My name is Frank and I'm from the US. My wife and I are planning a trip to the Czech Republic this summer. I am trying to learn Czech and if anyone has recommendations of what to visit in and around Prague, I'd love to hear. I used to speak Russian a little, so I'm hoping that will help me learn Czech. Look forward to hearing from folks here. Frank
Hi Frank, Welcome to the boards! It's great that you and your wife are planning a trip to the Czech Republic. I hope you like it there. As you've probably seen, we have recommendations of places to visit in and around Prague right on this site at www.myczechrepublic.com, and you can get some help with the language on our other site at www.locallingo.com . If you have any specific questions while planning your trip, feel free to post in the different forums here. Dana
Frank, You will find that there are quite a few semi-cognates from russian to czech. Of course, the alphabets are rather different. Likewise, there are many more non-cognates(I think) than otherwise. How long will you be in Prague? robert
Hi there, My first post on this forum Let me introduce myself too. I'm Maarten Vermeulen, and I live in the Netherlands. I've been to the CZ republic many times, since it's roughly 600 miles by car I'm a member of the Dutch Czech forum in the Netherlands, and it's great fun there too. (all in Dutch I'm affraid) Now to your comment on Russian, related to Czech. Russian and Czech are both Slavic Languages, but Russian is an Eastern Slavic language, and Czech belongs to the Wetern Slavic Languages. Not very similar. During the times of Russian influence, Russian was a mandatory language to learn in School in the CZ for many years. It will be of some help for you, but it would be better to start all conversations in English, and switch to Russian later. They don't really like to know they speak Russian. For the youth, English and German are the main foreign languages to learn now. The older youth mainly German, the younger ones mainly English. Old people speak German as their second language. Some parts of the Czech Republic have been German, and are rejoined to the Czech Republic after World War II. There were many people who lived there, that had to learn Czech, since they only spoke German. This is in the North-West of the Country. (part of the Northern Boohemia region, Prague lies in the Central Bohemian region) When you have some time to spare try to visit Český Ráj (Czech Paridise / Bohemian Paridise) Great place to walk around in the beatifull nature. If you try to learn Czech just a little bit, it would be greatly appreciated by the kind Czech people. They consider their language as a minor language themselves, and anyone taking the effort to speak it, will be rewarded with compliments. Good Luck, and welcome to this forum, allthough I'm new myself.
