3 ms·

It's fascinating, and thank you. My Czech was terrible -- maybe just approaching B1 level when I left 3 years ago -- and it was not comprehensible to me. But i

by lproven 6mo ago

It's fascinating, and thank you. My Czech was terrible -- maybe just approaching B1 level when I left 3 years ago -- and it was not comprehensible to me. But it wasn't to my friend and to my (now) wife when we visited, so I took a photo and showed it to my colleagues at work and friends in the pub. Similarly, still my favourite Czech sentence is the one that terrified me before I moved there: Blb vlk pln žbrnd zdrhl hrd z mlh Brd skrz vrch Smrk v čtvrť srn Krč. I memorised this (poorly) but had great fun showing it to people when I got there. Almost nobody could parse it at all. Now, I'm an above-average English speaker. I am a very fast reader, and at school, I could cope with Chaucer just fine. Once I got my internal ear to hear it, it just made sense to me. (Beowulf, no.) But I was the only one in my class. I can follow poetic and heavily distorted English fairly well, and it's a handy skill for a (former) professional English teacher. But I think I can follow more than most. I certainly can't follow the ZŠ Karlstejn Czech, nor your poetic examples. I am very poor in the language. (It is my 6th foreign language, but they are all very very weak. But saying that, I've put more effort into Czech than all the rest put together, with little to show for it.) I think you over-estimate the abilities of ordinary Czechs!

troad 6mo ago
That's very cool. Don't knock yourself - congratulations on reaching a good level in such a fiendish language. My own SO hovers between A2 and B1 after many years, so I absolutely appreciate how frustrating Czech can be. > Blb vlk pln žbrnd zdrhl hrd z mlh Brd skrz vrch Smrk v čtvrť srn Krč. I do enjoy this one. It's all the more amusing in that it only uses fairly common vocab (though somewhat stylised inflection). Speaking of parsing, you may be aware of the perfectly valid English sentence "Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo". Or the sentence "The horse raced past the barn fell". If not, enjoy. :) > I think you over-estimate the abilities of ordinary Czechs! Very possibly! I think two of the examples I provided (the poem Máj and the quote from the Kralická bible) would genuinely be comprehensible to most Czechs, but I might be being too generous with the Karlštejn quote. If I render it into standard orthography, give or take some endings I had to guess by squinting at the image on my phone, it comes out as: > V těchto se dozvídá síních pilné robě, Bohu čím povinné, bratřím, vlasti, sobě. Reordered to simplify the structure, and with glosses, you can probably make it out: > V těchto [in these] síních [halls] se pilné [diligent] robě [child; archaic] dozvídá [learns, finds out], čím [that which is] povinné [compulsory] Bohu [dative, i.e. to/for God], bratřím [to/for brothers], vlasti [to/for the homeland], sobĕ [to/for oneself]. There is some basic vocab here (Bůh, bratr, vlast), some intermediate vocab (dozvědět se, pilné), and one clear-cut archaism (robě). The overall structure is quite poetic and somewhat inorganic - e.g. the separation of těchto and síních in "V těchto se dozvídá síních" is unnatural, and makes me think of scholastic Latin. I'm honestly not sure how an ordinary person might read this. I think if it were in standard orthography, it would probably be fairly readable, but if you layer pre-modern orthography on top of the structural acrobatics and archaisms, you're probably right that the average person may struggle. Čapek uses pre-modern orthography (e.g. gegj for její) for stylistic effect ('ye olde... ') in small sections of Válka s mloky, and modern editions do not generally transcribe these sections into modern orthography, so I think there is at least the implication that a literate Czech ought to be able to read it. To what extent that expectation has a relationship to reality I'm honestly unsure. The Czechs can be (far too) normative when it comes language, as you probably know, so perhaps the literati insist it be printed as is, and everyone else is just too scared to admit they can no longer read it. :P
- lproven 6mo ago
  > That's very cool. Don't knock yourself - congratulations on reaching a good level in such a fiendish language. My own SO hovers between A2 and B1 after many years, so I absolutely appreciate how frustrating Czech can be. Díky moc! Czech is... well, as a languague, Czech is sort of like the architecture of the old towns of Prague, or Tábor, or even Litomerice. Amazingly ornate and very decorative – but only so long as you're just passing through. I honestly had no idea the Indo-European language family did stuff like this, especially not right here in Europe. It's astonishing but man it's brutal to learn. > the perfectly valid English sentence "Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo". This one is interesting because it is only valid in American English. In any other dialect it's just noise. To me as a Brit, "buffalo" is not and cannot be a verb, and it's not a place anyone much has heard of either – it's an obscure faraway foreign city (I think?) that I might forget existed if it were not for this one silly sentence. It takes several minutes of explanation to a British English speaker what this means. (I had to learn it, as a TEFL teacher.) > I'm honestly not sure how an ordinary person might read this. Let me put it this way. I showed all my friends and colleagues this pic. All were baffled. My graduate linguist colleague Nora asked for a copy, showed it to her mum, and to her surprise, her mum could read it and told Nora what it said. But, she told me, her mum studied ancient languages including historical Czech. > Čapek uses pre-modern orthography (e.g. gegj for její) for stylistic effect ('ye olde... ') in small sections of Válka s mloky I did not know that, but I've only read it in translation. (I am nowhere near ready for novels in Czech. Even comic books go over my head.) Great book, and I liked it much more than R.U.R. But that was written ninety years ago. Things have changed. I am reminded of listening to a dad explaining to his little son at Prague Zoo that "tram" was pronounced "trem" in English. I wanted badly to jump in and correct him, but I didn't. It is not pronounced "trem". It sounds the same as in Czech: tram, tram. "Camping" is not "kemping", it's "kamping". The thing is this: about 100 - 125 years ago, a very upper class Received Pronunciation accent would say "man" as \mæen\, a dipthong: ma-en. That's what old textbooks record. But nobody has spoken like that since roughly the formation of the First Republic: it's as long gone as World War 1. But just as 45Y ago my primary school French textbooks tranlated "voiture" as "carriage", as in "horse and carriage", this is not true any more. It's hopelessly obsolete. Nobody says "træm" or "mæn" any more, but the old textbooks people are using to teach from are obsolete. It's way easier than the textbooks make out.

by lproven 6mo ago

troad 6mo ago

That's very cool. Don't knock yourself - congratulations on reaching a good level in such a fiendish language. My own SO hovers between A2 and B1 after many years, so I absolutely appreciate how frustrating Czech can be. > Blb vlk pln žbrnd zdrhl hrd z mlh Brd skrz vrch Smrk v čtvrť srn Krč. I do enjoy this one. It's all the more amusing in that it only uses fairly common vocab (though somewhat stylised inflection). Speaking of parsing, you may be aware of the perfectly valid English sentence "Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo". Or the sentence "The horse raced past the barn fell". If not, enjoy. :) > I think you over-estimate the abilities of ordinary Czechs! Very possibly! I think two of the examples I provided (the poem Máj and the quote from the Kralická bible) would genuinely be comprehensible to most Czechs, but I might be being too generous with the Karlštejn quote. If I render it into standard orthography, give or take some endings I had to guess by squinting at the image on my phone, it comes out as: > V těchto se dozvídá síních pilné robě, Bohu čím povinné, bratřím, vlasti, sobě. Reordered to simplify the structure, and with glosses, you can probably make it out: > V těchto [in these] síních [halls] se pilné [diligent] robě [child; archaic] dozvídá [learns, finds out], čím [that which is] povinné [compulsory] Bohu [dative, i.e. to/for God], bratřím [to/for brothers], vlasti [to/for the homeland], sobĕ [to/for oneself]. There is some basic vocab here (Bůh, bratr, vlast), some intermediate vocab (dozvědět se, pilné), and one clear-cut archaism (robě). The overall structure is quite poetic and somewhat inorganic - e.g. the separation of těchto and síních in "V těchto se dozvídá síních" is unnatural, and makes me think of scholastic Latin. I'm honestly not sure how an ordinary person might read this. I think if it were in standard orthography, it would probably be fairly readable, but if you layer pre-modern orthography on top of the structural acrobatics and archaisms, you're probably right that the average person may struggle. Čapek uses pre-modern orthography (e.g. gegj for její) for stylistic effect ('ye olde... ') in small sections of Válka s mloky, and modern editions do not generally transcribe these sections into modern orthography, so I think there is at least the implication that a literate Czech ought to be able to read it. To what extent that expectation has a relationship to reality I'm honestly unsure. The Czechs can be (far too) normative when it comes language, as you probably know, so perhaps the literati insist it be printed as is, and everyone else is just too scared to admit they can no longer read it. :P

lproven 6mo ago
> That's very cool. Don't knock yourself - congratulations on reaching a good level in such a fiendish language. My own SO hovers between A2 and B1 after many years, so I absolutely appreciate how frustrating Czech can be. Díky moc! Czech is... well, as a languague, Czech is sort of like the architecture of the old towns of Prague, or Tábor, or even Litomerice. Amazingly ornate and very decorative – but only so long as you're just passing through. I honestly had no idea the Indo-European language family did stuff like this, especially not right here in Europe. It's astonishing but man it's brutal to learn. > the perfectly valid English sentence "Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo". This one is interesting because it is only valid in American English. In any other dialect it's just noise. To me as a Brit, "buffalo" is not and cannot be a verb, and it's not a place anyone much has heard of either – it's an obscure faraway foreign city (I think?) that I might forget existed if it were not for this one silly sentence. It takes several minutes of explanation to a British English speaker what this means. (I had to learn it, as a TEFL teacher.) > I'm honestly not sure how an ordinary person might read this. Let me put it this way. I showed all my friends and colleagues this pic. All were baffled. My graduate linguist colleague Nora asked for a copy, showed it to her mum, and to her surprise, her mum could read it and told Nora what it said. But, she told me, her mum studied ancient languages including historical Czech. > Čapek uses pre-modern orthography (e.g. gegj for její) for stylistic effect ('ye olde... ') in small sections of Válka s mloky I did not know that, but I've only read it in translation. (I am nowhere near ready for novels in Czech. Even comic books go over my head.) Great book, and I liked it much more than R.U.R. But that was written ninety years ago. Things have changed. I am reminded of listening to a dad explaining to his little son at Prague Zoo that "tram" was pronounced "trem" in English. I wanted badly to jump in and correct him, but I didn't. It is not pronounced "trem". It sounds the same as in Czech: tram, tram. "Camping" is not "kemping", it's "kamping". The thing is this: about 100 - 125 years ago, a very upper class Received Pronunciation accent would say "man" as \mæen\, a dipthong: ma-en. That's what old textbooks record. But nobody has spoken like that since roughly the formation of the First Republic: it's as long gone as World War 1. But just as 45Y ago my primary school French textbooks tranlated "voiture" as "carriage", as in "horse and carriage", this is not true any more. It's hopelessly obsolete. Nobody says "træm" or "mæn" any more, but the old textbooks people are using to teach from are obsolete. It's way easier than the textbooks make out.