Czech resources

[rdearman]

Free courses

FSI/DLI/Cortina etc. (multilingual)
https://fsi-languages.yojik.eu

50 languages
http://www.goethe-verlag.com

Free Czech grammar

http://www.seelrc.org:8080/grammar/main ... nguageID=2

Parallel Corpus of English and Czech Texts

http://www.phil.muni.cz/angl/kacenka/kachna.html

Books

Simplified/Adapted Czech:

Adaptovaná četba

"V edici Adaptovaná česká próza, určené studentům češtiny jako cizího jazyka, vychází následující tituly:

Pohádky (adaptace Lída Holá, úroveň A2)
Pražské legendy (adaptace Lída Holá, úroveň A2)
Staré pověsti české a moravské (adaptace Lída Holá, úroveň B1)
Jan Neruda: Povídky malostranské (adaptace Lída Holá, úroveň B1)
Petr Šabach: První láska a jiné povídky (adaptace Silvie Převrátilová a Petra Bulejčíková, úroveň B1)
Halina Pawlowská: Košík plný milenců a jiné povídky (adaptace Silvie Převrátilová a Petra Bulejčíková, úroveň B2)
Karel Čapek: Povídky z jedné kapsy a Povídky z druhé kapsy (adaptace Radomila Kotková, úroveň B2, bez CD)
Publikace doprovázejí názorné ilustrace a fotografie. Dále obsahuje soubor gramaticko-lexikálních cvičení ke každému textu, česko-anglicko-německo-ruský slovníček a klíč ke cvičením. Součástí svazku je i audio CD s kompletní nahrávkou knihy.

Česká čítanka - adaptované texty a cvičení ke studiu češtiny jako cizího jazyka od autorky Ilony Kořánové je soubor sedmnácti adaptovaných humorně laděných textů např. K. Čapka, K. J. Erbena, Z. Svěráka nebo dvojice J. Suchý a J. Šlitr. Texty lze začít používat na prahu úrovně A2. Publikace vychází ve třech jazykových mutacích (AJ, NJ, RJ), nahrávky ke stažení zdarma na stránkách nakladatelství Akropolis

V nakladatelství Sova Libris vycházejí v adaptaci Petry Sůvové s nepřekladovým slovníčkem, cvičeními s klíčem a CD následující tituly:
Lewis Carroll: Alenka v říši divů (úroveň B1)
Oscar Wilde: Obraz Doriana Graye (úroveň B2)

K procvičování výslovnosti problematických hlásek a hláskových skupin a seznamování s českými lidovými písněmi lze využít knihu Jiřiny Bartošové Zpívejte si česky (úroveň A1).

Pavla Macháčková, lektorka češtiny pro cizince, adaptovala různé texty pro různé úrovně A2 až C1, které si můžete stáhnout na jejích stránkách: http://www.pavlamachackova.cz/adaptovane-texty/. Mezi texty najdete Čapkovu Bílou nemoc, Jiráskovy pověsti, Werichovy pohádky aj. K textům jsou připojeny krátké medailonky autorů, slovníček vybraných slov a otázky pro porozumění."

http://www.inkluzivniskola.cz/adaptovana-cetba
http://akropolis.info/kniha/ceska-citan ... -audio-cd/
http://jitkapourova.cz/chci-cist-cesky-ale-co/
http://www.pavlamachackova.cz/adaptovane-texty/

Prague Municipal Library https://www.mlp.cz/cz/

Audiobooks/podcasts/radio

https://vltava.rozhlas.cz
http://hledani.rozhlas.cz/iradio/
The app http://www.rozhlas.cz/napoveda/aplikace

https://www.alza.cz/media/audioknihy/18854400.htm
(petr)

"Audiostory.cz seems to offer rather generous samples of their audiobooks (audioknihy) on their site/youtube."
For instance, here is The Little Prince (23 minutes): http://www.audiostory.cz/titul/show?titul=11
and A Christmas Carol (10 minutes): http://www.audiostory.cz/titul/show?titul=154
(Maiwenn)

Other resources:

http://www.mluvtecesky.net
This one looks similar to http://slovake.eu

Duolingo Czech looks really good.

http://www.mozaika.eu/category/zdarma-cviceni-online/ some graded blog articles

http://www.studyczech.cz/cs/zdroje-pro-studium-cestiny/
here is an interesting list, including sites with video and audio

http://www.mojecestina.cz/
this is for native children, but I think some of the exercises may be useful to foreign learners too.

http://slovnik.seznam.cz is one of the good choices for an online dictionary
http://forvo.com (I might be a Captain Obvious here)

public domain ebooks (Gutenberg would make you think there is nothing ):
http://www.sesity.net/elektronicka-knihovna.php these are books that tend to be obligatory in schools, mostare public domain. I am not sure about a few, but most clearly are. You can start with Malý princ (Le petit prince), or something else you already know. Out of the originally Czech books here, I recommend Čapek and Poláček as very pleasant reads, even though not necessarily the easiest. Nothing is probably easier there than Malý princ, a very common choice of learners of various languages.
http://www.databook.cz/e-knihy-zdarma
many more books, not just the obvious school choices, including stuff like the Arthur Conan Doyle translations. There are also contemporary authors, who agreed to make their works available for free, but I don't know whether they are good.

Warning:don't use this http://www.allysatis.org/ficheeleve/ele ... langaff=73
Google offered it, there is not much to do, but the little there is includes tons of mistakes. Exactly the kind of resource I warned against on the free challenge page, the creators count on people not finding out.

Cultural Orientation Resource Center - Phrasebooks (iguanamon)

http://www.culturalorientation.net/reso ... hrasebooks

[Speakeasy]

CZECH PROFILE
Serpent has mentioned a number of times that members DO NOT CLICK on the LINKS that other members attach to their posts and that, for the few members who do, only the most inquisitive actually READ the referenced articles. My experiences tend to support her comments in this regard. Here is your chance to prove us both wrong.
READ THIS FILE-> https://forum.language-learners.org/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=3217


Czech Resources: INTERMEDIATE
In addition to the resources presented above, prospective students might find the following Intermediate Resources of some interest.

Structured courses for Czech B1-B2 levels
With many thanks to 1e4e6, Arnaud, and Cavesa …

I was looking for structured courses for Czech for attaining B1-B2 levels. As in based on a guideline of each lesson leading to the other with coherence, not readers. I have not practised Czech as much, but now I need something rigourous. I never know when I might need Czech next. It could be in any language, even in Czech itself (monolingual language-learning books).

A structured course could be DO YOU WANT TO SPEAK CZECH? (never used it) but it's for beginners. Assimil has also a "sans peine" course.

Čeština pro cizince B1 - Učebnice + cvičebnice
Autor: Gabriela Šnaidaufová Kateřina Kopicová Marie Boccou Kestřánková

Čeština pro cizince B2 - učebnice a cvičebnice
Autor: Marie Kestřánková Pavel Pečený (this series looks the best, I'd say)

Česky krok za krokem 2
Autor: Zdena Malá (B1, there is no B2 course in this series)

Nebojte se češtiny
Autor: Ana Adamovičová (it is presented as conversation course for intermediate learners)

Česky, prosím III - Učebnice češtiny pro cizince
Autor: Jitka Cvejnová (B1-B2)

Čeština pro středně a více pokročilé
Jana Bischofová (B1+, there is also an exercise book)

Čeština pro pokročilé (4. vydání)
Autor: Helena Confortiová (no cefr level written)

Korespondence v češtině: příručka pro cizince
Autor: Bozděchová Ivana (A1-C2)

Čeština pro ekonomy - Nástavbový kurs češtiny pro cizince
Autor: Edelgart Čechová Helena Remediosová

Čeština pro cizince: Nástavbový kurz pro humanitní obory
Autor: Čadská Milada

Čeština pro cizince (Nástavbový kurz)
Autor: Čadská Milada (not meant for self-teaching students. but few things are, when it comes to more advanced Czech resources, which doesn't mean they cannot be used, it is just likely to be less comfortable)

Čítanka mluvené češtiny
Autor: František Čermák

Some resources meant for Czech natives learning other languages can also be used at this level. Cvičebnice současné angličtiny is a grammar exercise book based on translation. Thematic dictionaries by Fraus are really good (much better than the two international thematic picture dictionaries series). Or bilingual easy readers

Structured courses for Czech B1-B2 levels
https://forum.language-learners.org/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=11644

[Cavesa]

Are there some in Czech?

Do you mean monolingual Czech resources? Yes, I think some stuff on the list is monolingual.
Or do you mean Czech based resources for learning other languages? Yes, some are of excellent quality, but it depends a lot on what language would you want to learn through Czech.

[Montmorency]

Re: Colloquial Czech: I used to have the 2011 edition of this, but gave it away some time ago to someone whose need was more pressing than mine. I recently decided to resume my Czech studies, and thought I'd spring for what seemed to be a new (2015) edition, as listed on amazon.co.uk. It appeared to have a higher page count than the 2011 edition, so it looked like there were some actual changes. However, when I received it today, what I got was the 2011 edition. Well, it's still a good book I think, but I'm a little disappointed. I'd tried contacting Routledge to ask what the situation was, but I couldn't get their contact form to work.

I thought I'd see if I could contact James Naughton, the author of the 1st, 2nd and 3rd editions. Sadly, he is not contactable, as he died in 2014:

https://czech.mml.ox.ac.uk/dr-james-naughton

RIP James.

Edit: A tribute from a former student:

https://onlyanoceanghost.wordpress.com/ ... -naughton/


Some happier news: there is a link to a list of Czech resources:

https://czech.mml.ox.ac.uk/czech-and-sl ... -resources

[Montmorency]

I did eventually get through to the publisher, and today received an email to say that the 2015 "edition" was merely a reprint with no differences, and sorry for any confusion caused. I suspect that's not quite the whole story, as it doesn't explain the difference in apparent page count, but I doubt if I'll ever find out any more. Anyway, the 2011 edition seems very good, and I've started working through it.

[Montmorency]

I notice that there is a new version of "Czech: An Essential Grammar (Routledge Essential Grammars)" due out in December 2020:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Czech-Essentia ... 8&qid=&sr=

Product description
Review
'Karen von Kunes expands on James Naughton’s already outstanding Czech grammar. Her historical outline of the Czech language in the introductory chapter represents a valuable addition to Naughton’s book, which von Kunes elevates to the next level in its content and catapults it to the present time. Her indispensable linguistic comments and examples further clarify the subject matter. This edition is suitable for any student of Czech, ranging from beginners to advanced. It may well be the best Czech grammar currently available to learners of Czech.'

Marie H. Kurfirtova, Scholar at the Davis Center, University of Harvard

About the Author
James Naughton was Lecturer at the University of Oxford, UK. He was the author of popular Colloquial Czech and Colloquial Slovak, both published by Routledge. His published translations include Bohumil Hrabal’s Cutting it Short, The Little Town Where Time Stood Still, Total Fears: Letters to Dubenka, and Miroslav Holub’s The Jingle-bell Principle. He also contributed to the Traveller’s Literary Companion to Eastern and Central Europe, and several anthologies.

Karen von Kunes is Lecturer at Yale University, USA. She is the author of Czech Practical Dictionary: Czech-English/English-Czech, and of popular Beyond the Imaginable: 240 Ways of Looking at Czech. She is the editor-in-chief and co-author of Barron’s Travel Wise Czech, the translator of Voskovec and Werich’s play in Cabaret Performances, and the author of additional Czech language publications and introductions to translated novels. In addition to language, she has also published "Annotated Bibliography on Czech and Slovak Literary Theory" and contributed with articles on Czech culture, film and literature. Her most recent publication is Milan Kundera’s Fiction: A Critical Approach to Existential Betrayals, and several years ago she published her novel Among the Sinners.

The previous edition was from 2005, so I suppose it was due an update.


I got a shock when I first saw the price of £120, but fortunately, that turned out to be the hardback, and the paperback is a bit more reasonably priced.

[Montmorency]

I was looking for alternative ways into the very wonderful Czech case system, when I came across this:

https://archive.org/details/AGrammarOfC ... 7/mode/2up

Karel Tahal: A Grammar of Czech as a Foreign Language

It's a bit on the formal side, but that won't put off hardy HTLAL-ers/ LLORGers.

I think I did get a few insights. If nothing else, it contains many example phrases / sentences.
Towards the end, it contains the author's own essay on Standard Czech versus Common Czech (in English and Czech). As if Czech weren't complicated enough...

[Agorima]

The book "le Tchèque sans peine" from Assimil is a good book to begin with the Czech language, despite being published in 1994 (hence some references are a bit outdated)
After studying all the lessons (I am at the 87th lesson out of 92), it's possible to actually start speaking the language.
The dialogues from lesson 70 until 90 are difficult to read, even after reading them 5-6-7 times, it's hard to avoid mistakes!

I managed personally to translate and adapt the whole book in Italian, thanks to multiple translation sources and the good dictionary italsko-český / česko-italský sold by Lingea.

The main oddity of the book is the last lesson:

Tajemné setkání (A mysterious meeting)

- Ahoj! (Hello!)
- Nazdar! (Hello!)
- Čau! (Hi!)
O dvě hodiny později (Two hours later)
- Tak zatím (See you!)
- Nashle (Bye!)
- Měj se. (Take care.)

And that's it! There are fewer words than the first lesson!

[Agorima]

Another resource book in Italian is the "Corso di lingua ceca" (Hoepli) by the authors Lucia Casadei, François Esvan, Petra Macurová.
I preferred to study on Assimil's book, because the "Corso di lingua ceca" is much more focused on grammar.
And people does not think so often about grammar when speaking any language
Besides that, I found some flaws in the 2017 edition:
1. In the first lesson, there is a phonetic table. When making an example of the pronunciation of the letter z, the authors choose the word otázka (question), but they translated it as "answer"!
2. In the second lesson, the words "ten" "ta" "to" are presented as demonstrative adjectives, because the translation is "this" or "that". However they did not mention from the beginning that these words are also articles, translated simply as
"the".
Yes, the article does exist in Czech language!

[Montmorency]

I'm glad to say that I have now received (yesterday) my copy of the new edition of "Czech: An Essential Grammar", by James Naughton and Karen von Kunes, published by Routledge. (See my posting about this, above). I pre-ordered it with Amazon at around the time I made that posting; it was promised for end-December, which then slipped to end January, but arrived on the 7th of January, so I can't complain.

I haven't had time to compare it properly with the original, 2005 edition. I no longer have my old printed edition of that (gave it away), although I do have a version on PDF, but for page by page comparisons, a paper copy would be better; however, I will get around to it. On first sight, it actually seems a bit shorter, but that doesn't quite make sense, as, from the introduction, it is described as an "enlarged edition". However, I'm sure all will become clear. Karen von Kunes is generous in her tributes to the late James Naughton, on whose work this edition is based, and whom she describes as a colleague and friend.

Although I am not totally grammar-driven in my studies of languages (and much less so than I once might have been) I do enjoy looking through grammar reference books, and I'm glad to see that Karen von Klunes has retained James Naughton's somewhat informal style, and I hope she's kept some of his jokes. Apart from anything else, I usually find grammar reference books to be a surprisingly useful source of vocabulary, although that is obviously not their primary purpose. And although Czech is obviously a fairly grammar-heavy language, I have no intention of attempting to learn all the declension tables by rote, as we used to do for Latin at school. I will continue to attempt to learn some common forms, of course, but the rest will have to come gradually, bit by bit, and with context (famous last words...).