Czech Language Program only $19.95

 

Speak Czech

The Czech Language Program contains 7 hours of audio, and one textbook in PDF file format with 240 pages.

The Czech Familiarization and Short Term (FAST) Course is one of a series of similar foreign language courses that are intended to train personnel assigned to overseas posts. The objective of the FAST Courses is to help students acquire the communication skills necessary to deal with the most common social and daily life situations they will encounter during their overseas assignments. Language forms adequate to satisfy personal needs, "how to" information, and cultural highlights are presented in a format that will encourage students to try to use with confidence the language skills they have developed.

There are two official languages in the Czech Republic: Czech and Slovak. Both languages are very similar and every Czech speaker understands Slovak and vice versa. Both are Slavic languages, closely related to Polish and Russian. With a structure very different from German or English, Czech is a highly inflected language with many case endings, suffixes, and a complex set of verb endings. However, there are several redeeming features to Czech for the non-native speaker. For example, it has only five vowels, which in pronunciation can have long or short duration. Its consonants differ a little from those of English, but most are not difficult to pronounce. In Czech, the accent is always on the first syllable of the word. Moreover, Czech verbs have only two or three tenses, which is quite different from the many tenses (twelve) of English.

In English, there are few endings: one example is the use of -s or -es for the plural of nouns; another is the use of -s for the third person singular in verbs. In contrast, Czech is a highly inflected language, with five of the nine word categories in Czech having their own sets of endings, reflecting case (grammatical usage), number (singular orplural), gender, or person.

Czech Drills are recorded first for listening, then for familiarization through repetition, and finally for participation. During the participation step, when the student performs the required manipulation, his utterances are confirmed on the audio immediately following the space provided for his participation.

Czech Drills are generally in two groups in any unit: a) variation drills on pattern sentences, which provide opportunities for the student to develop flexibility in the use of patterns already memorized, and b) grammar drills, which are intended to provide practice for the student in the operation of the patterns explained in the immediately preceding grammar notes.

Unlike English, Czech is for the most part spelled phonetically; that is, it is written almost entirely as it sounds. Like English, it uses the Latin alphabet, but it has, in addition, three diacritical signs: comma (a - a), hook (c - c), and circle (u - U). If you know how to pronounce each letter correctly, you should in most cases also be able to pronounce what you read. All Czech words are stressed on the first syllable; the stress has nothing to do with quantity or vowel length. This is the Czech alphabet with the pronunciation of the letters and examples of equal or similarsounds in English. The letters marked with asterisks (*) represent sounds which are rare or non - existent in English.

About the Czech Language

The Czech language belongs to the Slavic language group. There are many grammar and vocabulary similarities among the Slavic languages. Czech and Slovak are especially close.

The Czech language was created from the preslavic language, believed to be used by slavic tribes around 2,000 BC through the 7th century AD. Evidence of the Czech language goes back to the 9th century.

Today, Czech is spoken by about ten million people. The Czech language is fairly uniform throughout Bohemia with some local dialects in the border areas. Czech spelling is very phonetic. It is essential to learn the basic sounds and a few pronunciation rules. Once familiar with them, it is easy to read and spell almost any Czech text.

The Czech alphabet, like the English alphabet consists of vowels and consonants. Vowels are either long or short. The basic sound of long vowels are the same as the sounds of short vowels. Long vowels are pronounced for a longer period of time, approximately twice as long as short vowels. Another classification divides vowels into two groups: hard and soft.

The Czech language does not have a vowel reduction like German and English. The quality of a vowel does not vary with its position in a word. Every syllable must be clearly pronounced.

The Czech language has two basic intonations: statement and question. The intonation falls down at the end of a statement but rises at the end of a question.