Ways to learn Czech faster. Methods of learning the czech language

Time to read: 6 minutes

How to learn czech faster. My experience of learning Czech

Czech is a complex, non—melodic language spoken only in the Czech Republic. To an outsider’s ear, the Czech language resembles the signals of scouts. They were used to avoid attracting attention. Czech is not used anywhere abroad, with the exception of Slovakia. Czech has a lot of letters, an abundance of words, and outdated grammar. Ways to learn Czech faster.

After moving to the Czech Republic, I started learning Czech in university entrance courses. The group studied for an hour and a half three times a week (changes between lessons were not counted). The course lasted about three months. In total, according to the documents, 168 hours were listened to.

1. How to learn Czech faster. Read more and talk more

It’s not hard to find someone to talk to right now. There are special sites on the Internet for online language exchange, such as interpals.net , you can find an interlocutor in real life. The source of language practice for me was student bars, where the national drink beer unleashes the language. Sometimes it seems that everything can be explained. Use your vocabulary. Talk to strangers.

Besides, I’ve read a lot. I read the news, the economic section, political information, read about cultural life in the Czech Republic. He started a notebook where he wrote down unfamiliar words and then looked for their translation in the dictionary. Don’t translate word by word. The Czech language has its own peculiarities of phrase construction. Even without understanding each word individually, you still quickly get acquainted with how the living Czech language “works”.

Read every day, gain grammatical experience. You don’t have to learn grammar to read, just learn it.

I entered the Faculty of Economics. The first course became for me the practice of the Czech language. There were few written assignments in the first year. Tasks were limited to the number of words. Even 1-2 A4 sheets were given in Czech with great difficulty.

Good spelling and passable grammar are combined with my absolute ignorance of long vowels. On the letter, they are indicated by an icon similar to an accent mark. Let’s say there are two long vowels in the words výtvarný kurz.

I graduated from university and got a job. At work, I learned the amount of words needed to communicate with colleagues and customers. At work, it became clear how big the gap separating me from people who speak Czech is.

2. Repeat what you have done as often as possible

No matter how trite it may sound, but our memory is built in such a way that it will always forget something. Ideally, repeat not the material you have just passed, but the one that you have already passed 3-5 lessons ago. So you will train your memory like any muscle of your body – to strain and give time for relaxation. This is a proven effective method.

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3. Life hack, how to learn new Czech words

How to learn czech faster

How to learn czech faster

Methods of learning the czech language. I am obliged to share a life hack on how to learn new words. When studying Czech, I did not use it because of laziness, and I am very sorry. The life hack is as old as the world, and it’s called flashcards. Take a sheet of thick paper, and cut it with scissors into cards, 5 × 3 cm in size. Well, or as it turns out. It is important that the cards are the same size. You also need a box, an elastic band and a pen. You write out a new word on the card with a pen, write a translation on the reverse side. You write one word on a card. “What a waste!” you will exclaim. And wait to exclaim, read on.

You put the cards in a pile, tie them with an elastic band and put them in your pocket or in a bag. At every opportunity, you take them out, and by going through them, learn the words. Looking through one by one, you check which words you have already learned. At home, you put the cards that you have learned into a box and replenish the work stack.

The beauty of the method is that the cards can be shuffled, check the knowledge of translation both from a foreign language and vice versa, and draw hints. Difficult words that you can’t remember in any way, you can tear up with a scream. Thus, they can be punished (for an amateur). After a while, you can take out the words you have already learned from the box and check again those that you have already forgotten.

The first Czech lesson for beginners

4. Student’s life hack. Ways to learn czech faster

How to remember where in words is a long and where is a short vowel. That’s what a student friend advised me.

I can share my experience. When I was learning a little Hindi, I just imagined and said 2 vowels instead of one for long vowels. That was enough for me, and even though I studied for a very long time and a little, I remember where the vowels are in the words that I learned. However, I still have a good visual memory. By the way, I also teach with the help of flashcards. It is simply impossible to learn Czech quickly without flashcards, because it is impossible to control what has been learned and it is impossible to estimate how many words have been learned. Only I write them on cardboard, in a certain color depending on the part of speech and, if possible, make a file for them in excel.

5. How to learn Czech faster – Czech Grammar Tablet

Czech Grammar Tablet

Czech Grammar Tablet

I bring to the attention of the reader the main assistant of Czech students — a sign. A sign is bought in a bookstore, in stationery, in kiosks with magazines, and anywhere. It happens to be of varying degrees of detail. We are only interested in declension of nouns.
Why buy a sign, you ask. Isn’t it in every textbook, free on the Internet, and in the rules of the Czech language? There are, of course: masculine gender, feminine gender, neuter. But to look for a book, to open the place where the sign is, or to scour the Internet where the page is when you need to look at one ending is too much. The plate is laminated, you put it in an easily accessible place and pull it out at a moment of uncertainty. In short, you will see, take it without looking. For the price of one cup of coffee, you can learn the endings of nouns once and for all.

overview of Czech Grammar

Overview of Czech Grammar

6. How to learn Czech faster – watch movies

Watch movies with subtitles and several times. Already during the second viewing, you will begin to understand more and will be able to repeat new words. Watching movies helps both to replenish vocabulary and improve pronunciation.

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www.hbogo.cz  – the largest collection of modern films and TV series in the Czech language. The site gives new subscribers free access for 7 days to the entire collection.

7. Online libraries where you can download books and fiction:

  • www.knihovny.cz – unified website of Czech and Moravian libraries;
  • www.kramerius-vs.nkp.cz – national library for students;
  • www.techlib.cz/cs – NTK Library has opened access to digitized archives for students;
  • www.it.muni.cz/knihovny-samostudium – The Masaryk University Library has opened access to all its collections and monographs on natural sciences, computer science, medicine and psychology.
  • www.lib.cas.cz/27870/knihovna-online – the Library of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic opens its funds for 1 crown.

Declensions and cases in Czech for beginners

8. Resume

Once again, I cite the main points as conclusions.

Longitude

  • We get a tablet of Czech grammar, for the sake of declensions of nouns. Before buying, make sure that they are listed there, this is not always the case. There are dozens of options for plates, they all look about the same
  • We learn the rules by which the type of declension of a noun is determined
  • Every time we incline, we remember the type of declension, and look for the correct ending in the tablet
  • Over time, the tablet becomes less and less necessary, since we keep it in our head

Accent

  • We learn the rules of assimilation of sonority. We stop pronouncing the words “as it is written”
  • And emphasize the first syllable. Always. Even when it sounds unnatural to the ear
  • We stop arbitrarily stretching sounds, or “singing”. We sing in the shower, at least in a restaurant

Podcasts for learning Czech. Podcasts for students in the Czech Republic

Useful websites for a student in the Czech Republic online training

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