Category: Czech (čeština)

New languages to learn?

By Simon

Recently I have acquired quite a few new language courses: as a sponsor of the Polyglot Conference in New York I received 10 new Colloquial language courses in Albanian, Bulgarian, Croatian, Czech, Estonian, Hungarian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Polish and Russian. I also bought a Glossika Russian course with the special offer given to conference participants, and bought a Basque course from Assimil with affiliate commission from Amazon France.

My new language courses

I learnt a little Hungarian many years ago, and am currently working on Czech and Russian, but haven’t studied any of the other languages before. I’d love to know at least the basics of all of them, though have no particular need or desire to learn them at the moment. Also, I already have courses in a number of languages that I have only glanced at so far – Arabic, Norwegian, Swedish, Scots and Cornish.

Do you sometimes get carried away with acquiring language courses and other materials?

Do you think you will get round to learn all those languages one day?

Language learning lethargy

By Simon

Cat on dictionaries - an illustration of language learning lethargy

Are there times when you don’t feel like learning languages and can’t summon up much enthusiasm about them? When language learning lethargy strikes, in fact.

For me most of August this year was like that – I did use my languages when I had the chance, and spoke quite a bit of French and Welsh, and odd bits of Italian and Irish. I also listened to plenty of foreign language radio, as I often do. I didn’t go out of my way to find opportunities to practise my languages though, and didn’t study at all for almost the whole month. This is unusual for me.

Sometimes I think to myself, “You already speak five languages more or less fluently, and know quite a few others to varying degrees. Isn’t that enough?”, and my usual answer is “No, I want to learn more!”. Recently however, my motivation to learn more has been low and my answer was “Yes, that’s enough for now.”

This month I am re-starting my studies with Czech, and am planning to start dabbling with other languages as well. Yesterday my Teach Yourself Swedish course finally arrived – the one I got for free after attending the Polyglot Gathering in Berlin in May. So I will be learning more Swedish before long.

If you come down with language learning lethargy from time to time, how do you deal with it?

Gleann Cholm Cille

By Simon

This week and next week I am in Gleann Cholm Cille (Glencolmcille) in Donegal in the north west of Ireland. I’m doing courses at Oideas Gael, an Irish language and cultural centre: a harp playing course this week, and an Irish language and culture course next week.

This is my 11th visit to Gleann Cholm Cille, and the second year I’ve done the harp course. On the harp course page of the Oideas Gael site there are pictures of the harp group from last year – I’m third from the right in the first one, and in the middle at the back in the second one (see also below).

2014 Oideas Gael Harp class
2014 Oideas Gael Harp class

This year we have a different teacher – a music student called Elsa Kelly, who also plays the flute. We’re learning some O’Carolan tunes and some other traditional Irish tunes, and it’s great fun.

I’ve been speaking plenty of Irish with people here – locals and students – and have also spoken bits of German, French, Scottish Gaelic, Dutch, Russian and Czech. People come here from all over the world to study Irish language, music and related subjects, so there are plenty of opportunities to practise languages.

So far the weather has been very mixed – cloudy and windy one minute, warm and sunny the next, then the rain starts, and it can go on all day and all night sometimes and be rather heavy. This is fairly typical for this part of Ireland, but local people are complaining that they haven’t had much of a summer this year yet.

Hmyz and Hums

By Simon

Hymz

I came across an interesting Czech word today – hmyz, which means “insect, ant, bug, creepy-crawly”.

It appears in my Czech phrasebook in the sentence, “V našem pokoji je hmyz” (There are insects in our room).

It sounds like the sounds insects make, but there are other words for hum in Czech – bzučet, vrčet, hučet (verbs); bzukot, šum, hukot (nouns).

Related words include:

– hmyzožravec = insectivore
– hmyzožravý = insectivorous
– repelent proti hmyzu = insect repellent

Sources: Wordbook.cz, Slovnik.cz, Slovniky.lingea.cz

Polyglot Gathering Berlin 2015

By Simon

I got back from the Polyglot Gathering in Berlin about an hour ago. I took the train all the way from Berlin to Bangor, via Cologne, Brussels, London, Crewe and Chester, leaving Berlin just before 7am this morning, and arriving in Bangor just after 9pm this evening. On the way there I also travelled by train, though I had to stay in Brussels for one night, and continued the next day. It cost slightly more than flying (only about £20 more) and took a bit longer (about 2 hours – more on the way there), but I saw so much more, and went through parts of France and Germany I hadn’t been before, and visited Belgium for the first time. The engineers on German railways started a 5-day strike today, and I was worried that my trains might not be running. Fortunately they did run, and were more or less on time.

The gathering was bigger than last year with about 350 participants from many countries. There were many people there I knew from last year’s gathering, and from the Polyglot Conference in Novi Sad, and I met lots of new people. I had conversations in all the languages I know well, and most of the ones I know less well. There was a Breton speaker there, though I didn’t get to talk to him, as well as speakers of Welsh, Irish, Cornish and Scottish Gaelic. Like last year, there were plenty of Esperanto speakers, and I had quite a few conversations in Esperanto, which I brushed up a bit beforehand. There were a number of people who had studied sign languages there, including BSL, ASL, Dutch Sign Language (Nederlandse Gebarentaal / NGT) and Slovak Sign Language (Slovenský posunkový jazyk / SPJ), and the Slovak signer demonstrated how she interprets songs in SPJ, which was fascinating to watch.

The talks and lectures were really interesting, and I went to quite a few introductions to languages, including Northern Sami, Navajo, Arabic, Hebrew, Milanese, Gottlandic, Finnish, Greek and Basque. I don’t intend to learn any of these languages just yet, but it was fascinating to find out more about them. My own presentation, on the History of Writing, was well received, and I got lots of positive comments.

Some of the polyglots at the Polyglot Gathering in Berlin in May 2015
Some of the polyglots at the Polyglot Gathering – from right to left: Richard Simcott, Alex Rawlings, Christopher Huff, Jimmy Melo, and me – between us we speak at least 20 or 30 languages, to varying degrees.

The evening activities included a polyglot games evening, an international culinary festival – I took some Welsh cakes and bara brith, which were popular – a book fair, a polyglot game show, a concert with the multilingual French singer JoMo, who sang in 25 different languages, and an international cultural evening, at which I sang a Scottish Gaelic waulking song (Ceud soiridh soiridh bhuam) and one of my own songs – A Hen in My Hat (in 5 languages). After the cultural evening there was a little Irish and Scottish music session – I had a couple of tin whistles with me, and a few other people had instruments.

So now I’m back in Bangor and will start to catch up with the work I couldn’t do while away due to time constraints and internet connection issues.

Closing out

By Simon

In the Czech lessons I’ve been working my way through I’ve noticed that the Czech host says (in English) at the end of each lesson “To close out this lesson, we would like to practise what you have just learnt.”. I would say finish rather than close out, and thought close out was a non-native usage. However recently I heard American friends using the same expression, so it seems that it is used in American English.

According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, to close out is defined as:

– exclude; preclude

So it does exist as an expression, but the meaning doesn’t quite fit with finishing a lesson.

Do you use or have you heard this expression?

Nebuď směšný!

By Simon

I came across a lovely Czech word today – směšný [‘smɲeʃni:] – which means funny or ridiculous, and sounds quite funny to me. I think it comes from smích (laughter), from the Proto-Slavic *směxъ [source]

Related words include:

– směšnost = ridiculousness; absurdity
– směšně = ridiculously
– smich = laughter
– smát = to laugh
– posměšek = a jeer, sneer, gibe
– posmívat se = to sneer, jeer at; to mock, tease, taunt
– úsměv = smile
– usmát se = to smile

The title of this post, Nebuď směšný!, means ‘Don’t be absurd!’.

Nemocnice

By Simon

One of the Czech lessons I studied yesterday included the word nemocnice (hospital), and though I hadn’t seen or heard it before, I was familiar with the word nemocný (ill; sick) and guessed from the context that nemocnice was a hospital. It feels good to be able to work out the meanings of words from their form and context, and this is somewhat easier in Czech as most words seem to be built from native roots, rather than being borrowed from other languages.

Words related to nemocnice include:

– nemoc = illness; disease
– moc = power, potency, force, forcefulness; strength
– mocný = powerful; mighty
– mocnost = power (nation, state)
– bezmoc = helplessness, powerlessness
– bezmocný = powerless, helpless

Source: Wikitionary

Hospital in Czech is also špitál or lazaret, which is probably related to the Italian lazzaretto (a leper hospital; place of quarantine) or the French lazaret (an isolation hospital for patients with contagious diseases). The Italian word comes from Nazaretto, a quarantine station in Venice, which was named after Santa Maria di Nazareth, a church on the island where it was located [source].

Flashcards

By Simon

At the moment I’m focusing on improving my Russian and Czech, and am trying to keep my other languages ticking over. I’ve starting using Anki to store and learn words and phrases, and am finding it very useful. For words that can be visually represented, I use pictures rather than translations on the flash cards – an idea from Gabriel Wyner’s book Fluent Forever. For other words and phrases I use English translations. I’ve briefly dabbled with SRS programs like Anki before, but never really gave them much time. Now I’m starting to see how useful and effective they can be, especially if you make your own lists, rather than relying on those made by others.

Another way I’m using to help me remember words is to learn the equivalent signs from the appropriate sign language, which I find in the Spread The Sign multilingual sign language dictionary. So I’m learning Czech words and Czech Sign Language signs, and so on. This gives me gestures I can link to the spoken and written words, and I hope it will help me to remember them.

Do you use Anki or other SRS / flash card programs? Do you find them useful?

Zženštilý

By Simon

I came across the Czech word zženštilý yesterday among translations of soft and the pile up of consonants got me wondering whether it was a real word or a typo. I discovered that it is a real word and means: soft, epicene, girly-girly, namby-pamby, nance, effeminate, effeminize, emasculate, pansy, soft, softish, unmanly, womanish, womanlike, sissified [source].

Related words include:

– zženštilec = effeminize
– zženštilost = effeminacy, unmanliness, womanishness
– zženštit = to womanize

These words often have negative connotations in English. Do they have similar connotations in Czech and other languages? Are there any languages in which such words have positive connotations?

Other Czech words for soft include:

– poddajný = soft, flexible, pliant, docile
– pozvolný = soft, gentle, gradual, insidious
– jemný = soft, bland, delicate, elegant, pigeon-hearted, sheer, silken, tender, fine, gentle, mild, milky
– měkký = soft, compliant, crumbly, downy, pulpy, smooth, tender, flabby, flaccid, meek, mild
– slabý = soft, weak, bloodless, complaisant, effete, washy, weak, weakly, shallow, small
– mírný = soft, tranquil, balmy, clement, pacific, peaceable, peaceful, reasonable, restful, gentle, lenient, meek, mild
– vlácný = soft, plastic, pliant, supple
– něžný = soft, subtle, pigeon-hearted, silky, sweet, tender, affectionate, caressing, delicate, fond, gentle, milky
– nezpevněný = soft, unconsolidated, unpaved, washy
– hebký = soft, smooth, downy, velvety, fleecy

What I was looking for was soft as in not hard (of material), so I think the first one, poddajný, is probably the one I want, or maybe měkký.