Czech Language Lessons REQUIRED

Well ... Czech people living out of czech 'bannana' republic are mostly realistic ;) I call the current czech nation 'the nation I surrender' because if even 10% of whats hapening there would be happening in UK, Germany, Spain or France the citizens would not riot, they would revolt ... in Czech ... nothing ! Last fight for freedom and liberty was in 13th century. About the history ... yes its great, over one and a half millennium, but go there and take a look how they care about it. Old Slavonic / Ancient czech is a totaly different story thats even like 10times harder to understand and it has completly different type of language sytax. If you thing you can learn basics from lang syntax why not try some czech-english learning books and try learn it by 'reversiv' method. btw I was told that there is a slavonistic college in Sheffield ... they should have some books in the library and its just 40min of drive. Any way for learning czech you will definitely need to find some body who really speaks english on high level of equilibristic incl. vocabulary to be able to explain what those regular expressions means and as far as I know there are not many czech people in UK who can so, I suggest you cut of the condition on lessons be taken in Manchester, it could increase your chances to learn at least beginnings of the language.

Thank you for all your comments. One thing is for sure: so far I am learning that Czech people are rather pessimistic and discouraging... I am fully aware of the difficulties that ANY non-native language (not just Czech...) may pose to foreign learners, but this does not mean that some significant results cannot be achieved anyway. I am also fully aware of what I am doing: I am a linguist and a philologist. It is my job at university. In the past, I have already researched on some Old Slavonic manuscripts, which are extremely fascinating, let alone important for the general European culture. Again, every language has complexity. Yes, Czech may be rather dense in its morphology (i.e., it has declensions, cases, three genders, etc.), but this is not as complicated as it seems - I have studied Latin and Ancient Greek in gymnasium. Perhaps, it is true that Czech is particularly difficult and 'misleading' in its semantics (the 'meaning', as it was written above), but it is indeed this aspect that fascinates me for scientific and reserach purposes. So, let's try to be constructive: if you can suggest a good grammar book or an institution where I can attend Czech classes here in Manchester, that would be greatly appreciated. You should be proud of your country, which is fantastic (yes, ok, with many problems as well), which has a great history. And you should be happy that someone is interested in your culture - rather than just discourage him. For now: ahoj!

can everybody accept Francesco's minds?? it's his choice, his time, his money as well... our language is very hard for all foreigners, of course. but i know many peoples who living in prague and they have a good - no excellent - speaking. is any another reason there why Francesco can't learn and touch our language?? let to him time and patience - it's all, he don't need nothing more.

Why do you want to learn czech ? ... Are you moving there ? if so, than it may make a sense otherwise forget it ! Czech is not based only on gramar, words, syntax ect. (this could work with german and spanish, italian paritally franch but never with czech language. Czech is based on understandig of meaning ... its very very colored language, the vocabulary is so huge. Unless you already know fluently few other languages you have no chance, specially in grammar ! If you want to learn a bit than may be so but I doubt you will find somebody that patient to stand your pronunciation ... czech people can not be proud of their nation behavior or the "republic" but we are proud of our language is great and most various. Sorry but I also think that it will be a waste of time and money ...

There is no such thing as 'difficult' languages - or even 'the most difficult language'... It all depends on the native language's (syntax, semantics, pragmatics) closeness to the target language. Not so sure that ergative grammatical systems such as Australian aboriginal languages (e.g.,Dyirbal) are easier than Czech... Anyway, thank you for wishing me luck.

Good luck! :woohoo: http://robertlindsay.wordpress.com/2009/12/01/more-on-the-hardest-languages-to-learn/ [quote]Czech and Slovak are notoriously hard to learn; in fact, all Slavic languages are. Language professors rate the Slavic languages the third hardest to learn on Earth. Czech is in the Guinness Book of World Records as the hardest language to learn. It’s sometimes said that even Czechs never learn to speak their language correctly, and there is actually some truth to that. They spend nine years in school studying Czech grammar, but some rules are learned only at university. Immigrants never seem to learn Czech well. Czech is full of exceptions and exceptions to the exceptions. It is said that there are more exceptions than there are rules.[/quote]