Czech language classes are taught by Hana Kahlig.
Some information about the language
Czech belongs to the group of West Slavic languages. It is an inflectional language, which means that it “bends” the words (changes their endings), especially according to a word’s function in the sentence.
Czech is spoken by about 12 million people (as of 1999), 10 million of whom live in Czechia, where it is the official language. The Czech language can also be found in Austria (especially Vienna), Poland, Germany, Ukraine (Wolhyner Czechs), Croatia (especially in the Daruvar region) and western Romania (Banat). Several thousand Czechs live in Slovakia, where they have remained since the division of the Czechoslovak Republic (1992). Czech is also spoken outside Europe, in Australia and Canada, but especially in the United States, where most Czechs live outside Czechia.
The first written Slavic language in today’s Czech-speaking area was Glagolitic Old Church Slavonic, which was introduced by brothers Cyril and Methodius in Great Moravia in 863 AD. The first evidence of the old Czech language (Bohemian) are religious songs and short texts, so-called glosses, from the 12th and 13th centuries.
In the Middle Ages, Czech developed into a rich and elaborate language of many literary genres. With the development of the Bohemian state, it also spread beyond national borders. Between the 14th and 16th centuries the Czech language expanded and was spoken mainly in Upper Silesia, but also in Hungary and Slovakia. However, some Bohemian influences were also found in other languages (e.g. Russian), and the names of Hussite weapons were used throughout Europe (pistala-pfeife, the root for the later word “pistol” and houfnice turned into “Haubitze”).
The colloquial language in Czechia stands out from the written language, not in the sense of a local dialect, but it is rather a colloquial version of the standard language, divided into regiolects.
Today’s Czech spellings are characterized by the use of diacritics, i.e. dashes to indicate the length of vowels and hooks, especially above the letters s, z, c, r, n and whereas above d, t, n, and e, the dashes indicate sounds for which no letter can be found in the original Latin alphabet. This is a practical solution, as it recognizes the phonetic closeness of the Czech consonants. The basic principles of diacritics were formulated at the beginning of the 15th century by Jan Hus in his work entitled De ortographia Bohemica.
Since diacritical marks are not always correctly represented online, Czech names (place names and personal names) are often written without them. There are also numerous Czech websites that deliberately do not use diacritics.
Information about the course program
Course structure
There is a Beginner and an Advanced course, each of which lasts two semesters. The courses are taught weekly during two lessons.
In the Beginner course, students receive a solid base in grammar, which is then expanded in the advanced course. In both courses students learn about Czech history, culture and literature, and they read texts adapted to their level. In the Advanced course, the instructor especially prioritizes allowing time for discussions on all kinds of topics.
Teaching materials
Teaching materials include textbooks for German, French, English, Polish and Russian-speaking students, where grammar and vocabulary are explained in their native language.
