Learn about compound words in Czech
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Intro |
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| Antoni: What are compound words? |
| Veronika: And what is the longest word in Czech? |
| Antoni: At CzechClass101.com, we hear these questions often. Imagine the following scenario: Jozefína Jeřábková and Ben Lee are talking about their dreams for the future. Jozefína asks, |
| "What do you want to be in the future?" |
| Jeřábková : Čím chceš být v budoucnu? |
| Dialogue |
| Jozefína Jeřábková : Čím chceš být v budoucnu? |
| Ben Lee : Chci se stát jazykovědcem. |
| Antoni: Once more with the English translation. |
| Jozefína Jeřábková: Čím chceš být v budoucnu? |
| Antoni: "What do you want to be in the future?" |
| Ben Lee: Chci se stát jazykovědcem. |
| Antoni: "I want to become a linguist." |
Lesson focus |
| Antoni: In this lesson, you will be learning about compounding in Czech, and you will also find out what the longest word in Czech is. |
| First, let’s talk about what compounding is exactly. To put it simply, compounding happens when you put two or more words together to form a new word. The way this is done differs from language to language, and some languages use a lot of compounding while others don’t. For instance, English doesn’t use a lot of compounding. |
| Compounds can also be productive, or not. In certain languages, one can create new words with compounding that aren’t in the dictionary. If they're easily understood, the compounds are considered productive. |
| The first example of a compound that we will look at is one you already heard in the dialogue for this lesson when Jozefína asked: |
| Veronika: Čím chceš být v budoucnu? |
| Antoni: "What do you want to be in the future?" To this, Ben replies, |
| Veronika: Chci se stát jazykovědcem. |
| Antoni: "I want to become a linguist." The compound word in Ben’s answer was |
| Veronika: jazykovědec |
| Antoni: which means"linguist” in Czech. It consists of two words that have been joined together. The first word is |
| Veronika: jazyk |
| Antoni: which means "language." The second word is |
| Veronika: vědec |
| Antoni: which means "scientist." While the compounded word properly means "linguist," in Czech, it literally means "language scientist," someone who creates something out of languages. Notice the ‘o’ between the two words. In some languages including Czech, a linking vowel or interfix is inserted between two words to make pronouncing the resulting word easier. |
| Veronika: jazyk - o - vědec |
| Antoni: Let’s look at another compound word in Czech: |
| Veronika: dalekosáhlý |
| Antoni: This word means "far-reaching," and is composed of the words |
| Veronika: daleko |
| Antoni: or "far," and |
| Veronika: sáhlý |
| Antoni: a word derived from the verb, |
| Veronika: sáhnout |
| Antoni: which means "to reach." Literally, the compound word means "to reach far." So far, you have observed that compounding words in Czech could be as simple as putting two words together side by side to form a new word. In our first example, which is "linguist," we combined two nouns, while in the second example, or "far-reaching," we combined an adverb and a verb. Czech also uses other means to form compound words. For instance, we have the word, |
| Veronika: hromosvod |
| Antoni: literally "thunder rod," but translates as "lightning rod." It consists of the words, |
| Veronika: hrom |
| Antoni: which means "thunder," and |
| Veronika: svod |
| Antoni: which means "rod." |
| Another compound word in Czech that uses an interfix is |
| Veronika: ohnivzdorný |
| Antoni: which means "fireproof." It consists of the words |
| Veronika: ohni |
| Antoni: which comes from the word |
| Veronika: oheň |
| Antoni: meaning "fire," and |
| Veronika: vzdorný |
| Antoni: which means "defiant." In this case, the interfix used was |
| Veronika: -i- |
| [Summary] |
| Antoni: In this lesson, you learned about compounding. Compounding is when you join two or more words together to form another word. In Czech, compounding is as simple as joining two words together to form a single word. Sometimes, a linking vowel called an interfix is inserted between the root words to make pronunciation easier. |
| Expansion |
| Antoni: In Czech, productive compounding is limited, but it does still happen. This is how some new words are still occasionally formed. One of these is the Czech word |
| Veronika: Nejnezpravděpodobnostňovávatelnější |
| Antoni: It’s not as long as the longest words in other languages, but it’s still quite a long word according to Czech standards. It’s 35 letters long and means "most unlikely." Another word would be |
| Veronika: nejnezdevětadevadesáteroroznásobovávatelnějšími |
| Antoni: This is a longer one and is composed of 47 letters. It means "Ninety-nine times more multiplicable." This is not officially the longest word in Czech, but, if you search online, you’ll find this to be the longest one so far—at least for now. Keep in mind that these words were only formed out of fun and are never used in daily conversations. |
| Expansion |
| Antoni: One last thing you need to know about compounding words in Czech. Aside from using interfixes, Czech also uses suffixes in some compound words. For instance, we have the word, |
| Veronika: celosvětový |
| Antoni: which means "global" or "worldwide." It consists of the words, |
| Veronika: celý |
| Antoni: which means "whole," and |
| Veronika: svět |
| Antoni: which means "world." Aside from the interfix "o," which replaces the ending for the word, |
| Veronika: celý, |
| Antoni: there is also the suffix |
| Veronika: -ový, |
| Antoni: a suffix that carries the meaning "pertaining to." Literally speaking, our compound word here means "pertaining to the whole world"—in short,"global." |
Outro |
| Antoni: Do you have any more questions? We’re here to answer them! |
| Veronika: Na shledanou! |
| Antoni: See you soon! |
| Credits: Veronika Ageiwa (Czech, Prague), Antoni (English, synthetic voice) |
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