be read from right to left is nepochopen (misunderstanding).

As for the frequency of using different parts of speech in the Czech language, here the popularity rating turned out to be the following: the first place was taken by nouns (38.93%), the second place was taken by verbs (27.05%), the third went to adjectives (20.98%), the fourth - to adverbs (9.04%), the rest of the places with a small margin from each other were divided by pronouns, numerals, conjunctions and prepositions. And the Czechs use interjections least of all - they are only 0.36%. Here are some interesting statistics!

The Czech Republic is a state with a long history. On the territory of the republic there are more than 2 thousand ancient castles and all kinds of medieval buildings that attract tourists from all over the world. After another fascinating excursion, you will be able to drink a glass of the best beer in the world, which the Czech Republic is famous for. Also in this country there are excellent ski resorts and mineral springs. The water of Karlovy Vary is especially popular with tourists. The people here are very kind and responsive, and having a phrase book at hand, you can easily talk with passers-by and learn a lot of interesting things about the Czech Republic from them.

You can download such a phrase book on our website. It consists of several topics, with translations of the most common words and phrases.

Necessary phrases and expressions - a topic that includes words and phrases that are important for the tourist.

Appeals

Common phrases

At customs

In public places

In transport

At the hotel

Emergencies

Money

In the shop

Numerals

With this theme, you will find the right words to call someone for help, ask how to get to a place you are interested in, apologize, thank, and much more.

Greetings and politeness formulas - thanks to this theme, you can start a conversation with a passerby, ask where this or that person is from, say where you are from, and also politely answer any question.

Search for mutual understanding - words that will help you in communicating with the locals. You can ask to speak more slowly, ask if the person speaks Russian or English, and similar words and phrases.

Standard requests - translation of the most common requests and their pronunciation.

Passport control and customs - answers to the most common questions during passport control and when going through customs.

Hotel - words and answers to frequently asked questions when checking into a hotel. In addition, with the help of this theme you can order food in the room, ask to clean the room, etc.

Taxi - a list of phrases that will be useful to you in a taxi. By opening this topic, you can order a taxi, explain where you need to go and find out how much the fare will cost.

Shopping - no tourist can spend their vacation without buying something to remember. But in order to buy something, you need to know what it is and how much it costs. This list of questions and phrases will help you deal with the purchase of any product, from food to souvenirs.

Inscriptions - translation of frequently encountered signs, signs, inscriptions and the like.

I was inspired to think about this issue by the fact that it is believed that the Czech language is very easy for students from the countries of the former CIS to learn. In the 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 studied French and German for a couple of years (and I still remember a bit of them), at the institute I taught Spanish- 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.

Myth one. The Czech language is very easy, like Russian, only in Latin letters.

The Czech Republic is quite an attractive country for tourists. Of course, the main flow of tourists goes to Prague. Its especially popular center. Entrepreneurs are not stupid at all, so their services provide on different languages . Russian, English - including. An unprepared person will draw his first conclusions here, having heard Russian speech, having seen many signs. In fact, it is, nevertheless, pure tourist place, and drawing conclusions here is stupid.

Those who are lucky enough to get out of Prague will not experience huge problems either. Here, for example, what can be seen in Poděbrady - the words "museum", "církev", "ostrov" (see the index on the right) are quite understandable, and if something is not clear, you can guess from the pictogram. From this it can also be concluded that Czech is a very understandable language, however, this is not the case. In fact, all signs are made in order to attract maximum amount people, so they are written as simply as possible. In such cases, international variants of words are often used.

In fact, the lexicon hidden from tourist eyes is not as easy as it might seem. For those who want to try their hand at understanding Czech texts on the fly - you can try to read the news on http://ihned.cz/ - it is unlikely to be very easy.

Talking about what language Czech is like - it's like only in Slovak. With the rest - only a similarity, which does not always help, but more often - only hinders.

Myth two. You can learn Czech quickly.

This myth is born mainly from those who have already tried to start learning this language. And here it is difficult to argue - the first time of training is given to Russian-speaking students quite easily - in the first month of our training, almost everyone had excellent grades.

Then, very often, everything falls into place - the grammar becomes complicated. The main problem (for me personally) is the frequent illogicality. If a rule is valid 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 the top universities in Prague - here I just keep quiet.

Myth four. I am a techie (doctor/lawyer/athlete/idiot), I won't need Czech in my profession.

(If you want to know if a Czech student can work - !).

Here, too, everything is quite controversial. Firstly, working in the Czech Republic without knowing the Czech language is at least strange. Secondly, you need to be very lucky to immediately get on like this in a foreign country. Thirdly, you need to study, but here there is nowhere without a language - foreign students have the same rights as Czech students (and, consequently, the same duties), which means that studies will be held in Czech. And in the end, you will also want to talk to someone sooner or later.

One of the subspecies of this myth is the myth that knowledge of the English language is enough here. I confess I thought so too. It seemed to me that if I know the language, then everyone knows it. Yes, and this is Europe, civilization. Oh, how wrong I was. English language, mostly educated people know, which means that 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, he was taught at school and forgotten without practice, so it will not work to show off knowledge.

So it turned out that I am now (yes, which antivirus). The working language is English, you can also speak Czech with colleagues. Do you think there are many such techies here who boast that language is just a tool? In a nutshell: if you don’t know the language, well done, go to work where you don’t need to communicate.

Well, perhaps, I talked about the myths. Now, I think it’s worth talking about the Czech language and looking at it with your Russian-speaking eyes 🙂

Czech belongs to Indo-European family(as well as Hindi, Farsi, Spanish - do you think they are all alike?). 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 West Slavic (together with Slovak and Polish, which already really have much in common with Czech).

Czechs write in Latin letters with diacritics. There are 3 diacritics: charka (á), hacek (č) and krouzhek (ů). There are 42 letters in the Czech alphabet, it is very easy to start understanding the Czech letter.

Now - about the difficulties that any Russian-speaking student is likely to face.

1) False friends of the translator

This phenomenon has been known for a long time. For example, the word "město" (read as a place) is translated as a city. Surely everyone will come across the word "pozor" (read as a shame) - this is a call to be more careful. In fact - it occurs very often, therefore - a shame!

As you can see in the picture, there are a lot of them. Learning everything is not worth it, with the experience of living in a single place, it comes by itself. In Russia, the situation is different, Far East you will most likely be understood as well as in Moscow (if they still speak Russian in Moscow 🙂).

On the other side, single standard, nevertheless, exists - it is he who is studied in schools, universities, it is used in official documents.

5) Ignorance of Czech realities and history

From my experience I can say that knowing these things is very important for learning a language. Sometimes only history helps to understand why a word is called this way and not otherwise. And knowledge of reality recent years generally necessary - to understand peers.

So, let's sum up. 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 is confusing. Knowing English doesn't help much. 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 it is not needed for practical application, but as a hobby - you can do it at home. It is also worth saying that you should not judge the Czech Republic and the Czech language in the center of Prague - there are a lot of interesting things around, take at least.

They say that living in Russia today is not fashionable and expensive. Many brave and desperate people go to live and work abroad in distant countries, but many of us, having a certain sentimentality and fearing nostalgia, prefer to leave, but not far. Where? That's right, Europe! They choose a country closer, and preferably a Slavic one. One of these is the Czech Republic.

Do they need to know

Arriving here, you need to say something, but how? Is it difficult to learn at least a minimum of Czech phrases? By the way, Czech is one of the richest Slavic languages ​​in the world. For comparison, there are about 130 thousand words in Russian today, and more than 250 thousand in Czech. Phrases in the Czech language are intuitive for us Slavs, although many words have a certain cunning. For example, Russian word“beautiful” sounds like “terrible” in Czech, the word “fresh” sounds like “stale” and the like.

But not only those who left their homeland will have to pore over a Czech textbook. Today, the study of this language has become just a fashionable trend among Russians. For those who know some other Slavic language, it will be even easier to understand Czechs and learn a few phrases in Czech.

Many go to the Czech Republic for education. This is one of the few countries in Europe where you can get training for free, and the quality of the knowledge gained will be highest level on a global scale. Therefore, future students are required to know the basic phrases like no one else.

Where useful

The Czech language will be needed by everyone who deals with translations - guides, diplomats, translators working both in the country and abroad.

For tourists, learning a few phrases in Czech will not be difficult. AND service personnel in the hotel, and the waiter in the restaurant will be pleased to hear the phrase in their native language. And if, God forbid, you get lost in the city, common phrases will help you understand how to get to the right address, because the language will bring you to Kyiv. And the Czech language is not difficult at all, and learning it is not only easy, but also fun, especially in a friendly company!

For those who go on vacation to the Czech capital, it will be very useful to familiarize yourself with our detailed manual, available at the link, which details how to properly organize your trip to Prague so that it is interesting, safe and does not go beyond your budget. In the few minutes it takes to read this article, you will learn how to save a significant amount of money without straining at all.

Will Czechs understand Russian?

The Czech Republic is one of the most popular destinations for Russians, and most Czechs living in tourist areas will understand us perfectly. Yes, and in other cities there should be no problems ... Opening borders after the collapse Soviet Union contributed to the influx of emigrants to the Czech Republic, and many Russians, Ukrainians and Belarusians left to live in this country. So Russians will be understood in a restaurant, in a store, and on the street. The main thing when communicating is not to forget that goodwill and a smile on your face are a disarming tool for starting absolutely any communication.