Czech attitude to foreigner's pronunciation

Discussion in 'Grammar & Pronunciation' started by wissy, Nov 24, 2006.

  1. wissy

    wissy Well-Known Member

    Reading another Czech language site it states the following.....

    "It is important to practice pronunciation in Czech because Czechs tend to value correct pronunciation over grammar."

    I would have thought this was true of any language, surely it is best to be understood however bad the grammer. Good grammer becomes more important (and easier) once one has a basic grasp and understanding of the language. I would be interested to hear what our native Czechs think of the above. :)
     
  2. milton

    milton Well-Known Member

    Although I'd tend to agree with that quote whole heartedly as it applies to learning languages as a whole, my experience has been that when I take an extra effort to enunciate and not slur through any spoken words or phrases, Native Czechs don't seem to understand me any better. In fact when I pull a George Kostanza (meaning I do the opposite of what I'd normally do), and speak faster, I feel that I don't take enough care about elongating a declined ending with an accent on it and so forth. But what's surprising to me is that when I do this , Czechs seem to understand me better, so go figure!!!

    Thus in my opinion, this tells me that the speed in which you speak, or the speed in which people listen to you, as it applies to Czech, is much more important than having to drudge through listening to somebody speak REALLY REALLY slow. Of course with any Scientific Experiment there has to be a control and there has to be sufficient collection of data in order to deem the experiment as factual. This is only my experience! If you want my opinion, though, I think the speed issue spoken about above makes perfect sense, mostly because I think alot of people suffer from Attention Deficit Disorder and don't know it. But that's neither here nor there.
     

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