Teach Yourself Complete Czech

386 Pages·2010·3.586 MB·English

by  David Short

Complete Czech
David Short
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Long renowned as the authoritative source for self-guided learning –
with more than 50 million copies sold worldwide – the Teach Yourself
series includes over 500 titles in the fi elds of languages, craft s, hobbies,
business, computing and education.
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this title is available from the British Library.
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First published in UK in 1993 as Teach Yourself Czech by Hodder
Education, part of Hachette UK, 338 Euston Road, London NW1 3BH.
First published in US 1994 by Contemporary Books, a Division of the
McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
Th is edition published 2010.
Th e Teach Yourself name is a registered trade mark of Hachette UK.
Copyright © 1993, 2003, 2010 David Short
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Year 2014 2013 2012 2011 2010
Contents
Meet the author vii
Only got a minute? viii
Only got ten minutes? x
Introduction xv
1 Dobrý den. Jak se máte? Good morning. How are you? 1
Handling fi rst encounters with greetings and
responses • Spotting words that are common
to Czech and English • Saying I (fi rst person singular)
2 Jak se jmenujete? What’s your name? 9
Making introductions • Asking where someone
comes from • Forming verbs in the present tense
3 Kde pracujete? Where do you work? 21
Asking where someone works • Asking what their
job is • Using basic kinship terms • Asking about
the work of others in the family • Expressing more
complex things about work
4 Jak bydlíte? What is your house like? 35
Talking about how people live • Saying numbers
• Talking about going visiting • Expressing
possession • Using can and must • Expressing
the ‘direct object’
5 Je tu někde knihkupectví? Is there a bookshop near here? 50
Watching your Ps and Qs • Asking questions politely
• Saying there is, there are • Saying that you like
something • Forming and using adjectives in
the accusative
6 Na celnici At customs 68
Understanding questions about your person
• Answering in an appropriate manner • Beginning
to use plurals • Using some means of expressing
reason and purpose
7 Kde jste vlastně studoval? Where exactly did you study? 82
Saying something about past events • Saying
more about going places • Using numbers
above four
Contents iii
8 Nemůžu najít klíč I can’t fi nd the key 96
Using the past tense • Complaining about this
and that • Asking what something costs • Using
higher numbers • Giving and understanding
simple directions
9 Kolik je hodin? What’s the time? 109
Asking the time • Asking at what time something
happens • Saying what time it is • Talking about
the future
10 Co mám koupit rodině? What should I buy the family? 123
Talking about the person(s) to whom something
is given/said • Using place expressions in the
plural • Saying all
11 Ve čtvrtek k nám přijde návštěva We’ve got visitors
coming on Thursday 139
Saying more about future events • Compensating
for Czech’s simple tense system • Saying the
days of the week • Saying the months of the
year • Forming dates
12 Děti do školy vodí manželka It’s my wife who takes the
children to school 157
Talking about the most crucial types of movement
• Saying what things look like • Expressing the
means of doing something
13 Prší! It’s raining! 173
Reading consecutive prose • Talking about the
weather • Using personal pronouns • Saying
before and after • Forming more expressions
for telling the time • Expressing alternatives
14 Nehádejte se! Stop arguing! 193
Giving orders • Using some politeness formulae
• Expressing wishes
15 Kdybych věděla, že přijdete ... If I knew you were coming ... 206
Expressing vain wishes using the conditional
• Stating actual and theoretical preferences
• Saying indirect commands • expressing
‘purpose’
16 Tak to bude rychlejší It’ll be quicker that way 219
Making comparisons • Saying something is the
best • Talking about your children and pets
iv
17 Kvůli politice se nerozčiluj! Don’t get worked up over politics! 237
Describing what people/things are doing • Dealing
with some features of written Czech • Saying whose
18 Nejdřív uděláme pořádek v Líbině skříni First we’ll tidy
Líba’s wardrobe 251
Saying more about possession • Making
suggestions • Using the Czech equivalent of -ed
19 Dejte si něco na ochutnání Have something to taste 267
Using -ing (as a noun) to state your likes and
dislikes • Saying what things are good for
• recognizing and forming ‘passive’ sentences
Supplement: selected features of high- and low-style Czech 283
Taking it further 290
Key to the exercises 297
Glossary of grammatical terms 308
Appendices: reference tables and voicing and devoicing 316
Czech–English vocabulary 324
English–Czech vocabulary 346
Subject index 361
Credits
Front cover: © wrangle/iStockphoto.com
Back cover and pack: © Jakub Semeniuk/iStockphoto.com,
© Royalty-Free/Corbis, © agencyby/iStockphoto.com, © Andy Cook/
iStockphoto.com, © Christopher Ewing/iStockphoto.com,
© zebicho – Fotolia.com, © Geoff rey Holman/iStockphoto.com,
© Photodisc/Getty Images,© James C. Pruitt/iStockphoto.com,
© Mohamed Saber – Fotolia.com
Contents v
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Meet the author
I have taught Czech since 1973, at the School of Slavonic and East
European Studies, University of London, now a department of University
College London. Previously I had studied a related language, Russian, at
Birmingham University, aft er which I spent six years in Prague, studying
Czech in particular and life in general.
I teach at all levels for both undergraduate and postgraduate students
from a wide variety of language backgrounds. In the course of my teaching
career, which has included occasional private tuition, I have prepared
a wide range of learning materials besides the present textbook. Moreover,
I have cooperated on a variety of dictionaries (four volumes of the Czech
dictionary of idioms and the revision of the largest English – Czech
dictionary currently available, amongst others); dictionaries are, obviously,
a major tool for the language-learner. I am a founding member of the
International Association of Teachers of Czech.
I have written widely on aspects of the Czech language and, to a lesser
extent, Czech literature, and in recent years I have become a translator
from the literature; it is my quiet wish that as more literature appears
in translation, more people will be drawn to that which has not been
translated. Th is is just one reason for learning Czech, but I believe my
book will act as a good springboard, whatever your particular reason for
learning this fascinating language.
David Short
Meet the author vii
Only got a minute?
Czech is the state language of the Czech Republic
(capital Prague, in central Europe) and is spoken by
most of its c. 10 million citizens. Some Slovaks, largely
post-independence immigrants, get by quite happily
with their own language, as the two are largely mutually
intelligible. Czech, like Slovak, Polish, and Upper and
Lower Sorbian (the latter spoken in the south-east
corner of eastern Germany) is a West Slavonic language.
These quite closely-related languages are more distantly
related to the South Slavonic languages (Bosnian/
Croatian/Montenegrin/Serbian [i.e. the off shoots of
Serbo-Croatian as used in former Yugoslavia], Bulgarian,
Macedonian and Slovene) and the East Slavonic
languages (Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian). Czech has
been infl uenced in the past by German, its closest
neighbour geographically, but today very visibly by
English, from which it borrows almost daily – in business,
administration, IT, popular culture, sport, leisure and
other areas.
Czech is also spoken by small, generally rural,
communities elsewhere in eastern Europe, larger
communities in North America and scattered
populations worldwide, owing to several waves of
emigration during the late 19th and 20th centuries.
Czech uses the Latin alphabet, with diacritics
( ‘ accents ’ ) to denote sounds for which the Latin alphabet
is unsuited. This convention has been gradually refi ned
since its fi rst introduction by the religious reformer
viii
Jan Hus in the 14th century and has been adopted by
several other languages since.
The language ’ s main characteristic is infl ection:
relations among the parts of a sentence are largely
expressed by the endings of words.
Only got a minute? ix