Czech

About Czech

Czech (čeština) is a West Slavic language, closely related to Slovak and Polish. Spoken by over 10 million people as a first language and at least 6 million who use it as a second language (mainly in Slovakia), Czech is the official language of the Czech Republic, and also understood by many in Slovakia.

Czech belongs to the "synthetic" language group, which means that unlike English and other "analytical" languages, different grammatical aspects are expressed in one word by changing the structure of that word - adding an ending or prefix, modifying the core of the word, etc. In analytical languages such as English, the same is achieved by using separate auxiliary verbs, pronouns or adjectives while the actual word remains unchanged. In Czech, one word is often sufficient to express what English can only achieve by using multiple words.

The only tricky sound to watch for in Czech is this 'ř' letter. It's like putting a trilled 'r' and 'su' in "pleasure" together to make up a 'rrrzh' sound.

Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA)。Photography via Wikimedia Commons.