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| INTRODUCTION |
| Gabriella:Hi everyone, I’m Gabriella, and welcome back to CzechClass101.com! This is All About, Lesson 4 Basic Czech Pronunciation. In this lesson, we'll show you how easy it is to start speaking Czech. |
| Martin:And that's because we will be focusing on pronunciation. Hi everyone, I’m Martin! |
Lesson focus |
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| Gabriella:The Czech language contains extra characters with diacritics, whose pronunciation is not always easy. To perfect Czech pronunciation, you should learn how to pronounce words with diacritic marks. Now, before we look at the marks, let’s review the Czech alphabet. How many letters are there in the alphabet again, Martin? |
| Martin:There are 42 letters in total, including 26 letters that are also used in English, and 16 additional letters with diacritics. |
| Gabriella:Right! And one more thing, out of 42 letters, there are 25 consonants and 13 vowels, together with a few additional compounds derived from them. |
| Martin:That’s right. |
| Gabriella:For more on how these sounds are pronounced, please be sure to check out the Pronunciation lessons that are part of this Introduction series. In this lesson, we’ll be focusing on the marks found in Czech, since they’re a very important part of pronunciation. |
| Martin:Yes. There are 3 main diacritical marks in Czech - |
| A length mark for long sounds, a circle for a long sound and a mark that looks like a “v” called a “hook”, which changes the sound of the letter. |
| Gabriella:Please note that diacritical marks are only applied above the vowels or consonants, and the best way for beginners to practice these marks is to listen to a native speaker. Martin, please show us the standard pronunciation. |
| Martin:All right. Let’s practice saying each letter with a diacritic using some easy Czech words. Please repeat after me. |
| Gabriella:First, the length mark... This is a long pronunciation of the letter. It should be about 1 and three quarters longer than the short pronunciation. |
| Martin:That’s right. Also, we only use length marks above vowels. Let’s start with the short ones... a [pause], i [pause], u [pause], e [pause], o [pause]. And now compare the long pronunciation á [pause], í [pause], ú [pause], é [pause], ó [pause]. |
| Gabriella:Secondly, the pronunciation of the circle mark above the letter. |
| Martin:Yes, this circle is placed only above the letter “u” and nowhere else. The pronunciation is “ů” [pause] . It’s the same as the “ú” with a length mark. The only difference is in spelling. We use the “ú” with a circle at the beginning of a word, whilst the length mark “ů” is used in the stem of the word. |
| Gabriella:Thirdly, the “hook” diacritical mark...How does it change the pronunciation? |
| Martin:We have 7 consonants with the “hook” above them and only one vowel. The consonants are these:ž [pause], š [pause], č [pause], ř [pause], ď [pause], ť [pause], ň [pause] and the vowel ě [pause]. |
| Gabriella:You can listen to the changes in pronunciation of the consonants in pairs. Let’s hear the consonants without the mark first, and then with the mark. |
| Martin:z - ž [pause], s - š [pause], c - č [pause] , r - ř [pause], d - ď [pause], t - ť [pause], n - ň [pause]. The only vowel with the “hook” mark changes e [pause] into ě [pause]. |
| Gabriella:Now, the last extra consonant “c” and “h” together do not have a diacritic mark, but, they do belong to the group of non-existent consonants in English. |
| Martin:Yes, it’s “ch” and it’s a little hard for some people to pronounce it, because the sound comes from the throat, but it is not the English “k”. Please listen to the sound... “ch” [pause]. And now compare between h [pause] and ch [pause]. Try saying “chleba” [pause], which means “bread” in Czech. |
| Gabriella:The next one is the pronunciation of the compound consonants of d, t, n plus “i” at the end. The “i” makes the pronunciation soft. |
| Martin:You can repeat after me di [pause], ti [pause], ni [pause]. And now try to say these words:(theater) divadlo [pause], (press) tisk [pause], (nobody) nikdo [pause]. |
| Gabriella:And finally, the compounds of d, t, n plus ě. |
| Martin:The sound is like this dě [pause] , tě [pause], ně [pause]. For example, in the words (thank you) děkuju [pause], (body) tělo [pause], (German) Němec [pause]. |
| Gabriella:We also need to mention the compounds of consonants b, p, v, m combined with the vowel “ě”, as these frequently appear in Czech words. |
| Martin:Yes, that’s true. These are very common. |
| The sound is like this in the compounds. |
| bě [pause], pě [pause], vě [pause], mě. And to give you an example of words you can say:(to run) běžet [pause], (to foam) pěnit [pause], (science) věda [pause], (moon) měsíc [pause]. |
| Gabriella:Okay everybody, how did you do? |
| Martin:We’ll leave it there for this lesson. I hope you all had fun learning about Czech pronunciation! |
| Gabriella:Keep in mind that listening and repeating is really the key to improving your pronunciation. |
| Martin:Listen to and copy native speakers as much as you can. |
| Gabriella:And of course, you can check the lesson notes to reinforce what you’ve learned here. Please join us next time, when we take a closer look at some must-know Czech phrases. |
Outro |
| Gabriella:Thank you for listening everyone. See you next time! |
| Martin:Ahoj! |
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