Hello, everybody. I was looking at the differences between the alphabets of the Slovak languages and I stumbled across this website and message board. Because I have a friend from the Czech Republic who is constantly battering me to drop Polish and learn either Czech or Slovak, I decided I'd sign up and see how things are around here. English is something I've lived with all my life. After I began Spanish class last year at school, I realized that I was talented with foreign language. Earlier this year, I began to try to teach myself French. Well French is not an easy language...so I decided to stop learning it. (Je ne parle pas français, all you French speakers. XD ) A month ago, a friend of mine piqued my interest in Polish, which at the time, I had no idea was one of the three Slovak languages. Upon learning a few of the words, I began to notice a correlation between Polish and Czech/Slovak, because some of the words are remarkably similar ("jeden" is "one" in Polish, and "jedna" is "one" in the other two). So since my other friend has been begging me to learn one of the other Slovak languages, I think that I'll check these forums out. Who knows? Maybe I could become polylingual someday (actually, I intend to.) Hello, everybody! ^^
Dobry Den, Kdy odlétá příští letadlo do Prahy? Jmenuji se George, kde je nejaka dalsi dobra hospoda? Jeste jedno pivo prosim. try www.slovnik.cz (like dictionary.com) huge asset, big word base. www.locallingo.com is good for some basic phrases being fluent in more than one language is awesome, but like me, have a conversation in french, and when you forget the french word, the spanish, german, dutch or czech word just pops in the sentence, its frustrating. haha, youll find it more humorous when you have a dream in the foreign language... you wake up and ... whoa... what a rush.. plus go visit the county!!! georgio
Hi there, I think you have found the place to learn Czech! There is so much info to find here, and the best is the support via others in the language section. If you have a question, just drop it there, and I've seen many relies there lately. A good learning course in book form would enable you to study when not online, and this is the best backup I guess. For Slovak, I don't know, but I've heard that Slovak and Czech are 95 % similar. Most Czech and Polisch people understand each other, but the languages are more different. I'dd suggest Czech, since you have a Czech friend. I've heard that Slovak wont be realy neccesary to learn besides it. It wil take many years to master Czech, and after you've done that It will be a piece of cake to talk and understand Slovak. Have fun here, and enjoy! Cau!
Hello. The correct term here is Slavic (or Slavonic), not Slovak. Czech, Polish, Slovak, Russian and others are all Slavic languages. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavic_languages P.S. Don't trust Wikipedia in everything - I looked for "Moravians", who are inhabitants of Moravia, the eastern part of Czech republic. Wiki says something about a protestant religious movement. Odd...
Good luck in your pursuit of Czech/Slovak! Just a warning, if you're looking for an easy language to learn, you might want to stick to Spanish. If you're looking for a challenge, go with Czech! I'd suggest learning Czech first, rather than Slovak. Having lived in both the CR and Slovakia and having seen American friends who've learned both languages (in either order), I think it is much easier going from Czech to Slovak than the reverse. Once you have a reasonable knowledge base in Czech, however, studying Slovak, in addition to being enriching in and of itself, can actually help broaden your knowledge of Czech, as many roots commonly used in Slovak are used as alternate (less common) roots in Czech, eg. "hovorit' " [in Slovak] = "hovořit" (="mluvit" in Czech). Note that the opposite holds true less often (e.g. The Slovaks don't use the word "mluvit"). Of course, if you choose to learn Slovak first, "Nech sa páči!" -Sova
Whoops, sorry about that! When my friend spelled Slovic out for me, she wrote it as "Slovak." I just assumed it was correct. Thank you. Hahah, I can imagine the frustration! And the rush from having a dream in a different language. :shock: As for visiting countries, there are lots of places I'd love to travel to. Maybe even live... Thank you very much! I'll be sure to follow your advice. (and yes, I've come to realize that Spanish is a very easy language in relation to English and the like.) I'm not looking for a challenge, though I realize the difficulty that can be presented when first attempting a new language. I'm intrigued by a few of the European languages and gaining an understanding of Spanish, Polish, and Czech would help me immensely if I decided to go there. I may even try French again, but during my study, I had much trouble finding a consistency between its spelling and pronunciation. I know that there is one, but it's very difficult for me to see at the moment.
