CZECH - finally ready to rock n' roll

Open Forum
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It looks like it will still be a few months before Czech will be supported at LingQ. But in the meantime the beginner-resources that I have ordered over the last couple of weeks have now all arrived, so I’m ready to take my first steps.

(There are many excellent podcasts, etc on The Doctor’s website - but these will be more useful later on, after I have reached intermediate level.)

The starting resources I have are:

  1. Assimil Tschechisch ohne Mühe (incl. 4 CDs)
  2. Buske - Lehrbuch der tschechischen Sprache (incl. 2 CDs)
  3. Teach Yourself Czech (incl 2 CDs)
  4. Josef Fronek’s Czech-Eng and Eng-Czech Dictionary

The Assimil looks extremely impressive. There is no doubt that this is going to be my weapon of choice in the coming days and weeks! (Assimil is always pretty darned good - but this one seems especially comprehensive.)

The Buske Lehrbücher are quite highly rated by Prof Arguelles in his Youtube reviews. To be honest, this one doesn’t seem in quite the same league as the “Lehrbuch der isländischen Sprache” (which I also have) but it should nevertheless be of some use.

As regards Teach Yourself…well…I’ve never been a huge fan of these books. However this one does seem fairly good by their standards. It includes a decent amount of audio which I will be able to use to supplement Assimil.

The Fronek dictionary is a little monster - I would much rather have had something smaller. But according to all of the Amazon reviews it is far and away the best single volume Eng-Czech and Czech-Eng dictionary which there is. (The smaller dictionaries all get very bad reviews.)

So there you go. This is my very first Slavic language - wish me luck! :smiley:

If I have any questions for native speakers, maybe I could post them here?

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JayB: when you have some questions, write to me on my email (jaroslav.kovalcik@centrum.cz) or skype (pierre_laplace). You can call me and we can chat about language learning and so on :slight_smile:

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my email did not show up :slight_smile:

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Thanks, I’ll be doing that. :wink:

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Wow… four different study books! My parents would hate me if I bought so many of them for one languages…
I am glad to see your enthusiasm about Assimil. I used the French version of the method - “Le tchèque sans peine” and, to be honest, it didn’t work so well. :frowning: Maybe it was also my fault and I should try it again. However, I have started focusing on Polish now, so I won’t resume Czech for some weeks or months at least.

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I have 4 books, but to begin with Assimil will be my main resource. Of course It’s still very early days, but it looks to me like a very good course.

Maybe your copy of “Le tchèque sans peine” was an older (or newer) edition, Mike?

I’ve heard that there are several different editions of these Assimil courses in circulation - sometimes depending on whether the teaching language is French, Italian, German or English.

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BTW
My edition of Tschechisch ohne Mühe gives Olga Spilar as the author. The first lesson starts with the words: “Haló, kdo je to? Marie?”

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We have the same course. Anyway, it’s a universal truth that the oldest versions of Assimil methods were better than the newest ones. :slight_smile:

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Yes, I’ve heard that the editions of Assimil dating from the 1970s were generally much better than the more recent ones.

Having said that, I think there may be a few exceptions to this. For example, I have the Assimil Dutch of both 1970s and 1990s vintage - in this case the former isn’t appreciably superior to the latter, in my opinion.

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Jay B

I would say “Haló, kdo to je? Marie?” It’s more natural and used in Czech rep. However example from the textbook is correct as well. :-))

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