Learn how to ask "How do you say this?"
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| INTRODUCTION |
| In this lesson, you will learn a question that will help you improve your Czech vocabulary without carrying a dictionary with you. “How do you say [something] in Czech?” Is a sentence that will amazingly replace your pocket dictionary. |
| Czech people are famous for their beer, so let’s assume that you want to buy some but have no idea what to call it in Czech! |
| GRAMMAR POINT |
| Let’s say you want to know the word for ‘Beer’ in Czech. You can ask “How do you say ‘beer’ in Czech?” In Czech, this is... |
| Jak se řekne “beer” česky? |
| Let’s break it down: |
| (slow) Jak se řek-ne “beer” čes-ky? |
| Once more: |
| Jak se řekne “beer” česky? |
| The first word jak means, “how”. |
| (slow) Jak. |
| Jak. |
| This is followed by se řekne, the form of the verb translated in English as “to say”. |
| (slow) Se řek-ne. |
| Se řekne. |
| After we have the word in English, “beer” in this case. |
| And at the end of the question there is česky translated as “in Czech”. |
| (slow) Čes-ky. |
| Česky. |
| All together, we have |
| Jak se řekne “beer” česky? |
| Literally, this means, “How to say ‘beer’ in Czech?” |
| Remember that we already covered the word “beer” in our previous lessons. In Czech “beer” is pivo. |
| You can also use this expression without using any English. To accomplish this, you can use the expression “How do you say this in Czech?” In Czech, “this” is tohle. |
| (slow) Toh-le. |
| Tohle. |
| So in Czech “How do you say this in Czech?” is |
| Jak se řekne tohle česky? |
| Let’s break it down: |
| (slow) Jak se řek-ne toh-le čes-ky? |
| Once again: |
| Jak se řekne tohle česky? |
| The structure is exactly the same as the previous sentence, except that instead of “beer” we have the word tohle, which is the neutral form of “this” in Czech. |
| All together, we have |
| Jak se řekne tohle česky? |
| While asking this question, you can point at the specific something that you are curious about. |
| To ask, “How do you say that in Czech?” simply substitute the word tohle with tamto meaning “that” |
| (slow) Tam-to. |
| Tamto. |
| The phrase will sound like this: |
| Jak se řekne tamto česky? |
| Let’s break it down: |
| (slow) Jak se řek-ne tam-to čes-ky? |
| Once more: |
| Jak se řekne tamto česky? |
| Tamto is the neutral form for “that” in Czech. |
| (slow) Tamto |
| Tamto |
| Let’s say that you are invited to a birthday in which case you need to know how you say “Happy birthday” in Czech. In this case, you can ask “How do you say Happy birthday in Czech?” In Czech, this question can be.. |
| Jak se řekne “Happy birthday” česky? |
| (slow) Jak se řek-ne Happy birthday čes-ky? |
| Jak se řekne Happy birthday česky? |
| By the way, Czechs say Všechno nejlepší! |
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