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You should upgrade or use an alternative browser. Czech or Slovak. Thread starter dopehooks Start date Jan 30, Tags slovak. Status Not open for further replies. I have a question pertaining to the Slavic languages family, particularly, Czech and Slovak. But, before I ask my question, I would like to let you all know that I have no real knowledge about any Slavic language in general.
As for my language skills; I speak English as a native, learned French in school I live in Canada and studied Portuguese on my own and found Brazilian correspondents that I speak with via Skype. My question about Czech and Slovak is…which would be more useful to learn out of the two? I plan to visit both countries and want to communicate the most effectively with both peoples, without having to learn both languages. I've read about many advantages and disadvantages when comparing the two.
Here are a few of the points that I've gathered. Can anybody validate these statements for me and give me their two cents. Slovak has more Slavic root words, which makes it easier for speakers of other Slavic languages to understand it better than Czech. I've also read that Slovak has particular characteristics in its phonology and morphology that make it seem closer related to Southern Slavonic languages; I have an interest in Slovene too.
It's harder to find native speakers of Slovak than Czech. There are more Czech speakers than Slovak, and the Czech Republic has a much better economy. Czech has been more popular than Slovak. So the demand, and in turn the supply, for good Slovak learning material is much lower. I'm not a native speaker of either of the two languages but have learned Polish and, to a certain extent, Czech and Slovak.
First of all, for an English native speaker, I'd say that neither of the two languages will be particularly easy to learn, though Slovak would in the end probably be easier. Slovak has less declensional patterns than Czech. For example, the Instrumental plural always ends in -mi and -ami , while in Czech it can end in -y , -i , -ami , -emi , -imi and -mi. Czech noun declensions of course do follow a pattern, but it will be more difficult than it'd be in Slovak to remember which one to use when.
Slovak has some pronunciation rules not represented by its orthography. This happens less in Czech. Slovak is easier for me to pronounce, though. Highly subjective Slovak seems to me a little easier intelligible with knowledge of only Polish which is another West Slavic language. They have more basic words in common than do Czech and Polish. Verb conjugations are a little more regular in Slovak, too, though Slovak sometimes employs diphtongs where Czech does not.
The earliest state of the region, the Great Moravian Empire of the 9th century, saw two important developments: the democratic concept of the linguistic accessibility of religion and culture unheard of in Western Europe at the time , and the birth of the first Slavic literary language, Old Church Slavic. Later, Bohemia posed the first successful challenge to the outdated practices of the Catholic Church as the first carrier of the Protestant idea in Europe; it was the home of the early encyclopedist Comenius, who reformed the outdated scholastic education so effectively that he is to this day known as the "teacher of the nations.
This great humanist also shares the fate common to the Czech people--he is one of the first of hundreds of thousands of Czechs, Moravians, and Slovaks who for historical reasons and reasons of conscience or profession were forced to emigrate.
The wealth of Western cultures owes much to such exiles. Many important historical events — the Thirty Years' War, the First and Second World Wars — had their inceptions or took decisive turns precisely on the territory of this early industrialized country on the crossroads of the East and West.
The Czech lands are a place of important developments in modern semiotic theory, not only of literature and linguistics, but also in visual arts, music, theater, film and folklore. During many culturally and artistically rich periods, Bohemia was at the heart of Western Culture.
It played the role of catalyst, ready more than any other nation to absorb foreign influences, but also to creatively transform them into something unique.
Thus during the Gothic period, Bohemia created the so-called "beautiful style", and much more recently, during the European avant-garde, poetism.
Those forms included artificialism, mental countryside painting, and magic realism. The application of modern forms to content and value concerns had taken place in Czechoslovakia as early as the s - earlier than in other countries. Only a few Czech painters have achieved worldwide acclaim, like Kupka or Mucha, who created a unique Art Nouveau style "le style Mucha". Much translation work remains to be done in bringing so many exquisite artists to the attention and awareness of the North American public.
Czechs are said to be a "nation of musicians. There, they formed important new directions in music, especially in Germany for example, the Mannheim School, where they contributed to the development of the modern sonata form.
Bohemia, and Prague in particular, were the seat of a richly developed Jewish culture. The Gothic-Jewish quarter of Prague with its beautiful synagogues is the oldest preserved in Europe and embodies the continuity that this Jewish community enjoyed.
If your goal is becoming fluent in Slovak, then getting to know a bit of Czech will help as most learning resources are to learn Czech and very few for Slovak, something that I personally find odd as to me, learning Slovak will help you understanding other slavic languages much easier than learning Czech, but I guess there is more demand for the Czech language. Also, Lingea has a bunch of books with phrases that will help you with the vocabulary also available as eBooks.
If you are also interested in Czech, sure, but if you have zero interest in Czech for its own sake, I wouldn't bother and rather find a Slovak resource admittedly not the easiest task. I have not learned czech or slovak but if it is like the difference between Spanish and Portuguese i would say yes but only if you can't find a lot of good ways to learn Slovak if there are good alternatives don't do it.
If you ever plan on living in the Czech Republic then I'd recommend learning Czech. I've been married to a Slovak for 16 years. Lived in America with her for 13 of those.
I learned Slovak casually during those first 13 years and I never quite got fluent, but had a quite good grasp of it and could do well in casual conversation. Had I known that I would move to the Czech Republic at some point in my life and had I known what I know now about the differences between the languages, I would have opted to learn Czech instead.
Learning Czech with all of the Slovak that I know has been very difficult. I imagine if I had been fluent in Slovak before trying to learn Czech then maybe it wouldn't have been such and issue. When I first came to Prague I realized quickly that I had a one-way communication channel. The Czechs understood me most of the time but I didn't understand them. The combination of the things I mentioned above mixed with the accent and my personal feeling that Czechs at least in Prague speak faster than the average Slovak was a huge stumbling block.
The accent, pronunciation and speed of the conversation is a real challenge. It's getting much better, but it's taking time. I actually do think that the Czech language is easier than Slovak though.
There is also a much higher quality of learning resources for Czech compared to Slovak in my opinion. Wish I would have started learning a long time ago. As someone who learned Czech and lived in Prague, I can kinda understand Slovak conversations but most of them result in my simply standing there stunned thinking, "wow my Czech really sucks, what is this person trying to say?
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