Hello everyone! This is my first post! I just wanted to ask that in words such as jsem, jste and jsou, is the j pronounced, or do you ignore it? Because on some audio tapes I have, it sounds like they don't pronounce the j, So is it pronounced sem, or jsem (y-sem). ???
My opinion: It should be prounouncd "y-sem", "j" should be heard. But in colloquial czech is often omitted or not easy to be heard, especially if you are not native speaker, because stress is on "s" (j'sem, j'si, j'ste, j'sou). In some dialects, usually moravian, "j" is omitted at all in those words - for example: "sú" instead of "jsou", in Slovak "som" instead of "jsem"... I hope professional linguists in this forum will explain it better.
Thanks for replying so fast! Your answer helped me a lot. I don't want a very complicated answer :wink:
in fact, pronunciation both with and without j is allowed, i.e. officially considered correct. i, personally don't know a single person who'd bother pronouncing the j, but i'm from moravia, it's probably different in some other parts of the country. be careful with the "ne-" prefix though, (words like "nejsem", "nejste" etc.) in those cases the j is always pronounced.
I wonder if I'm pronouncing it wrong. I pronounce the j as a long e. Such as [ee-sem oonavena] for jsem unavena. Perhaps I should just say, sem unavena or maybe [i-sem] as in the word "it" or "italy" What do you think?
You certainly shouldn't pronounce it as "ee". You should pronounce it as the "y" in "yes". Or, don't pronounce it at all (leaving just "sem"). Most people don't. I don't.
The rule is: verb "být" as an auxilliary verb - the reduced pronunciation /sem/ is fully allowed and considered correct verb "být" as a copula or existencial verb - the reduced pronunciation is incorrect e.x.: jsem hezký /jsem heski:/ ("jsem" is copula) byl jsem hezký /bil sem heski:/ ("byl" is copula, "jsem" is auxilliary verb) In fact in colloquial Czech, the J is not pronounced often in either case
