Learning Czech. Natalia Zaitseva - Czech language. Czech Grammar Study Guide Czech Grammar

ZAYTSEVA Natalia Alexandrovna

(Senior Lecturer of the Department of Romano-Germanic Languages)

"CZECH"

Tutorial

in Czech grammar

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION OF THE REPUBLIC OF BELARUS

BELARUSIAN STATE UNIVERSITY

Faculty of International Relations

Department of Romano-Germanic Languages

Lesson 0 (LEKCE 0)

CZECH ALPHABET

name - pronunciation - examples

A a kratke - (a) - cam, tam,- sestra where, there, sister

A a dlouhe - (a:) - narod, zavod, laska- people, factory, love

Bb- (b) - buk, bar, baba- beech, bar, baba

c c- (c) - cukr, cena, cesta- sugar, price, road

Čč - (whose) - čaj, čas, čislo- tea, time, number

D d- (d) - dnes, dub, rada- today, oak, advice

Ďď - (d) - ďabel, zeď- devil, wall

e e tvrdé - (uh) - den, sen, ten- day, dream, that

E e dlouhe - (e:) - leto, mléko- summer, milk

ě hačkovane: - ('e) - tělo, dělo- body, cannon

after b, p, v, f- (yeah) - pět, věk, tobě- five, century, you

after m- (to me) - město, mě, v zimě- city, me, in winter

F f- (f) - film, photo, fialka- film, photo, violet

G g- (G) - guma, garaž, nugat- rubber, garage, nougat

H h- (g) \u003d Ukrainian. - hora, holka, host- mountain, girl, guest

CH ch- (X) - chlap, chleb, mucha- guy, bread, fly

I i kratke - (and) - beer, limo, winter- beer, lemonade, winter

í dlouhe - (and:) - vino, pít, bit- wine, drink, beat

Jj- (th) - jama, jeden, maj- pit, one, may

K k- (To) - cinema, kluk, cost- movie, boy, bone

l l- (l) - les, lampa, lipa- forest, lamp, linden

M m- (m) - matka, metro, mak- mother, subway, poppy

N n- (n) - noc, noha, nuůž- night, leg, knife

Ňň - (n) - dlaň, kůň- palm, horse

O o kratke - (o) - oko, nos, windows- eye, nose, window

O o dlouhe - (o:) - mode, tone- fashion, tone

Pp- (P) - pole, pan, right- field, lord, right

Q q- (kv) - Quido- Guido

R r- (R) - rock, country, radio- year, page, radio

Řř - (rzh, rsh) - řeka, řeč, lekař, přez- river, speech, doctor, through

S s- (With) - sen, soud, les- dream, court, forest

Šš - (sh) - škola, šest, šít- school, notebook, sew

T t- (T) - tok, tam, theta- flow, there, aunt

Ťť - (t) - ťukat, chuť- knock, taste

U u kratke - (y) - ruka, ucho- hand, ear

Úú dlouhe - (y:) - Usměv, únor- smile, February

ů kroužkovane - (at:) - dům, sůl- home, salt

Vv(V) - vůz, water, vitr- wagon, water, wind

W w dvojite - (in) - Walker- Walker

X x- (ks) - praxe, existence- practice, existence

Y y kratke - (and) - byl, jazyk, syr- was, tongue, cheese

Y y dlouhe - (and:) - vysoký, mýt, nový- high, wash, new

Zz- (h) - země, zima, zahrada- country, cold, garden

Žž - (zh) - žena, život, žizeň- woman, life, thirst

Czech belongs to the West Slavic languages. Czechs use the Latin alphabet. Some Czech sounds are marked with superscripts:

sign ’ (čarka) is used to indicate the length of vowels:

ó, á, é, ú, í, ý

sign ° (kroužek) is used to denote a long ů .

sign ˇ (haček) stands for letters š,č,ř,ž, It also denotes the softness of uppercase Ň, Ď, Ť and softness of lowercase ň before vowels and at the end of a word.

To indicate the softness of lowercase t And d at the end of a word and before vowels a, o, u used sign " (apostrophe): ťukat, ďabel, zeď, teď

Icon above the letter ě indicates softness of preceding consonants or iotation of labial consonants. Compare:

tělo[ťelo], delo , pet ,vek , beh .

Writing ě after the letter m indicates pronunciation: mesto , me .

Czech pronunciation is very accurate, based on the phonetic principle, according to which sounds are accurately reproduced:

znám, tok, voda, dráha, sloužit, krásná.

By tradition, letters are used that do not serve special sounds. So, to designate a long [y:] two letters are used - ú, ů .

Letter ú It is usually written at the beginning of a word and after prefixes:

ukol, unava.

Letter ů written in the middle and at the end of the word: dům, vůz, domů,

The sound [and] is transmitted by two letters: i And y, a long sound is transmitted by letters í, ý .Previously, they corresponded to various sounds (compare Russian words was And beat). Compare: bil, byl, bít, být, vít, výt.

In modern Czech, after the letters k, h, ch, r always write a letter y, y: velký, chyba, ryba, suchý, drahý, chytat.

After the letters j, š, ž, ř, č, c only written i, i: žít, číst, cíl, čisto,

After consonants n, t, d, m, p, v, f, b, s, z, l possibly written as i, i so y,y: nyni, ty, dým, dím.

In Czech, consonants are stunned and voiced, as is the case in Russian.: dub, vůz, svatba, dětský.

CONSONANTS

The Czech language has 25 consonants. Many consonants in their formation and pronunciation are close to the corresponding consonants of the Russian language. These consonants are

p, b, v, f, m, n, r, s, z, c, d, t, k, ch, g, j.

Differences are observed between consonants n, d, t - in Russian they are dental, in Czech they are alveolar. Compare:

dej - děj, nemá - němá, ty - ti

give - action, he does not have - mute, you - you

Always solid: h, ch, k, r, d, t, n

Always soft: č, ř, š, ž, c, j, ď, ť, ň

Double: b, f, l, m, p, s, v, z

On the softness of consonants n, t, d indicate vowels ě, i, i , for hardness - letters e, é, y, ý.

Consonant j pronounced as a non-syllable sound, close in sound to Russian [th]. Before vowels it is always pronounced like Russian [th] - jama, junak, jídlo, Jirka, jitro.

Before consonants at the beginning of words, sometimes this sound is not pronounced or is pronounced very unexpressed:

jsem, jdu, jmeno.

But after a negation and a prefix ending in a vowel, it is usually pronounced:

nejsem, zajdu, půjdu, zajmeno.

vowels

Standard Czech has five vowels, which can be short or long.

Brief: a, o, u, e, i, y Long: á, ó, ú, ů, é, í, ý

Long vowels last about twice as long as short vowels, they can be both stressed and unstressed syllables:

váza, zdravá, zastávka, krásná

EXERCISES:

1. Read the one-syllable words:

pas, sad, dar, Jan, bok, nos, kov, strom, cop, dub, buk, kus, sud, jev, jen, rok, bok, tam.

2. Read the two-syllable words correct stress and pronunciation:

matka, mapa, voda, ruda, cesta, maso, sako, jaro, okno, sukno, Rusko, koza, ruka, sama, schopná

3. Read the phrases:

tato mapa, tato nota, tato cena, toto maso, toto sako, toto okno, jedna ruka, jedna cesta, jedno ucho, tato forma, toto auto, jedna strana

4. Read and compare:

pas - pás, pan- pán, dam - dám, rada - ráda, ruda - rudá, pata- pátá, panu - pánů

5. Read:

a) tvá zpráva, tvá známka, má matka, má ruka, má bota, stará dáma, nová mapa, nová cesta, krásná váza, krásná dáma

b) bez, pes, ven, zem, ten, den, sestra, teta, pero, seno, metro, bere, nese, vede, mete, bereme, neseme, dobré, nové, staré, pestré, krátké

Words are similar, grammar too. Nevertheless, you need to study Czech seriously. Czech has a complex system of declensions, a lot of exceptions, the particle se, and also the letter “ř”, “gacheki” and “charki”. The teacher tells about Czech as it is training center GoStudy Dagmar Shigutova (PhDr. Dagmar Šigutová).

Learning Czech for Russian-speaking students, of course, is 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 well.

I understand doesn't mean I know

Very often, Russian-speaking students think that since they understand Czech, it means that they know it. This is far from true. Due to the similarity of languages, the receptive skills of Russian students are formed much faster than those of non-Slavic speakers. The similarities in grammar and vocabulary of Czech and Russian help a lot - especially in the development of passive speech skills. At the same time, similarities of languages, on the contrary, can interfere with the formation of active skills.

False Friends of the Translator

Similar Czech and Russian words often have different meanings. For example:

čerstvý - fresh
pozor - attention
pitomec - fool
ovoce - fruits
zapach - stink
vůně - aroma
bucket - heat
rodina - family
chytrý - smart
davka - portion
chudý - poor
ukol - task
smetana - cream

Systematic errors

Let's say a German, an Englishman or a Korean masters the Czech form of the past tense without any problems, quickly enough. A Russian-speaking student will immediately remember that the verb must end in -l, but will forget to include the verb být in the construction, which in Czech indicates a person. So there are systematic errors that prevent the understanding of speech utterances.

In the constructions of the present tense, a Russian-speaking student likes to add Russian endings to Czech verbs. For example, the Czech verb dělat has the ending -ám in the present tense. But on the basis of similarity with the Russian verb “to do”, the Russian-speaking student adds -aju. It turns out dělaju.

Or I will give an example of systematic declination errors. The Czech preposition -proti is used with a dative noun. The Russian preposition "against" with the same meaning is used with genitive case. Russian-speaking student under the influence mother tongue automatically uses nouns, adjectives and pronouns in the genitive case with Czech -proti. And there are many such examples.

According to Russian rules

Absolutely all foreign students have great difficulties in learning the Czech language with verb constructions - with and without prepositions. But, while native speakers of non-Slavic languages ​​will either memorize the correct constructions or not, many Russian-speaking students use the “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 educators give the fight against systematic errors great importance. We constantly draw the attention of our students to the similarities and differences between the Czech and Russian languages, special exercises. We correct the guys until they start speaking Czech correctly.

Czech is spoken by 13 million people (66th in the world in terms of prevalence).

A matter of emphasis

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.

Setting the Czech pronunciation is fundamentally important. Otherwise, the Czechs simply will not understand what the students are saying. So students will lose the desire to speak and the confidence that the language can be mastered.

We have increased in our curriculum number of hours for phonetics. From the very beginning of training, teachers draw students' attention to the pronunciation of the consonants d, t, n and dě, tě, ně, endings -t in infinitives.

We seek to consolidate students' skills correct setting accents. The stress in Czech words is always on the first syllable. All students know this, but it is difficult for them to fix the rule in practice. In Czech, the stress is force and is not related to longitude, which is unusual for Russian-speaking students. They often put the stress in the middle or end of a word - on a syllable with a long vowel.

At the same time, a Russian student is very often embarrassed to pronounce long vowels (“delki”). We teach the guys to pull them properly. In Czech, 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 do not understand him.

Czech is also known for its syllable-forming consonants. There are whole phrases without a single vowel: Strč prst skrz krk (which means - Put your finger through your throat).

Spelling difficulties

Czech spelling is also not the easiest. We prepare students to study at Czech universities, so we train a lot of spelling in the classroom - the spelling of “haček” and “charek”, hard and soft “i” / “y”, pay attention to the word order in the sentence, the place of the particle se. In Russian, the word order is free, so it is also not easy for students to master the Czech syntax.

Returning to the question of whether the Czech language is difficult, I will say that in a year of classes, the vast majority of our students master it at the B2 level, enter universities and study in them. 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.

Czech grammar (online services)

The Czech language has a variety of noun declensions and verb conjugations in present forms. A significant share of the problems falls on diacritics, the absence of simple past tenses in verbs and other nuances of the language of the Western subgroup of Slavic dialects.

The Internet today serves as a reliable assistant for beginners to learn this difficult language. Simple online services will help you understand more clearly: what is Czech grammar? They will decline the words you need according to cases, conjugate verbs. Let us immediately make a reservation that in order to perform serious control works these services are useless. Their task is to help understand the structure of Czech, to make fewer mistakes in simple situations.

Case declension

Foreign students study Czech grammar for more than one year. And the first thing they need to master is the declension of words in all cases. Such training is carried out during the entire first year of study. However, complete mastery of the declension system, so that it “bounces off the teeth”, comes only after a few years of stay in the country.

Here, for the correct writing of current works, it would be quite appropriate to use hint services that allow students to check themselves when writing and pronunciation in relation to noun conjugation. Consider the most popular services.

Overview of online services for conjugation and declension of Czech words

One of the best services to check the correct spelling and pronunciation of nouns is the Internet portal "Internetová jazyková příručka". It enjoys well-deserved popularity among students of Czech universities.

Everything plays a role here: visibility, simplicity and speed of the service. Its advantage is the modern Czech dictionary developed by the Academy of Sciences Czech Republic. The online service does not require specifying word attributes.

Filling in the request field in the nominative case, students after a moment receive a layout for all seven word forms with examples in phrases.

internetova-jazykova-prirucka

Czech grammar practically impossible without vocabulary knowledge, which not every student is quickly ready to put into his head. That is why a dictionary-based service becomes an indispensable assistant in slippery and critical situations.

Additional information from explanatory dictionaries allows you to avoid ambiguous interpretations in cases where it is necessary to understand the expressions: "POZOR: SLEVA" or "Masokombinát Pisek".

The above service supports a large amount of words. The publishers of the dictionary did not ignore the Czech obscenity and other very interesting words.

In general, in cases of studying slang expressions or words not found in dictionaries, it would be appropriate to use the online service pteryx.net/sklonovani.html. It is also called intuitive search, which helps to inflect difficult and rare words.

How does he work? First you need to specify the search word. After that, it is checked whether it was an animate object or not, and its gender is established along the way.

The Pteryx dictionary is suitable for exceptional cases and does not claim to be complete. However, in some cases, it will help students out. But they should understand that the service is best used in exceptional cases.

Declension in the vocative case

In addition to the six cases characteristic of the Slavic group, the Czech language retained in its grammar the seventh - vocative. The vocative (5th case) is used only with nouns and denotes an appeal to someone.

It is extremely difficult to do without this form in everyday life. The peculiarities of Czech grammar include spelling rules, according to which it is customary to write with a full introduction. Strong conclusions and summaries, wishes, etc. are also often used.

Your appeal will be a hundred times more effective in resolving any issue if you apply properly to writing to the recipient. Not to mention the limits of etiquette and decency.

Difficult Czech surnames, unfortunately, are difficult to correct declension. To solve this problem, there is an online service sklonovani-jmen.cz. It is focused on a database of thousands of surnames, first names and helps foreign students to choose the right option for mass mailing:

• letters;
• appeals;
• statements, etc.

An ordinary user, getting to this site, presses the button "Chci to nejprve zkusit". In the field that opens, you must enter together or separately the name and surname. After that, we set the task to “generate” declinations and study the data obtained.

This online service also works using a dictionary database. It will not be difficult for him to correctly identify the gender of foreign names, if any.

If you need a vocative form of a noun to refer to teaching staff or to the dean's office with a statement, then confidently contact the help of this service.

Adding diacritics to text

Czech grammar because of its diacritical features is very difficult. But in everyday life, the Czechs skillfully avoid it. Cups and nuts are omitted, implying the context of what is written. This type of writing is widely used in Czech forums and chat rooms.

If, however, carelessly typed text needs to be brought to a high style, supplementing it with appropriate diacritics, then you can use the service for automatically placing cups and nuts. It works online and is available at nechybujte.cz/nastroje.

The official form of the letter is achieved by a very simple procedure for substituting the source text into the window offered by the service.

After that, we wait for the “Add” button and the service forms the necessary cups and gaps over the necessary letters. It also highlights controversial passages in red, which will require you to manually check with a dictionary.

This service is not unique. There are also more dry and ascetic services. For example, the development of the Faculty of Informatics at Masaryk University: site nlp.fi.muni.cz/cz_accent/. Many services operate in reverse side suggesting to simplify the text with the official grammar.

In particular, the online service textmod.pavucina.com/odstraneni-diakritiky allows you to correctly remove diacritics.

Summary

All the above services are used without hesitation even by native speakers of the Czech language. When you need to get out of an ambiguous situation, it is better to do it right. Do not rely solely on language packs for Microsoft Office, which will save you from simple grammatical errors. Feel free to use auxiliary online services for a deeper understanding of the features of building the Czech language.

Explore the entire palette of auxiliary tools on the sites described above. The reference data on them is extensive and deserves the closest attention.

The only wish for those who study the Czech language and its complex grammar: do not use services for solving tests and homework, delve into the features of construction and learn to write correctly!

Cases in Czech are quite complex, with many nuances, exceptions, and irregular forms.

One of the most paradoxical aspects in Czech for Russian-speaking students is the vocative case, because in Russian it has long turned into a relic of the past, leaving a barely noticeable trace in the language, while in the Czech Republic in everyday communication one cannot do without the vocative case.

Let's start with the fact that 7 cases are distinguished in Czech grammar, and they are usually denoted in two ways - ordinal numbers or Latin names:

As you can see, case questions in Czech practically coincide with Russian ones and are intuitively understandable. But there are also discrepancies with the usual case system: in Czech, the vocative case (Vokativ) follows the accusative (Akkuzativ), and the prepositional case (Lokál) precedes the instrumental (Instrumentál) - do not get confused by the endings!

Let's look at a case system based on the noun hrad (castle, fortress), which declines according to all inanimate nouns that end in a solid consonant:

• Nominative: hrad
  Hrad je stary.- The castle is old.
• Genitive: hradu
  Z hradu vycházeji lidé. People are leaving the castle.
• Dativ: hradu
  Cesta vede ke hradu.- The road leads to the castle.
• Akkuzativ: hrad
  Vidim hrad.- I see a castle.
• Vocativ: hrade
  The vocative case is used only in constructions that involve referring to someone or mentioning/pointing to something.
• Local: hradu
  Mluvim o hradu.- I'm talking about the castle.
• Instrumental: hradem
  Za hradem je les. There is a forest behind the castle.

Often indicators of a particular case are prepositions: for example, a noun in Genitiv is often preceded by a preposition z/ze(of) a k/ke(k) and do(c) - prepositions that indicate Dative. By the way, nouns in Nominativ and Vokativ always stand without a preposition.

We offer you a table that contains the most common prepositions in Czech, after which the noun always stands in one or another case.

P.S. Learning the Czech language with a tutor is more productive than taking everything apart on your own! Pass

Czech is the sixty-sixth most widely spoken language in the world. It is considered native by twelve million people, and hundreds of thousands of students study this language as a second foreign language. Czech is part of the group of Slavic languages ​​- conversations in Czech become clear to a Russian-speaking tourist almost immediately after arriving in the country. Despite the general clarity, the Czech language has grammatical subtleties, complexities and exceptions that are worth knowing in order to master it perfectly.

How did the Czech language develop?

Most tourists before traveling to the Czech Republic are interested in what language the citizens of this country speak. From the Middle Ages to the present state language The Czech Republic is officially considered Czech.

There are three periods of formation of the Czech language: Old, Old and New Czech.

Until the beginning of the 10th century, there was no written language in the Czech language. For the first time, Czech words and phrases begin to appear in German literary works and books in Latin at the beginning of the 13th century.

Complete books in the Czech language appear in the first half of the 15th century, when a Czech grammar was published in Prague. In the same period, a proposal appeared to introduce foreign diacritics into the spelling of Czech words, which conveyed sounds in writing that had no analogues in the Latin alphabet. This prescription was accepted, but only in the 16th century was it possible to permanently supplant digraphic letter combinations that convey sound by writing several letters.

Czech writing served as the basis for Slovak, which was formed much later. And also the Czech alphabet was used to try to latinize some Slavic languages: Russian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Belarusian.

Dialects in official language four stand out:

• Czech dialects;
• Central Moravian dialects;
• North Moravian dialects (also known as Silesian);
• Slovak dialects.

The Latin spelling of the alphabet is used to write the features of all four dialects of Czech.

Also, the Czech language is divided into literary, bookish, colloquial and common Czech. Most of the locals use the common Czech language. basis literary language is considered to be a colloquial Central Bohemian dialect, which belongs to the interdialects of the central part of the country.

General rules of Czech grammar and syntax

Allocate defining this National language rules that distinguish him from other representatives of the Slavic group.

• The language includes ten phonemes that differ in longitude, consonants are divided into voiceless and voiced.
• The stress always falls on the first syllable of the word, this also applies to combinations of nouns with prepositions (for example, “ˈdo Prahy” - “to Prague”, “ˈdo nás” - “to us”).
• There are only two numbers - singular and plural, cases - seven, which coincide with Russian cases.
• Nouns are declined according to gender, adjectives - according to hard and soft types.
• The numerals are assigned five main digits according to the lexical meaning.
• There are ten types of pronouns, and their short forms are often used in colloquial speech.
• As for verbs, they distinguish between perfect and imperfect species, which form four tenses - present, past, future and infinitive.
• Regular verbs decline according to general rules five separate classes, and the wrong ones are included in the group of exceptions and require memorization by heart.
• The order of words in sentences is determined by meaning. At the end of the sentence is the noun or verb that should be emphasized. For example, the sentence: "Danylo miluje Anju" (Danilo loves Anya) conveys who Danilo loves, and the sentence: "Anju miluje Danylo" (Anya loves Danilo) conveys who loves Anya.

Despite the similar phonetics of Russian and Czech, some phrases in Czech sound incredibly comical to native Russian speakers. For example, "shark" will sound like "zhrapok", "theater" - "divadlo", "bachelor" - "baby". The Czechs will call the plane "letadlo", the persimmon - "kaki", and the cucumber - "cigarette butt".

There are also false friends of the translator - words that, with the same sound, have antonymic meanings. These include the word "čerstvý", which means "fresh" in Czech, "ovoce", which translates as fruit, and "úžasný", which conveys strong admiration.

Also, for the Russian ear, Czech is unusual for words with big amount consonants in one word or at the junction of words. For example, the word "čtvrthrst", meaning "a quarter of a handful", consists of ten consonants.

One of the most famous "consonantal" sentences in Czech is "Strč prst skrz krk", which translates to "put your finger down your throat". This sentence is included in all textbooks and tutorials as a textbook example of the phonetic rigidity of the Czech language. This is one of the few languages ​​in the world that uses such sound combinations.

Czech basics for tourists

Despite belonging to the same Slavic language group, Russian and Czech differ significantly. Before coming to this country, it is recommended to master the minimum number of everyday phrases. This will allow you to feel more comfortable while communicating with the Czechs and get help if necessary.

If the language is not given to you, do not worry: most Czechs communicate with tourists in Russian.

Basics of learning Czech

Perception and knowledge of the language are different concepts. Interlingual homonyms, dialects, the presence of diacritical marks and peculiarities of sentence construction interfere with the study of Czech by the majority of Russian-speaking students.

To learn Czech, you need to abstract from the grammatical rules, phonetics and syntax of the Russian language.

The main rule for successful learning is to always know and remember that the Czech language is complex and independent.

If you plan to learn this language on your own, start by listening to songs and films in Czech, then connect the simplest tutorial, and if possible, communicate with native Czech speakers in special applications.

The best results in learning Czech are achieved by students who attend special courses. These language schools pay more attention to dialects, which are independent units of the Czech language, teach correct pronunciation. Only here you will be able to perfectly understand the intricacies of grammar and learn the language faster, since you will have to constantly speak Czech.

Conclusion

The Czech language, being the official language of the Czech Republic, is also found in the Czech diasporas in neighboring countries. This language has gone through a long historical path of formation, therefore it includes four different dialects and special grammatical rules.

If you are planning a trip to the Czech Republic, learn everyday phrases in this language in advance in order to feel comfortable in a conversation with native speakers.

Czech language | A short tour for beginners: Video