No idea what is "panela" But "panelka" is road made of concrete panels. and also its name for Jawa 250 motobike. no idea why it is in this thread..
it's probably a misspelling of "panelák" - could it be that foreigners see them as a sort of a symbol of lifestyle in the CR?
I'm not sure about how is written, but should be the name of the buildings. typicall comunist style, u can see all over the eastern europe countries. ... for good luck, somewhere, there is an outside restyling, repainting
This just shows my world view bias, I study religion so I know the name Jan Hus. I think Czech is a pretty fascinating place. OK, question, on ads for a George Cloney movie they spelled it Georgem Cloneym, but still pronounced it George Cloney. Czech has a silent "M"?
Ok, I'll have a go, just showing my ignorance though. The main food? Don't know...vepřové a knedliky? 5 czech words or a phrase? Nemyslím si, že udělám tuhle zkužku. do you know the czech coin and its change? Korun....germans have pfenigs main economy or famous "brand"? Drawing a blank do CR has nuclear site or industries? I'd be interested to find out. other 3 cities in CR? Brno, Plzin, Olomouc is CR in nato or involved in any "peace" action all around the world? Yes, part of NATO, peace keeping forces in Iraq. how many czech are living in CR? 11 million do you know what is a "panela" (or panelka)? I do now, thanks to the discussion,.... Russian style housing.
Main food? Golash and kneddle with a side of zely? the smallest I've seen is a half crown famous brand KOFOLA Nuclear? No idea Ostrava, Teplice, Most yes, part of NATO 8 million nope Ahoj, Do pice, Jak se mas, Dobrou Noc, ja taky. Panenka is baby doll, Panelka? Not even my wife from Ostrava knows what that is.
I wouldn't call paneláks Russian style housing. It's just the type of house that can accommodate a lot of people and can be produced fast and cheap in big numbers, with technology available in 1960's. Actually, on TV I saw similar houses of flats in western countries, and while they might not be actually built from ferro-concrete panels but from bricks, I believe they share most of the characteristics of panelaks (low on space, lacking sound isolation etc.). Anyway, we often call paneláks "králikárny" (rabbit hutches), mainly because of how little space we get in them and how densely are the flats packed. Czech rabbit hutches look like this (this one is actually quite small, they often have more than just two "columns"): Compare with e.g. this: Paneláks were one of the main reasons why chataření (cottage activities) was so popular, everyone wanted to escape from the depressing life in sídliště (city quarters consisting solely from paneláks, some of them are HUGE, e.g. Jižní Město in Prague) at least during weekends and holidays. Anyway there's no wonder people know so little about small Eastern Europe countries, they learn about them only from movies like Eurotrip or Hostel. By the way Scrimshaw, Germany adopted Euro like six years ago, so they don't have Marks/Pfennigs anymore, they have Euros/Eurocents instead.
That's a huge building. Králikárny ....The czechs have a colorful language. I'm dating myself...no more marks and pfennigs..now it's euros and eurocents. Čas letí a doby se změní.
No, the m is pronounced. That's one of the few good things about Czech - it's actually quite easy to pronounce, once you know the rules. I suspect what you've read was "s Georgem Cloneym" which means "with George Cloney". It's the instrumental or 7th case and it's the end you have to use when you use the preposition s or se meaning with. And all that will probably be double dutch to you unless you know some Latin or German!
There is a thread on Paneláks. Exactly, but the instrumental could be used in more ways, e.g. “by George Cloney”. Or, you can think of the difference between English “he” and “him”. (The “m” in both Czech and English is not coincidence, by the way.)
maybe it's OT but its a good fun...(well...maybe not really...) what americans know: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dlP8EXbm6Is
It depend on context. We don’t use the “film by somebody” construction. And you are right, instead we would use genitive (film of somebody) or possessive (somebody’s film). But we use the instrumental to express the author of verbal actions in passive verbal constructions like “written by somebody”.
My nieghbors know when Czech Independance day is, they also know what Ceska means and the FBI guy down the street got a 6 pack of Pilsner for trick or treat night.
Ahoj, As I have previously said, I was doing a little survey with some Brazilians about Czech Republic. The questions I used are the following: 1) What is the capital of Czech Republic? 2) What is the language of Czech Rep.? 3) Name of three famous Czech (dead or alive) 4) Colours of the flag 5) Bordering countries 6) Two big regions of Czech Rep.? 7) Two cities besides the capital 8) Historical event in 1968 9) Organization of the government: a) Only president b) President and prime-minister c) King and prime minister 10) Czech Republic currency/coin I asked them for about 10 Brazilian people, all from 18-30, everyone with good formal education, entering univerisity, at university or graduated. 1) More than half knew that Prague was Czech capital. Others didn't replied and the only wrong, and akward answer was "Czechoslovakia". 2) "Czech" was the more frequent answer, one person said "Czech, Russian and another one that I don't remember (supposed to be German", and one replied "English". Others let in blank 3) The football fans knew Petr Čech, Pavel Nedvěd, Koller. One of them said: "If you want, I can tell you the whole national team". Tennis player were forgotten, even if by one person that I know who likes tennis very much, in this case, he tried "Ivanovic and Jankovic" both Serbians. By the way, other Slavics were remembered in general for two or three person. The most unexpected names were: Jan Huss, it was mentioned for one person interested in religious issues, and Silvie Saint (pornstar). Some people knew names as Petr Čech, Kundera, Kafka and Silvie Saint but didn't know that they were Czech. Ah, and one person also knew a trademark...osh, I forgot its name now.. it is a double name...Something-i-Koor I guess. 4) Interestingly, the three person who knew more about football, knew the colours of the flag. A fourth person knew the answer, althought his others answers weren't the best, and a fifth person said "there's red in it". 5) Only one person replied it correctly...some did it partially. "Russia" apeared twice, Bulgaria, Ukranian, Romanian were also pointed. And "Slovakia" - which would be an obvious part of the answer - was forgotten in most of the cases. I kidded with one of the football fans "The problem is that in football matchs they show only the flag, and not the map. I should ask you about the anthem as well". 6) and 7) The only person who replied this answer, the rest let in blank, expect for one attempt "Czech tablalands/plateau" was the same who knew the borderign countries, but this person has a Czech friend. So, it seems that Czech cities except for Prague aren't known here in Brazil. But for the regions, the didn't say Bohemia nor Moravia, but Pardubice, which is acceptable since the question wasn't very clear. And the cities were Zlin and Liberec. 8) Prague Spring was the main answer, one said "A Big Country was divided in small ones" (probably thinking about Yugoslavia), other said "Was set free from comunism" and one tried "Republic Proclamation" 9) Most got it correctly, but admittedly that they were guessing. 10) Surprisingly, only one person guessed Euro. The one who has a Czech friend knew it was crown, and the other didn't answer. Well, first, I would like to remember that the number of the people in my survey is very small. But, as I have said, those who answer are people with good education, so, in some way, it can give us some idea of how much Brazilians know about Czech Republic - that is clear that is very few. No one had a mmm "integrated" view of Czech Republic. Football plays a important role, literature too, others fields do not. Ah, now I remember... that one person, who likes movies very much, also knew Miloš Forman, only didn't know previously that he was Czech. So, there are many Czech people and things around there that are not recognized as Czech - nobody had commented about beers, for example. It is worth saying that some results also show some lack of "integrated" view of Europe in general. Because if we considered that people know more about Germany and Russian that are "important" countries (and about what we study more at school) - the answers about bordering countries, for example, should be better. Perhaps I get answers from other people, but I don't expect the results to be very different from the one I have shown here. =) Thank you for your attention, Na shledanou.:
That's Koh-I-noor, like the famous diamond. Two Czech companies use this name as a trademark and both are world-famous. And both used to use “Made in Czechoslovakia” label along the Koh-i-noor trademark. The more famous is the Koh-I-noor Hardtmuth company which produces pencils and similar stuff. The latter is the Koh-I-noor Waldes company which produces notions. It’s known for the invention of snap fasteners.
Two big companies with the same trademark name. I think in the U.S. there would have been some big lawsuit about who has the exclusive right to use that name. Even the same colors, adding to the confusion.
Even more confusing is name of all czech armfactories - trademark CZ(Česká Zbrojovka) is used by about (all)4 of them.. Or try to find out which company is named "Škoda";-)
Ahoj, Wer, that is it. My friend knows the one of pencils =) he bought some! And a mistake, three persons mentioned Euro as Czech currency. Na shledanou.:
