hi I'm going to be studying in Olomouc in the czech republic for the next six months, before i go over, i just have a few questions regarding the oul' language barrier... 1) what is the story with english-speaking over there...do many people speak english? what level would they be at? when i go over, i will only have a very basic few words like: ja jsem student and so on...is there much of a language barrier, especially where I am staying... 2) Is the czech language a hard one to learn? i am going to be studying it over there as part of my course, but is it a hard language to learn, or would one pick it up quickly?
Hi Michael, Firstly, the answers to your questions: 1) At the uni people will speak English to you, and in general young Czech people are capable of speaking English, everyone learns it at school. Little advice: Slow down, when talking to Czech people. We are not used to the Irish accent, but we love it. You might encounter some problems with speaking English to older generations, as most of them had to learn Russian at school, and not English. 2) Regarding the fact that Czech is a slavic langauge and belongs to a different language family than English, which is a germanic language, you might find the Czech grammar a bit difficult. The best is to forget about the grammar and learn whole sentences. But I think that the Czech people will stimulate every attempt of your Czech, which will make your learning easier. Good luck in Olomouc, Olga PS: in the summer I was travelling through Ireland and I have to say, that you have a a beautiful country and that the Czech and the Irish people have a lot in common. For instance, their love for beer and for music.
thanks, olga, thanks very much...what part of ireland did you travel through? I'm glad that you enjoyed yourself in Ireland, it's not too bad as long as you're not used to it lol
Sorry to sound contradictory Olga, but without a solid grounding in grammar, you`ll never sound better than a pidgin English/Czech/whatever speaker. Karel
Well, learning whole sentences is, in my opinion, even harder than learning grammar and then words. What I always do when getting started with a foreign language is learning grammar.
I'm kind of learning it both ways. If I see some sentences that I want to learn, then I learn them. But if I want to learn something that I don't know how to say, then I either ask someone, or I learn the grammar to say it right.
