Poznat o jazyk víc znamená žít o jeden život víc.
(To know another language is to live another life.)
Czech is the language spoken in the Czech Republic (formerly Czechoslovakia: Czech and Slovak are different languages, although they are close to one another). There are approximately ten million native speakers of Czech world-wide. According to estimates, there are over 10,000 Americans living and working in the Czech Republic.
Prague
The Czech capital is generally acknowledged to be one of the world’s most beautiful cities. Located in the “heart of Europe”, Prague has a lively cultural life and music scene that offers something for everyone.
Culture
The Czechs have a rich literary and cultural tradition that you will begin to explore in your studies. How many nations of ten million people have produced as many world-renowned figures as the Czechs have? Comenius, Kundera, Čapek, Havel, Hrabal, Janáček, Smetana, Dvořák, Seifert…
Language
Czech is a gateway language. It is a member of the Slavic family—related to Russian and even closer to Polish and Slovak—and these languages can be learned more easily with a knowledge of Czech. Unlike Russian, Czech uses a modified Latin alphabet and is more immediately accessible to the western learner. Czech is not an easy language to learn, but all the more rewarding for the challenge it represents.
Job prospects
The Czech Republic has a rapidly modernizing, dynamic economy, and bilingual English native-speakers are always at a premium. The Czech Republic joined the European Union in 2004 and has one of the fastest-growing markets in the EU.
Something different
Specialists in Czech are few and far between. Knowing the language and culture is a skill that is both personally and professionally rewarding.
Fun facts
The Czech Republic has the highest per capita beer consumption in the world—over 40 gallons per person annually.
The word “robot” was coined by a Czech.
Prague’s Charles University was founded in 1348, making it not only the oldest university in Eastern or Central Europe, but also older than plenty of universities in Western Europe.
The largest group of Czech speakers outside the Czech Republic resides in the United States in cities like Chicago, New York, and Cleveland and in rural communities in Texas, Wisconsin, Nebraska, and Minnesota. It is estimated that more than 90,000 speakers of Czech live in the US.
The president of the first Czechoslovak Republic, Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk, was married to an American, Charlotte Garrigue. He took her last name as his middle name.
Czech has words without vowels! The tongue-twister “Strč prst skrz krk” means “Stick (your) finger through (your) neck”.