A language learners’ forum

wEndy wrote:

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.

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?

Welcome. We are almost all beginners. I'm working on learning the pronunciation right now. I will start studying for real in August when rdearman's study project/experiment begins.

Hemenex = Ham 'n' Eggs... a bizarre find while trying to understand the menu and then trying to understand the waitress and why she was just repeating "Hemenex is Hemenex" - "Yes, but in English?" - "Hemenex!".

I'd love to join in but I've got two languages I NEED to work on now and others lined up after that.

Czech and Slovak are both languages I picked up some phrases in many years ago and bizarrely I still remember bits.

Jak sa mash / aka sa mash?

Pravda / Prouda (spelling?).

From memory (10 years?) and I've never seen them spelt...

Jedno, dva, tre, strery, piet, shzest, sedum, ovet(??), divet, diset

I'll check the thread out in a few years...

Good luck all!

Whodathunkitz wrote:Hemenex = Ham 'n' Eggs... a bizarre find while trying to understand the menu and then trying to understand the waitress and why she was just repeating "Hemenex is Hemenex" - "Yes, but in English?" - "Hemenex!".

I'd love to join in but I've got two languages I NEED to work on now and others lined up after that.

Czech and Slovak are both languages I picked up some phrases in many years ago and bizarrely I still remember bits.

Jak sa mash / aka sa mash?

Pravda / Prouda (spelling?).

From memory (10 years?) and I've never seen them spelt...

Jedno, dva, tre, strery, piet, shzest, sedum, ovet(??), divet, diset

I'll check the thread out in a few years...

Good luck all!

Hemenex is definitely bizarre But real. You will find a few similar cases among the German loanwords too, I think.

Jak SE máš?
AkO sa máš?

Pravda, not sure about Slovak, I think pravda too.

the numbers are in Czech or Slovak? In either case, there are mistakes. But overall, your memory from 10 years ago is not bad

Cavesa wrote:
Hemenex is definitely bizarre But real. You will find a few similar cases among the German loanwords too, I think.

Jak SE máš?
AkO sa máš?

Pravda, not sure about Slovak, I think pravda too.

the numbers are in Czech or Slovak? In either case, there are mistakes. But overall, your memory from 10 years ago is not bad

I never saw anything written down so it's kind of a personal awful phonetic version of half remembered phrases!

Travelling away from Prague, I mostly found the youngsters spoke excellent English even though they'd only had a few years (actually I think it was 20+ years ago, not 10!). Slightly older people had Russian, oldest had German. Slovakia - I only ever spent time in the mountains, most of those I met had excellent English skills, many had Polish and Hungarian language skills / ethnicity (??) depending on history.

"Shzest" piv proseem.

Karlovarska beckerovka.

Bavorak (Fernet and tonic?).

"Djiki mots"? - "Thanks"?

And a lot more CIAO than AHOJ?

Wanderlust - must keep under control!

Over and out.. good luck

I keep forgetting I should be doing this.... {looks longingly at stack of books} ... but not this week.

zenmonkey wrote:I keep forgetting I should be doing this.... {looks longingly at stack of books} ... but not this week.

We officially start when rdearman's study starts, so you still have time.

I've just been practicing my pronunciation with "Modern" Czech. This is just the recording. There should be a book, but it isn't really necessary. I haven't listened to the rest of the recordings, so I don't know if the lack of a book will be a problem with those ones or not.

How is everyone doing here?

I actually might want to join with Slovak, as I've been wanting to learn it since the end of 2015 and already got some material back then.

Brun Ugle wrote:

zenmonkey wrote:I keep forgetting I should be doing this.... {looks longingly at stack of books} ... but not this week.

We officially start when rdearman's study starts, so you still have time.

So I was back in Bratislava last week and, as longingly as I looked at the language, and despite having raided many bookstores in Budapest I did not find on the shelf the motivation, time or mental fit to study Slovak at this time. I'm not going to hold on to the desire for the moment but let it go. I can't even really say it I'll give it a push in the next 3-6 months.

Now, if I win the lottery....

I've been doing a bit of Slovak. I went through a bit of the A1 level of slovake.eu but then got bored (for someone who knows Polish the extensive conjugation/declension drills seem a bit pointless) and have mostly been looking at song lyrics. I have two cartoon film DVDs that I originally got for the Hungarian dub (+subtitles) but they also have the Slovak dub and subtitles so I might use that as well.