Friday, January 27, 2006

As much as I enjoy working in chronological order, I do not have an internet connection readily available for when I'm inspired (or have time) to write my episodic adventures. So I'm going to have to work stream-of-conscious. Bear with me.

This week commenced our two-week long Intentive Czech class. I knew it would be difficult but the only word I can muster up to describe how it has been for me is intense (they knew what they were talking about when they titled the course). Surprisingly, I am not overwhelmed by any of the concepts we have been exposed to, from the sentence structures to the pronounciation (expect for one sound, which I will get to later), but there are so few cognates to English that learning the basic vocabulary takes an extensive amount of memorization. I really like my teacher, Petra, who speaks great English but has never visited an English-speaking country. She teaches in a very logical fashion and there is a great deal of repitition, which you need when learning a language from a family different from your own. Although I'm trying, my Czech weirdly resembles Spanish.

The most frustrating element thus far of the Czech language has been a letter and sound we do not have in English. It is ø and, as my teacher described, if you pronounce r with one or two rolls of the tongue, ø should be pronounced with three or four rolls, but faster. To my American ears, it sounds like sh, but that sound is already reserved for š. It figures that the most difficult word to say that I have encountered is the Czech word for the number four, ètyøi. This feeds into the impossibility of me saying 40, 400, 444 and the word for Thursday, ctvrtek. For God's sake, where are the vowels?? My Czech flatmate, Pavla, told me that it is impossible for a cizinec, a foreigner, to learn Czech fluently. I believe her wholeheartedly. It's not necessary to know Czech to get around here but it sure makes it a lot easier, especially the further you get from the city's center, aka, where I live.

Can someone tell me how to post pictures? I can't figure it out.