Czech discussion group

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Linguist108
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Re: Czech discussion group

Postby Linguist108 » 2015-02-19, 12:54

hreru wrote: :lol: I did the same at work but there was nobody around at the moment. I hope. :para: I could hear a clear difference ... but maybe it's my bad ears. :)

It's really very similar, but definitely not the same. Perhaps, we Czech natives, are more inclined to pronounce -nď- more than -ňď- than -nď- ? My theory is that the voiced palatal stop (i.e. ď) is forcing you to palatalise the n into ň...
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Re: Czech discussion group

Postby Linguist108 » 2015-02-19, 12:59

Ashrak wrote:
Koko wrote:Do you instead use English or German? What kind of contexts do you put yourself in that prohibits major use of Czech?


I live in Munich, Germany. Nothing prohibits me from using Czech, I just don't have partners to speak it with. All of my friends here are either Germans or German speaking speakers of languages that aren't mutually intelligible with Czech. And two hour call a month with my parents doesn't isn't much usage :-)

I'm in pretty much the same situation, just with English not German. They only Czech input I get is from Czech online newspapers, little bit of TV and books, but I don't do them much. Otherwise, I'm using English 90% of the time. We speak English at home, I do speak Czech to my daughter though. And with my parents, but that's just one hour in a month or so, the same case like you...
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Re: Czech discussion group

Postby Koko » 2015-05-16, 23:24

Tato stránka je jedno dobrý zdroj? Promyslím, že ten slovníček je správný, ale nejsem jistý o nějakých výslovnostech.

Když nejsem špatný, ten j- slovesa být není vyslovený.

(Děkuji předem opravám)

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Re: Czech discussion group

Postby Nat-the-cat » 2015-05-18, 17:38

Ta stránka není vůbec špatná :) Máš tam pěkné audio a obrazky, určitě ti to pomáhá :)
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Re: Czech discussion group

Postby Koko » 2015-05-19, 6:41

Nat-the-cat wrote:Ta stránka není vůbec špatná :) Máš tam pěkné audio a obrazky, určitě ti to pomáha :)

Ujistím se, že to pokračuji použivat. A děkuji na zpětnou vazbu ^^

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Re: Czech discussion group

Postby hreru » 2015-05-24, 11:34

Koko wrote:Tato stránka je jedno dobrý zdroj? ProMyslím, že ten slovníček je správný, ale nejsem si jistý výslovností (better in singular, I'd probably say občas/někde si nejsem jistý výslovností).

Jestli se nemýlím, ten j- slovesa být není vyslovený (?). (Be wrong=mýlit se, plést se, and you need jestli to indicate it's a possibility here, not když. What you said was "when I'm not bad". ;) I'm not sure what exactly you mean by the other half of the sentence, but j- at the beginning of the conjugated forms of být should be pronounced in standard Czech but I wonder how many people do that even when speaking formally, pretty no-one really. Normally you just skip it.)

(Děkuji předem za opravy)

Ujistím se, že to pokračuji použivat. Určitě to budu používat i dál. A děkuji za zpětnou vazbu ^^ ( Ujistím se sounds more like I'll check, I'll assure myself. Pokračovat doesn't go with any other verb, you can pokračovat v něčem (noun, accusative), but not pokračovat dělat něco.)

All your declension is correct and there are no spelling mistakes. :)

Koko

Re: Czech discussion group

Postby Koko » 2015-06-03, 5:13

Seriously my only mistakes were word choices and using the wrong prepositions? 8-) I feel pro.

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Re: Czech discussion group

Postby Lauren » 2015-11-20, 6:10

I'm having trouble figuring some things of Czech pronunciation. Some places say <o> and <u> are pronounced /o/ and /u/, but other places say /ɔ/ and /ʊ/, and I'm pretty sure I've at least heard /ɔ/ in recordings. Also, I'm pretty sure I've heard <i/y> pronounced as a short /i/ when everywhere says it's always /ɪ/. Similarly, I've heard short and long <e/é> definitely pronounced as /e(:)/ when most places say its /ɛ(:)/! So many discrepancies!! Argh!!

I've also read that hard <t> and <d> are sometimes dental, but what about <n>?

Also also, just since I'm frustrated, I'm going to point out that most if not all sources say that stress is /b/always//b/ on the first syllable, and I've found that's absolutely not true. For one, most if not all feminine words with the ending '-ka' are stressed on the penultimate syllable. Also, foreign words can have different stress, like "američan" or "student".

Oh and! Most places never tell you that the <l> is often if not always velarized.
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Re: Czech discussion group

Postby Aurinĭa » 2015-11-20, 16:12

I don't have my books with IPA for Czech with me, but at least for some of the vowels you mention, there are different pronunciations. There's the "official" pronunciation, which is pretty standard in Moravia, but there's also a "colloquial" pronunciation, as used by many in Prague. Whichever way you pronounce those vowels, people will understand you.

I'm in the fortunate position of having had native Czech teachers, so I could just imitate their pronunciation rather than having to figure it out on my own.

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Re: Czech discussion group

Postby Lauren » 2015-11-20, 19:17

Aurinĭa wrote:There's the "official" pronunciation, which is pretty standard in Moravia, but there's also a "colloquial" pronunciation, as used by many in Prague. Whichever way you pronounce those vowels, people will understand you.

Yeah, that's true, but I'd like to at least be uniform in my pronunciation and not an amalgam of different dialects and such, you know?
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Re: Czech discussion group

Postby hreru » 2015-12-09, 12:07

But Lauren, stress is always on the first syllable. :hmm: Where have you heard these examples?

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Re: Czech discussion group

Postby Lauren » 2015-12-09, 21:20

Unless I am sorely mistaken, I'm pretty sure I've heard it on the recordings of Colloquial Czech, and from speakers on Forvo. :hmm:

Before I was thinking that this example was stressed on the penultimate syllable, but now I'm doubting myself. :para:
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Re: Czech discussion group

Postby hreru » 2015-12-10, 9:12

Great, now you've made me listen to it over and over withe an effort to admit there might be stress on the second syllable and not on the first one, and I ended up swearing all the syllables are stressed and there's no stress whatsoever, alternately, and in the very end both at the same time even. :ohwell: Any unbiased opinion?, I can't listen to it anymore. :nope:

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Re: Czech discussion group

Postby Lauren » 2015-12-10, 10:20

Hehe that's exactly how I'm feeling. :blush: I honestly can't tell anymore.
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Re: Czech discussion group

Postby Linguist108 » 2015-12-11, 18:33

Lauren wrote:Also also, just since I'm frustrated, I'm going to point out that most if not all sources say that stress is /b/always//b/ on the first syllable, and I've found that's absolutely not true. For one, most if not all feminine words with the ending '-ka' are stressed on the penultimate syllable. Also, foreign words can have different stress, like "američan" or "student".


In standard Czech the stress is always on the first syllable, unless the speaker wants to stress a different one - this can be used for example in poetry reading, acting etc, but it is generally not used otherwise. If you heard stress being on penultimate syllable then this might have been Czech from Northeastern part of Czech Republic (northern Moravia and Czech Silesia - the area around the city of Ostrava) where the pronunciation is influenced by neighbouring Polish and Slovak, both of which do use stress on penultimate syllable, this is especially typical for Polish.

Both of the examples you have given are not correct, in both cases stress would be on the first syllable in standard Czech:
američan
student

Generally, I would suggest to learn and use standard Czech not the colloquial one. There is no harm using standard Czech, although some people in Prague might find it a bit weird (formal and bookish). However, standard Czech is used in all media such as TV, newspapers, magazines, internet news sites and you will be able to communicate with evryone in Bohemia,and Moravia and Silesia. If you used colloquial Czech (of Prague type) it would sound very funny, especially to people in Moravia.
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הענט

Re: Czech discussion group

Postby הענט » 2015-12-11, 19:01

To je zajímavé. V ruštině je důležité znát na které slabice je důraz (možná i důležitější, než výslovnost hlásek), ale vždy tam slyším, na které slabice ten důraz je. V češtině naopak vůbec a to je to má mateřština. Asi proto vždy poznáme, pokud je někdo z Ruska nebo Slovenska, i kdyby měl fonologii zvládnutou na jedničku a ř vyslovoval jako rodák. :)

As for the colloquial register, I'd say it's the other way around. I always learn the colloquial language first and then the formal one. It's more fun that way IMHO. Luckily we don't have the same situation as they do in Finnish, so speaking the formal language is going to be understood by everyone. :D

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Re: Czech discussion group

Postby Linguist108 » 2015-12-11, 19:47

Dr. House wrote:As for the colloquial register, I'd say it's the other way around. I always learn the colloquial language first and then the formal one. It's more fun that way IMHO. Luckily we don't have the same situation as they do in Finnish, so speaking the formal language is going to be understood by everyone. :D

My point was that speaking and especially writing colloquial Czech won't work well. For example if you write an official letter you SHOULD use standard Czech, the same goes for writing a newspaper article etc. Also, any official texts including public transport timetables are always written in standard Czech, so one should learn standard Czech if they want to survive in Czech Republic :)
Colloqial Czech can be learnt after achieving a certain solid level of standard Czech knowledge as a bonus. But I would definitely not advise to approach Czech in the opposite way. Although if one wants to just speak Czech and not write it at all, they can learn certainly learn colloquial and talk to people in Prague, but I think they could have difficulty understanding standard Czech e.g. in TV if they used this approach.
Fianlly, I must admit that am not a big fan of colloquial Czech (especially of Prague type) as I am originally from Brno :D
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Re: Czech discussion group

Postby Linguist108 » 2015-12-11, 20:02

Aurinĭa wrote:There's the "official" pronunciation, which is pretty standard in Moravia, but there's also a "colloquial" pronunciation, as used by many in Prague. Whichever way you pronounce those vowels, people will understand you.

Standard Czech vowel pronuciation is pretty much set. See the following wikipedia topic on this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Czech_phonology#Vowels

If you saw any differences it was probably due to errors and discrepancies within those sources rather than discrepancies within standard Czech itself.

As for Moravia, there are several dialects in Moravia, most of them have quite specific vowel pronunciation, some of them quite different than standard Czech pronunciation (Moravian Slovakian dialect (Slovácko), Wallachian Moravian (Valašsko), Central Moravian (Hanácko) etc). But generally, you are right in that general Moravian Czech (if we could identify what exactly it is as it really does not exist in reality :)) is probably closer to standard Czech than colloquial Czech of Prague type.
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Re: Czech discussion group

Postby Linguist108 » 2015-12-11, 20:11

Lauren wrote:I'm having trouble figuring some things of Czech pronunciation. Some places say <o> and <u> are pronounced /o/ and /u/, but other places say /ɔ/ and /ʊ/, and I'm pretty sure I've at least heard /ɔ/ in recordings. Also, I'm pretty sure I've heard <i/y> pronounced as a short /i/ when everywhere says it's always /ɪ/. Similarly, I've heard short and long <e/é> definitely pronounced as /e(:)/ when most places say its /ɛ(:)/!.


  1. <o> and <u> are pronounced as /o/ and /u/ in standard Czech. I have never heard anything else.
  2. <i> and <y> are pronounced as /i/ in standard Czech. Both <i> and <y> are pronounced as /ɪ/ or even /e/ in Bohemian colloquial Czech (especial Prague) whereas Moravian colloquial Czech uses standard Czech pronunciation of both <i> and <y>.
  3. <e> and <é> are pronounced as /ɛ/ and /ɛ:/ respectively. I cannot imagine these to be pronounced as /e(:)/, it does not sound Czech at all.
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Re: Czech discussion group

Postby Linguist108 » 2015-12-11, 20:14

hreru wrote:Great, now you've made me listen to it over and over withe an effort to admit there might be stress on the second syllable and not on the first one, and I ended up swearing all the syllables are stressed and there's no stress whatsoever, alternately, and in the very end both at the same time even. :ohwell: Any unbiased opinion?, I can't listen to it anymore. :nope:

Where can I find the example?
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