Czech
Czech is a West Slavic language with about 12 million native speakers; it is the majority language in the Czech Republic and spoken by Czechs worldwide. Czech is similar to and mutually intelligible with Slovak and, to a lesser extent, to Polish and Sorbian.
Czech is widely spoken by most inhabitants of the Czech Republic. As given by appropriate laws, courts and authorities act and make out documents and executions in the Czech language (financial authorities also in the Slovak language). Czech can be used in all official proceedings also in Slovakia as granted by Article 6 of Slovak Minority Language Act 184/1999 Zb. People who do not speak Czech have the right to get an interpreter. Instructions for use in Czech must be added to all marketed goods. Regarding other languages, English and German are the most common foreign languages studied and used. Russian is also spoken, but to a much lesser extent than it was prior to the fall of Communism.
The right to one's own language is guaranteed by the Constitution for all national and ethnic minorities.
Czech is also one of the 23 official languages in the European Union (since May 2004).
Speakers of Czech and Slovak usually understand both languages in their written and spoken form, thus constituting a language diasystem, though some dialects or heavily accented speech in either language might present difficulties to speakers of the other (in particular, Eastern Slovak dialects to Czech speakers are seen as difficult to comprehend). Younger generations of Czechs living after the dissolution of Czechoslovakia in 1993 (therefore generally less familiar with Slovak) might also have some problems with a certain number of words and expressions which differ considerably in the two languages, and with false friends. Nevertheless, these differences do not impede mutual intelligibility significantly.
The phonology of Czech may be very difficult for speakers of other languages. For example, some words do not appear to have vowels: zmrzl (frozen solid), ztvrdl (hardened), scvrkl (shrunk), čtvrthrst (quarter-handful), blb (fool), vlk (wolf), or smrt (death). A popular example of this is the phrase "strč prst skrz krk" meaning "stick a finger through your throat" or "Smrž pln skvrn zvlhl z mlh." meaning "Morel full of spots dampened from fogs". The consonants l and r can function as the nucleus of a syllable in Czech, since they are sonorant consonants. It also features the consonant ř, a phoneme that is said to be unique to Czech. To a foreign ear, it sounds very similar to zh, though a better approximation could be rolled (trilled) r combined with zh, which was incidentally sometimes used as an orthography for this sound (rž) for example in the royal charter of Rudolf II, Holy Roman Emperor from 1609. The phonetic description of the sound is a raised alveolar non-sonorant trill which can be either voiceless (terminally or next to a voiceless consonant) or voiced (elsewhere), the IPA transcription being.
Compared to English or Romance languages, Czech has a rather simple set of tenses. They are present, past, and future.
Past is used in almost all instances of past action, and replaces every past tense in English (past perfect, imperfect, pluperfect, etc.). The past tense is usually formed by affixing an -l- on the end of the verb, sometimes with a minor (rarely significant) stem change. After adding the -l-, letters are added in order to agree with the subject (-a for feminine, -i or -y for plural).
The conditional is something of an oddity, with no real indication of time. It is the same regardless of whether the action discussed is a future, present, or past action. The conditional is formed by using the auxiliary "conditional marker" and the past tense of the root verb.
The future tense is another fickle part of Czech grammar. Often, verbs that appear to be present tense are actually future tense. For instance, the verb "vyhodit" (throw out) appears like a normal present tense, but actually indicates a future action. Vyhodit is actually a modified form of the verb "hodit" (to throw), with the prefix "vy-" added. The addition of such prefixes almost always changes the aspect of the verb, to the perfective aspect. This form of the verb has no present tense — it indicates a completed action, so a present tense wouldn't make sense: either the action is already completed (past) or yet to be completed (future). A different form, "vyhazovat", indicates an ongoing action (imperfective aspect) and has all three tenses.
Many verbs in the Czech language undergo such modifications, allowing a single verb to spawn multiple meanings.
Basic phrases
Dobrý den – Good day, general salutation, widely used
Dobré ráno – Good morning (used only during the early morning)
Dobrý večer – Good evening
Dobrou noc – Good night
Na shledanou – Goodbye / See you later (formal)
Nashle – Bye / See you (informal)
Ahoj – Hello / Bye (informal; used amongst friends, colleagues or after clarification - improper when addressing people in the street, shop, etc.)
Čau / Nazdar - Hello / Bye (even more informal)
Děkuji – Thank you (formal)
Díky - Thanks (informal)
Prosím - Please / You're welcome / Here you are
Vítejte – Welcome (formal; plural)
Jak se máš? – How are you? (familiar singular)
Jak se máte? - How are you? (formal or familiar plural)
Mám se dobře. – I'm fine.
Jak se jmenuješ / jmenujete? - What's your name? (informal singular / formal or familiar plural)
Jmenuji se... - My name is...
