Learn how to say the five most common Czech phrases used in a classroom
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Martin: Hello everyone, I’m Martin. |
| Gabriella: And I’m Gabriella. Welcome back to CzechClass101.com! This is All About, lesson 14 - Top 5 Czech Classroom Phrases. In this lesson, you will learn the top 5 phrases you will hear in a classroom. |
Lesson focus |
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| Martin: Some are phrases that a teacher would use, and some are phrases you can use to speak to a teacher. |
| Gabriella: You'll get a head start if you already know these phrases! |
| Martin: Our first phrase is: “co znamená?" |
| Gabriella: This is a phrase that literally translates to "What does [something] mean?" This is a very useful phrase in the classroom because you can ask your teacher what certain words, ideas, or places mean in Czech. |
| Martin: To use this phrase, say “co znamená” and the name of the item. |
| Gabriella: Could you give us some examples? |
| Martin: Sure! "Co znamená stránka?" is “What does stránka mean?", and “co znamená kniha?” is "What does kniha mean?" |
| Gabriella: And what do they mean, Martin? |
| Martin: Well, "stránka" means "a page" and "kniha" means "a book." |
| Gabriella: Ok, our next phrase is "Open your books”" |
| Martin: In Czech, this is “otevřete si učebnice.” |
| Gabriella: Your teacher might use this phrase to tell the class to open their books to begin reading. |
| Martin: But as you have learned, Czech people generally address other people using the honorific title ‘’Vy’’ when speaking to an individual. In this case, to address the whole classroom, such an honorific title is omitted. ‘’Otevřete’’ with ‘’te’’ at the end can indicate both polite form when speaking to an individual, or normal form when speaking to a group of people. When addressing a friend, the sentence would be ‘’otevři si učebnici’’. |
| Gabriella: Got it. The next phrase is... |
| Martin: “Já nerozumím". It means “I don’t understand.” |
| Gabriella: You would use this phrase if your teacher explains something, or says something that you don’t or didn't understand. |
| Martin: Yes, “Já nerozumím” is the exact equivalent of “I don’t understand”. ‘’Já“ means ‘’ I ’’, ‘’ne” is a word to negate a verb, “rozumím” means “understand”, ‘’Nerozumím’’ is ‘’I don’t understand’’. It is better to omit the personal pronoun ‘’Já‘’ ( I ) in this case. It is enough to say ‘’nerozumím’’. |
| Gabriella: You can see here that Czech pronouns can often be omitted and how important it is to know them from the context. |
| Martin: Yes, but don’t worry, you’ll get used to them soon. |
| Gabriella: That’s right. Let’s continue with the phrase “One more time” in Czech. |
| Martin: That’s “Ještě jednou”. It literally means “Again once”. |
| Gabriella: You can expect your teacher to say this when they want you to repeat something, or you can also use this when you want your teacher to explain something again. |
| Martin: That’s right. For that, you just need to add ‘’prosím’’ meaning “please” at the end of the sentence to make it more polite when addressing your teacher - ‘’ještě jednou, prosím’’. This would be a useful phrase in the classroom, as you may hear or use it frequently. Again, “Ještě jednou, prosím” |
| Gabriella: Alright. And our last phrase is... |
| Martin: Rozuměl jsi? / Rozuměl jste? |
| Gabriella: This phrase is the same as “did you understand?” Teachers use this question to make sure the students understand what they are explaining. |
| Martin: But again, Czech teachers would use the polite form when teaching adults, thus the phrase would be ‘’rozuměl jste?’’ when talking to an individual, instead of the informal ‘’rozuměl jsi?’’. If this question is for all the students, then ‘’ i ’’ is added after “l” in the word “rozuměl”, which is the second person plural pronoun. Altogether, this becomes ‘’rozuměli jste?‘’ That literally means “Did you all understand?”. |
| Gabriella: Let's recap what we learned in this lesson. Can we hear all of those phrases again one more time? |
| Martin: Sure! Our first phrase was "... co znamená?" |
| Gabriella: "What does (something) mean?" |
| Martin: And then we had "Otevřete si učebnici" |
| Gabriella: "Please open your books." |
| Martin: And then we had "nerozumím". |
| Gabriella: "I don't understand." |
| Martin: Next we had "Ještě jednou" or the polite form “ještě jednou, prosím”. |
| Gabriella: "One more time" or “one more time, please”. |
| Martin: And finally, there was "Rozuměli jste?" to ask the whole class or “Rozuměl jste?” which is formal for an individual, or Rozuměl jsi? to ask an individual student informally. |
| Gabriella: "Did you understand?" Ok, there you have it, all five phrases for the classroom! |
Outro |
| Gabriella: Thank you for listening everyone. See you next time! |
| Martin: Ahoj! |
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