What is the best way to learn the cases?

Yeah I won't give you specifics... just look up 'cesky titulky'.

I found a bunch of hillarious English comedy videos among other things (such as movie trailers, songs...)

Happy learning
Fred

 

Sova's post of 14 April 08 is probably the closest to my personal experience and I would agree with that 100%. If you want to converse jump in and try.

My own assessment of speaking with Czech nationals (this is mostly in Northern Moravia) is that firstly they usually amazed that an English person is trying to learn to speak their language and secondly they are very forgiving on points of grammar and will usually understand. However, in my experience, they seem to have much more difficulty with regard to (bad) pronunciation of Czech words.

I suppose what you do and how you learn depends very much on what you want to achieve. My motivation was to try to be able to hold a conversation in Czech with people as quickly as possible. Teaching myself, I could do that after a year and can do so better now after 2 years. But I know that with the best will in the world, I will never be able to write Czech as well as other non-native Czech speakers such as Scrimshaw.

For conversation, as Wissy suggests "Too much emphasis is put on intensive grammer. Just converse in the easiest way you can. Speak in the present tense only, if that is best for you. You will be understood. The rest will come in time. Don't try to be perfect or fluent. Just enjoy." That has also been very close my own experience and as time has passed I have mastered the different tenses and I am sure proper declension will get better with time (albeit probably a lot longer!).

I understand the concept of cases and, if I am writing and have plenty of time, I can usually get things 75% correct but not without the aid of a dictionary to determine m/f or n. I use the Fronek dictionary which from the Cz-Eng section sends you to a table that gives you the full declension for any word (or a simlar model word).

However, when reading and translating Cz to Eng I often have difficulty in identifying the root nominative version of an unfamiliar word if it is in another case. Thus, sometimes I can quite happily translate what initially seems like a long, complicated sentence, whilst at other times I am stumped by a short 4 or 5 word sentence. I read and write Czech almost daily when communicating with friends in the CR and just gradually becoming familiar with the way things are written to me has helped me to grasp how the cases are used and in what context.

Speaking and having a conversation, however, is completely different. My brain can't work fast enough in a conversation situation to remember all the rules with regard to cases and declension so I just go ahead and do the best I can. Existing Czech friends know my limitations, accept them and correct me now and again if I am repeatedly making a mistake that is easily corrected. If I meet or I am introduced to new people, I will always start a conversation by explaining my limitations, which always helps me (and them) a lot!!

When I speak, obviously I know exactly what I am trying to say (!!) and it is generally understood. When listening, I can usually understand 25% of a conversation perfectly well, 50% I can usually get the gist of and about 25% is a mystery, usually because I am hearing words that I have not come across before. But people are not offended if I don't understand and after a few attempts to say things in a different way, with different words but same meaning, we can usually get there.

I have recently been very lucky with my devlepment of my conversation abilities because my son's junior ice hockey team has just had a new player join, whose family have moved from CR to our part of England. The boy speaks very little English, his father none and his cousin can speak English quite well. I have been spending two hours every hockey practice talking extensively with the boy and his father in Czech and we have had very few problems that we have not been able to solve in understanding each other. Similarly his son is now starting to pick up English from the training sessions and with the other players trying to speak with him in English.

This new opportunity for regular Czech conversation will help me enormously on my next visit to Moravia in the summer.

As Sova said, if your aim is conversation: "Speak the language, speak more, and continue speaking until your head hurts. Then speak even more."