How long does it take for an English speaker to learn Czech?
The Foreign Service Institute categorizes Czech as a level IV language, which means a very hard language that takes 44 weeks or 1,100 hours to learn at a basic conversational level. If you still decide to learn the basics – you are in for a hard road.
Czech has a reputation for being difficult, but I hadn't anticipated it being quite this tough. In other languages you can quickly put sentences together and use these patterns to create new sentences.
Given that Czech falls into the Category III difficulty level, the FSI estimates that it may require between 1100 and 2200 hours of study to attain professional working proficiency. This corresponds to roughly 24 to 44 months of full-time study, or approximately 2 to 3.5 years.
I'd say they are of equal difficulty. Czech is mostly intelligible with Slovak, significantly less with Polish, a bit less than that with Serbo-Croatian. Polish is quite intelligible with Slovak and probably more than Czech with the eastern slavic languages.
It will help you in your everyday life. Let it be a job, grocery shopping, commuting, or ordering a coffee – they will most likely understand English, but asking in Czech and actually understanding what are people around you talking about is much better. Also, you will understand Czech people speaking English.
The world's most popular way to learn Czech online
Learn Czech in just 5 minutes a day with our game-like lessons. Whether you're a beginner starting with the basics or looking to practice your reading, writing, and speaking, Duolingo is scientifically proven to work.
With many major international companies having a presence in the Central European nation, which borders Austria, Germany, Poland and Slovakia, such as Hyundai, Vodafone and the European energy giant Alpiq, there is an increasing demand for people who can speak Czech fluently.
I would agree with others that Czech grammar is more difficult than Russian, and Polish even more complicated. I dabbled in Croatian a couple of years ago and found it really easy to pick up, at least up to A2 level.
What is undeniably difficult is the stress. That doesn't mean you should be stressed out from the language, I mean the stress as in pronunciation – intonation of each word. The emphasis is strictly placed on the first syllable of each word which makes the rhythm of Czech sentences unique.
Bulgarian is often called the easiest Slavic language because there are no grammatical cases. The basic requirement, however, is learning the Cyrillic alphabet.
Which is the hardest Slavic language?
I very much agree with this post, except for the part I highlighted in bold. In fact, in terms of vocabulary acquisition, Czech is probably the hardest Slavic language for a Westerner to learn.
Czech is most closely related to modern Sorbian, Polish, and Slovak. In fact, it is so similar to Slovak that speakers of Czech and Slovak can mutually understand each other.
Use language learning apps
Language learning apps like Duolingo, Babbel, and Rosetta Stone can be great resources for learning Czech. These apps offer interactive lessons that focus on building vocabulary, grammar, and conversation skills. Many also include pronunciation exercises and progress tracking features.
- Czech 98.77%
- English 11.75%
- German 8.62%
- Slovak 7.29%
- Russian 7.09%
- Polish 1.41%
- French 1.07%
- Italian 0.63%
Some 45 percent of the population can communicate in some level of English, but one in 10 speak English at a minimum and 14 percent at a basic level. About 15 percent of the population can boast of intermediate knowledge of English and 7 percent are very advanced.
YES = ANO (ano) NO = NE (ne) PLEASE = PROSÍM (proseem)
The Czech “čau” comes from the Italian greeting or farewell of “ciao.” Use of the term experienced a boom after the Italian film “Wide Blue Road” was shown in Czechoslovakia in the late 1950s. The Czech greeting “nazdar” (literally meaning to the success) was popularized in the mid-19th century.
Czech Slovak Polish Hungarian Romanian and Sorbian: from the Slavic word baba '(old) woman grandmother' figuratively (for a man) 'coward' hence an unflattering nickname for a man thought to resemble an old woman or for a coward. The Sorbian surname is found mainly in a Germanized form Babe .
The Czech alphabet uses several letters in addition to the 26 letters used in the English alphabet. These are á, č, ď, é, ě, í, ň, ó, ř, š, ť, ú, ů, ý, ž. The letter combination ch is also considered a single letter and is alphabetized after h.
5. Because Czech is a gateway to other European languages. As a Slavic language, Czech is really close to Russian, Polish and Slovak so it might help you if you decide to continue to study other Slavic languages. Unlike Russians, we use the Latin alphabet, so it's easier to read and write in Czech than in Russian.
Is English enough in Prague?
8. English is widely spoken, but a little Czech is welcome. It's common for people who live or work in Prague's tourist hotspots to speak English. Menus and museum information boards will usually be translated into English, too.
As a tourist in the main places, yes. Especially in large cities the situation is getting rapidly better and more and more people can have at least a basic conversation in English. For living in CZ, you would have to learn some basic Czech. You would not get by with English in any smaller city or in the country.
If you want to live in a country with a low cost of living, safety, and many expats, the Czech Republic is the right place for you. The Czech Republic, also known as Czechia, is located in the center of Europe; it is an average-sized European country with rich history and cultural heritage.
Of these, Russian is by far the most widely used. It is the native language of Russia and the first language for more than 160 million speakers. It was widely used throughout the Soviet Union and is still spoken in several Eastern European countries.
Bulgarian is often considered to be the easiest Slavic language for a few reasons. First, its grammar system is much simpler than other Slavic languages. It has a phonetic writing system which makes reading and pronunciation easier.
