Product Description
This beginner's course in spoken and written Czech is designed to be of interest to someone who has never learnt the language before or who wants to build on existing skills. Based on the Council of Europe's guidelines on language learning, this cassette and book pack is part of a course where emphasis is placed on practical communication, as well as containing useful information on the culture of Czechoslovakia. ... Read more

Product Description
This text has been designed to give a working knowledge of Czech in three months. It simply explains essential grammar, with short exercises and conversational drills putting it into context. The book is also available with cassettes, which contain an expanded pronunciation guide. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Its an audio dictionary
These tapes don;t help you learn how to speak Czech. They are an audio dictionary of words and phrases. Most of them are spoken so fast that they are pretty much useless if you are starting to lean Czech. The tapes are crammed with so much material that it is impossible to learn all that stuff in 2 hours of listening. Also, when repeating phrases, the speakers don't give a one to one correlation between the english and czech words. Nor do they enunciate difficult Czech sounds. Instead, I recommend the Pimsleur language series which actually helps you learn to speak the language. Then if you have to, come back to this tape to learn additional words.

Czech spoken too fast
Lots of Czech words and phrases but is spoken very fast! The rate which a native would speak! Also, not enough time to repeat phrase. Nevertheless, it would be good for a resource or backup for someone who is rather "used" to speaking Czech! In, all, it's well worth the money!

Language 30 Czech
I am learning Czech for a trip to Prague and I've tried several different language audio sets from area libraries.This Language 30 program is the best I've found so I decided to buy a copy.I highly recommend the format for someone who is trying to learn while listening as you drive or work.The program is especially good for someone who wants to be able to go to hotels, restaurants etc. while traveling. ... Read more

Product Description
A Czech phrase book in the EYEWITNESS TRAVEL PHRASE BOOK series aimed at tourists and business travellers. It contains useful everyday phrases and sections on subjects like hotels, travel, restaurants and health as well as Recognition lists of words and signs that may be heard or seen, and a mini dictionary with 1800-2000 words. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Not thought through very well, and at only 180 pages too short to be useful
Stuart E. Mann's CZECH HISTORICAL GRAMMAR, originally published in 1957 in a generally excellent University of London series on Eastern European languages, seeks to describe Old Czech, trace its origins in Proto-Indo-European, and give some example texts from the earliest days of Czech literature. I found this a very problematic work. Mann believes that Old Czech is sufficiently archaic that one can connect its grammar and lexicon to other Indo-European languages without going through Old Church Slavonic or a reconstructed Common Slavonic. This was a disastrous decision. There's a reason that Old Church Slavonic is the gateway to the Slavonic languages for Indo-Europeanists, for its retention of the yers, nasal vowels, and full scope of early Slavonic morphology makes it entirely appropriate. While Old Czech dates from only two centuries after the OCS period, it has already lost all those features which make it so easy to see exactly how Slavonic fits with the IE family.

Mann's introduction briefly describes the history of Czech philology and the modern debates on literary standards. The first couple of chapters set out extremely sketchily the standard Neogrammarian reconstruction of PIE and how Czech can be distinguished as a West Slavonic language. All of this is so little detailed that the reader will get little out of it unless he has prior training in both comparative Indo-European linguistics and Slavonic historical linguistics. The description of Old Czech proceeds by linking Old Czech phonology and morphology to PIE with little mention of the Common Slavonic language standing between the two. Since Mann doesn't give any systematic description of the yers and their disappearance, the reader is cheated of an important component of reconstruction. All morphology is too sketchily covered, and it seems more like a collection of lecture notes than a quality grammar.

I don't want to dismiss Mann's book entirely, for the collection of literary texts at the end is decent, with difficult expressions glossed in footnotes. When my studies to date have involved mainly the South Slavonic and East Slavonic languages, it's good to find Old Czech material. Still, CZECH HISTORICAL GRAMMAR is really a letdown, neither as useful as Nandris & Auty's HANDBOOK OF OLD CHURCH SLAVONIC in describing Slavonic's IE roots, nor as fascinating as 's RUSSIAN HISTORICAL GRAMMAR in tracing the evolution of a modern Slavonic language from earlier literary standards. ... Read more

Product Description
The present work is founded on an essay, which appeared in the Biblical Repository for April and July, 1834, then conducted by the undersigned. The essay was received with favour by the public; and awakened an interest in many minds, as laying open a new field of information, hitherto almost inaccessible to the English reader. A few copies were printed separately for private distribution. Some of these were sent to literary men in Europe; and several scholars of high name among those acquainted with Slavic literature, expressed their approval of the work. Since that time, and even of late, inquiries have repeatedly been made, by scholars and by public libraries in
Europe, for copies of that little treatise; which, of course, it was
impossible to satisfy.

Download Historical View Of The Languages And Literature Of The Slavic Nations Now! ... Read more

Product Description
Expanding on Barron's handsome and easy-to-use TravelWise books and cassettes, all programs are available as a book-only, or as a sturdy, compact boxed package containing the book with a cassette and script booklet. Each book/package is rich with full-color photos of the subject country and covers typical travel situations. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Berlitz Phrase book
It is similiar to other Berlitz phrase books but the phonetics were hard to follow because Czech sounds so different from English.

We didn't use it - we managed to find enough english speaking Czechs (waiters, etc)

handy reference, lousy tape
The book is an excellent reference, and came in handy more than once when I found myself at a small czech pub, trying to deal with waiters who don't speak English, and menus entirely in Czech.However, I would have liked to see more words and detail, especially in the food section.Once I thought I was ordering a typical czech fried pork steak--it turned out to be liver!
The tapes were a joke for the most part.But I was able to get some use out of them as a supplement to the "Colloquial Czech" course by James Naughton I was taking at the same time, and as a very handy sleeping aid.The relaxation exercises will knock you out every time.

makes Czech even more difficult
(Note, the other review of this item is actually a review of a Berlitz package.)

The audio tape in this package is the most bizarre and useless example of the genre I've encountered.It consists of extremely long and complex dialogs which no beginner could possibly follow, interspersed with relaxation exercises (?!?).Maybe the whole thing is a practical joke.

Berlitz Czech Phrase book a delight.
The Berlitz Czech phrase book and dictionary is well organized and easy to follow. The Table of Contents does a good job of dividing the sections and phrases into an amount that is easy to find, and important to a visit tothe Czech Republic. It also covers almost any situation that might beencountered from "hello" to the Czech names for parts of a car;ordering in a restaurant and visiting a doctor. The given pronunciationsare easy to follow and with a little effort, able to be done fairlyclearly. The English-Czech/Czech-English dictionaries also contain lots offamiliar words that would be needed on a daily basis. I look forward totrying it out in the Czech Republic! ... Read more

Product Description
The New Czech Step by Step teaching program of Czech for foreigners is intended for beginners to intermediates. Over twenty clearly structured units the students get to know the basics of the Czech language.This new, completely revised edition retains the basic principles of the older version, such as being divided into independent combinable sections, the system of references and above all the color-coded genders in the grammar, which has met with an extraordinarily favorable response from both students and teachers.The textbook, which has been completely redesigned graphically, brings many more exercises, pictures (by Michaela Kukovi?ová), photographs and texts (including short introductory texts which assist the student in understanding a given grammatical feature). The titles of the units demonstrate the practical and communicative focus of the textbook (for example, My Family, Directions, In the Restaurant, Free Time, Finding your way, Communicating). Each unit comes with six pages of exercises and activities in the illustrated workbook and sound CD.Each set also contains the four-page supplement, Czech Grammar in a Nutshell / ?eskou gramatiku v kostce. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Perfect way to start!
This is defiantly worth buying, perfect to start learning how to read and write Czech.
but remember that paying anything over $80 is a complete rip off,
check out http://czechstepbystep.cz/ "Where I can buy the materials" Choose the USA location and contact the sellers, they will give you a normal textbook price.
This information is just in case someone super-inflates the price since this textbook can be a rare commodity on Amazon.

The best bet for learning Czech
I used this book for my intensive Czech language classes in Prague, as well as for my regular Czech language classes with Charles University. Even though the text consists of only roughly 20 chapters, all of the basic, intermediate, and advanced grammar rules are covered. I bought various other Czech language books from expats around Prague but always returned to this one for the most understandable Czech language instruction. I would recommend supplementing this set of books with a good Czech-English dictionary...one that includes word genders after each entry. ... Read more

Product Description
Berlitz redefines the phrase book with these completely revised and redesigned full-color editions of the world's best-selling collection. Features: More than 8,000 words and phrases arranged by topic for fast and easy communication. Up-to-date language and situations.Easy, effective Berlitz pronunciation system.Comprehensive menu reader.Valuable language and culture tips.New color photos throughout.Conveniently sized for pocket or purse. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Berlitz Phrase Book review
I purchased the book December 6th and did not receive it until January 7th. I contacted the seller a few times and still have not heard anything back. The book is in excellent condition and I am happy with what I recieved- now that I have finally received it. Overall- all is well that ends well, but realistically it took way to long to get here, no one would respond to my questions, and had it arrived a few more days late the book would have been completely worthless to me, as the purpose for it would have passed. ... Read more