One huge difference between the states and the CR, as I talked about in a previous blog, is the language barrier. The relationship between the Czech language and I is a roller coaster.
Somedays, I really believe I could learn to love it, like an arranged marriage. Our love would grow with time, or something. For example, I love Czech when I get to use fun greetings. With strangers and authorities, you use the formal “Dobry Den” which rolls so cheerily off the tongue. No sarcasm, say it out loud, its so cheery! But my favorite is the casual greeting. If you are on a first name basis with somebody you say “Ahoj!” which makes me feel like I pirate and I like pirates so I like Czech. Logic.
Somedays, I really believe Czech… is the worst. I long for the days when I could read the cooking directions on the back of a box without google translate being my assistant in the kitchen. I miss the days when I lived where I could read everything without the headache of translation from Czech to English; the land where vowels overflowed from every sentence, spilling hope for pronunciation into my soul.
As much of a dramatic relationship the Czech language and I have had, I can also appreciate the good times that language confusion has brought about. Here are a few language laughables thus far:
1) The first language laughable is the use of the word “please” by Czechs first learning English. In Czech, the word for please is “Prosim”, but they also use it to say “you’re welcome,” “how can I help you?” and even to answer a call from someone they don’t know. When Czechs are first learning English, they will say “please” where it would make sense to use “prosim”, but we don’t use please in the same way. Now that I understand that, I know why every time I say “thank you!” to a waiter who speaks English, they say “Please!” back to me and it gives me a giggle.
2) The second language laughable is a silly mix up I had (am having continually). “Dobry vecer” is how you greet in the evening in Czech, but in my mind vecer is really similar to the word for egg: “vejce.” Instead of saying “good evening” I often say “good egg!”. Gotta work on that.
3) The third language laughable happened last night. I walked into my room where I thought my roommate was already sleeping, but she was sitting up in bed holding her calf and looked like she was in pain. I asked her what happened, and she said “I don’t know what the word is in English” and tried to explain the sudden ache in her calf that woke her up. I said “Oh! Its called a Charlie horse!” and she looked at me like I was crazy.
“Charles’s horse?”
“No, Charlie horse!”
… and then we both laughed because I could not even begin to explain why we call it that. English is funny.
4) The fourth language laughable is yet another failure of my Czech attempts. In class we are learning the past tense, and the words “Jela”and “Jedla” are very easy to confuse. “Jela” is the past tense form of “to go (not by foot)” and “Jedla” is the past tense form of “to eat”. As our professor called us out one by one to tell the class about our weekends to practice speaking the past tense, I said “Minuly vikendu, Jedla jsem do Budapesti”thinking I had said “Last weekend, I went to Budapest”… I quickly realized my mistake when my professor laughed and said “you ate Budapest? You must have been very hungry!” That I was, professor. That, I was….
5) The final language laughable for today is my personal favorite. I like seeing how Czech native speakers try to use American idioms, and my professor takes the cake for best try. In class last week, our professor for Religious and Ethnic Identity and Prejudice was talking about the importance of doing a literature review before starting a research project, so as to not do more work than needed. He meant to use the phrase “reinvent the wheel” in his sentence but instead said: “There is no need…..to….make bicycle…twice.” Too perfect.
Thanks for reading,
Katie
Czech me out 