Study group for people tricked into learning CZECH (or SLOVAK) -- those learning of their own free will also welcome

An area with study groups for various languages. Group members help each other, share resources and experience. Study groups are permanent but the members rotate and change.
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Chung
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Re: Study group for people tricked into learning CZECH (or SLOVAK) -- those learning of their own free will also welcome

Postby Chung » Sat Jun 17, 2017 9:46 pm

Feel free to dip into the Czech and Slovak profiles.
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vonPeterhof
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Re: Study group for people tricked into learning CZECH (or SLOVAK) -- those learning of their own free will also welcome

Postby vonPeterhof » Sat Jun 17, 2017 9:52 pm

Chung wrote:Feel free to dip into the Czech and Slovak profiles.

Argh, believe it or not, but I was literally just about to shamelessly steal your lists of resources and post them in this thread, but you beat me to it! :evil:

Oh well, thanks for putting those together :)
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Anya
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Re: Study group for people tricked into learning CZECH (or SLOVAK) -- those learning of their own free will also welcome

Postby Anya » Sun Jun 18, 2017 11:28 am

I am in for Czech!
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Cavesa
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Re: Study group for people tricked into learning CZECH (or SLOVAK) -- those learning of their own free will also welcome

Postby Cavesa » Sun Jun 18, 2017 4:01 pm

Hi, Brun Ugle tricked me into becoming the Fairy Godmother of this group, so here I am :-D

I feel partially responsible for this disaster that is spreading here, as I simply couldn't keep my mouth shut about the good quality of Czech fantasy writers, the huge book market for a language of this size, and perhaps even a few movies, and about some excellent Czech based resources for learning other languages. Pretty funny, considering the fact I am quite the opposite of a patriot.

A few comforting words to make the start a bit less painful:

-Czech truly is a useful language for people traveling to the country. Most Czechs, even the young ones, are bad at English. Sure, the university educated people with longer stays abroad in their history speak quite well, but that is just my social bubble. Computer game players tend to know English quite well too, and a few other groups. The overall "B1" of everyone with high school education is just a fairy tale the ministry employees tell each other. But this time, the problem is actually an advantage. A1/A2 Czech can already make your stay more pleasant and less complicated. B1 will already make you kings and queens of the company. The french won't be impressed by B1 knowledge of their langauge, the czechs would nominate you for a Nobel Prize for it, if they could. Add to it that services in the Czech Republic are very cheap due to horribly low salaries (goods are not cheap), so it is a very cheap place for tourists, therefore you may be able to afford travelling to the Czech Republic more often than to some more exotic destinations or to the hyperexpensive scandinavian countries. And it is a very safe and tolerant country. The worst criminals you are likely to encounter are the taxi drivers. And even those rob everyone the same, no discrimination.

-The grammar may seem complicated at first. But it is in many ways similar to German or Latin, so there is no need to be that much more scared of Czech than of those two. And hey, you could have been tricked into Korean, Ancient Egyptian, or Klingon instead, you were still lucky. Thank Brun Ugle. And there are lots of loan words, Czech isn't some alien isolated beast.

-Don't worry about the so called "diglossia" much. What some people make up to seem an infernal problem typical of the Czech language, is in reality nothing more serious than the differences between spoken and standard English, spoken and standard French, spoken and standard Spanish. And the regional differences are still not as hard to get used to as to some of the regional differences between English natives or Spanish natives. Really, no need to panic. Speak either standard or whatever region based way you want, we'll understand. And you'll get to understand everything you need with exposure, no problem there.

-I think a lot of the Czech media is not region locked online, perhaps the providers simply don't suspect foreigners of wanting to access that :-D And the Czech pirated content is huge, as we are still considered second rate customers and the industry is pushing us to it. The downside is, that if you are strongly against piracy, you'll be doomed to acquire your native input resources just as unpractically as we are supposed to, plus more delivery fees.

-A short motivational list of the native languages of various people talking very good Czech that I've heard: English, French, Spanish, Russian, Arabic, Ukrainian, Italian, Vietnamese. I am sure I am not remembering all of them right now. So, if they could learn it, why couldn't you?
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Brun Ugle
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Re: Study group for people tricked into learning CZECH (or SLOVAK) -- those learning of their own free will also welcome

Postby Brun Ugle » Sun Jun 18, 2017 5:45 pm

Thanks for the motivational speech. I might have to reread it a few times over the course of this journey. I was just looking at the blurbs on the back of my Star Trek books and I think I know what the word "planet" means. So that's one word down and about 14 999* to go.

I like that you can say "Ahoj" for hi. It makes me feel like a pirate. Ahoy there, mateys! :D


* Based on my wild guess of how many words I need to know in order to feel somewhat comfortable speaking a language.
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Elenia
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Finnish?!
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Re: Study group for people tricked into learning CZECH (or SLOVAK) -- those learning of their own free will also welcome

Postby Elenia » Sun Jun 18, 2017 6:55 pm

Okay fine, maybe I'm in. I still wish we were learning Polish, though...
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Expugnator
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Re: Study group for people tricked into learning CZECH (or SLOVAK) -- those learning of their own free will also welcome

Postby Expugnator » Sun Jun 18, 2017 9:51 pm

I've started unofficially through Clozemaster and I'm finding it much closer to Russian than I had thought. I usually get everything right on multiple choice.

So maybe I've been postponing it too long. I need to focus on Russian now but I think Clozemaster + one Assimil lesson a day won't do much harm.
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MorkTheFiddle
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Re: Study group for people tricked into learning CZECH (or SLOVAK) -- those learning of their own free will also welcome

Postby MorkTheFiddle » Mon Jun 19, 2017 6:57 pm

Once you all learn Czech, the Czech Republic is not the only place you can practice your new language: check out Praha, Texas.
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Many things which are false are transmitted from book to book, and gain credit in the world. -- attributed to Samuel Johnson

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stelingo
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Re: Study group for people tricked into learning CZECH (or SLOVAK) -- those learning of their own free will also welcome

Postby stelingo » Mon Jun 19, 2017 9:29 pm

Brun Ugle wrote:.
I like that you can say "Ahoj" for hi. It makes me feel like a pirate. Ahoy there, mateys! :D


Fun fact:

Alexander Graham Bell originally suggested 'ahoy' be adopted as the standard greeting when answering a telephone, before 'hello' (suggested by Thomas Edison) became common.
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wEndy
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Re: Study group for people tricked into learning CZECH (or SLOVAK) -- those learning of their own free will also welcome

Postby wEndy » Fri Jul 07, 2017 3:33 am

Brun Ugle wrote:
Brun Ugle wrote:The reason I have to learn Czech is that I walked into a bookstore in Bratislava where my friend, Dave, was looking at Star Wars books and I said, "I'm not really all that into Star Wars. I prefer Star Trek, but you can't really find Star Trek books in other languages besides English and German. If they had Star Trek books in Slovak, I'd learn Slovak."

And then I found several Star Trek books. However they turned out to be in Czech, so technically, I'm off the hook because they aren't in Slovak, and I didn't say anything about Czech Star Trek books. :P ;)

Since my "friends" wouldn't let me off the hook, it looks like I'm learning Czech. And for some reason, half the forum seems to want to join in. I guess there are a lot of Trekkers here.

This is meant as a study group, not a challenge, but since I was asked, "When do we start?" I thought maybe it would be a good idea to start our studies at the same time as rdearman starts his study on language improvement. That way those who want to participate in his study can do Czech from zero if they want. It's due to start sometime around the end of July. Also, that gives us a little time to collect materials.

So, who wants to join the "fun"? I can't promise cookies, but they do have Star Trek books!

Thanks, Brun Ugle

I wanna join but I'm a beginner. Does it matter much?
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