Learn about the Czech alphabet
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Intro |
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| Michael: Is the Czech alphabet the same as the English alphabet? |
| Veronika: And what are the differences? |
| Michael: At CzechClass101.com, we hear these questions often. Imagine the following situation: Kristýna Komárková is learning the alphabet with her mother Karolína. She sees an unfamiliar letter and asks, |
| "What letter is that?" |
| Kristýna: Jaké písmeno je toto? |
| Dialogue |
| Kristýna: Jaké písmeno je toto? |
| Karolína: To je č. |
| Michael: Once more with the English translation. |
| Karolína: Jaké písmeno je toto? |
| Michael: "What letter is that?" |
| Karolína: To je č. |
| Michael: "It's č." |
Lesson focus |
| Michael: The Czech language uses the Latin script but with the addition of 16 other letters. These additional letters might look familiar to English speakers, but they have been altered with diacritics—marks that have been added to the base character to change their pronunciation. The presence of these marks is what separates the Czech alphabet from the English alphabet. One of these diacritical marks is called the |
| Veronika: Háček |
| Michael: It is also known as a "caron," but means "small hook" in Czech. It is an upside-down circumflex that appears above a character just like the one Karolína is trying to figure out in the dialogue: |
| Veronika: č |
| Michael: Other letters that carry this diacritical mark are, |
| Veronika: Ď, Ě, Ň, Ř, Š, Ť, and Ž |
| Michael: Two of these letters carry a modified caron in their lowercase, or |
| Veronika: miniscule |
| Michael: These are, |
| Veronika: ď, and ť |
| Michael: The uppercase form in Czech, by the way, is called, |
| Veronika: majuskule |
| Michael: Another diacritical mark used in the Czech alphabet is the, |
| Veronika: Čárka |
| Michael: or the "acute accent." This mark is present in the long versions of a, e, i, o, u, and y, or, |
| Veronika: á, é, í, ó, ú, and ý |
| Michael: Finally, there’s the diacritical mark called, |
| Veronika: Kroužek |
| Michael: which means "ring," and appears as a circle above the character. The only character in the Czech alphabet that uses this diacritical mark is, |
| Veronika: Ů . |
| Michael: It is the same sound as the letter |
| Veronika: Ú |
| Michael: The only difference is their position in words. The letter, |
| Veronika: Ů |
| Michael: is used inside words or as the final sound of a word, while the letter |
| Veronika: Ú |
| Michael: is used when it is the beginning sound of a word. It’s interesting to note that three letters in the Czech alphabet are only used in foreign words. These are, |
| Veronika: Q, W, and X |
| Michael: Once foreign words with these characters are assimilated into the Czech language, the letters, |
| Veronika: Q and W |
| Michael: are replaced with the sounds, |
| Veronika: KV, and V |
| Cultural Insight |
| Michael: Did you know that Czech is the only officially recognized language that uses the letter |
| Veronika: ř ? |
| Michael: This letter is almost unique to Czech, and the only other languages that use it are the Upper Sorbian, a minority language used by Sorbs in Germany, and a few isolated Norwegian dialects. You will encounter this letter in Czech words such as |
| Veronika: Střecha |
| Michael: which means "roof," |
| Veronika: Příklad |
| Michael: which means "example" and |
| Veronika: Vařit |
| Michael: which means "to cook." |
Outro |
| Michael: Do you have any more questions? We’re here to answer them! |
| Veronika: Na shledanou! |
| Michael: See you soon! |
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