Learn About Czech

Čeština • 10 million speakers worldwide

Indo-European Family•Medium Difficulty•ISO: cs
Language Sample

"Ahoj, jak se máš?"

Pronunciation: Ah-hoy, yak seh mahsh?

Translation: Hello, how are you?

Language Overview

Speakers

10 million

Language Family

Indo-European (Slavic)

Writing System

Latin script with diacritics

Official Status

Official language of Czech Republic

Regions (3 countries)

Czech RepublicSlovakiaUnited States (Czech diaspora)
History & Origins

Czech developed from Proto-Slavic and Old Czech. Standardization took place during the 16th–17th centuries. It underwent major reforms under the influence of the Czech National Revival in the 18th–19th centuries.

Language Characteristics

  • Rich system of noun cases (7 cases)

  • Verb aspect (perfective vs imperfective)

  • Three grammatical genders (masculine, feminine, neuter)

  • Subject-Verb-Object word order

  • Use of diacritics for pronunciation

Common Words
hello:ahoj
goodbye:na shledanou
please:prosím
thank you:děkuji
yes:ano
no:ne
water:voda
food:jídlo
house:dům
family:rodina
Numbers 0-10
0:nula
1:jedna
2:dva
3:tři
4:čtyři
5:pět
6:šest
7:sedm
8:osm
9:devět
10:deset
Major Dialects

Bohemian

Moravian

Silesian

Learning Tips

  • Practice pronunciation with diacritics

  • Learn noun cases systematically

  • Focus on verb aspect differences

  • Listen to Czech media for comprehension

  • Start with basic phrases for daily use

Cultural Notes

  • Czech culture values literature, music, and beer traditions

  • Formal and informal speech affects pronoun use

  • Festivals like Easter and Christmas have unique traditions

  • Czech folk tales and fairy tales are culturally significant

Fun Facts

Czech has some of the longest words in the Slavic languages

It shares mutual intelligibility with Slovak

Czech is the 20th most spoken Slavic language globally

It has influenced literature and music in Central Europe

Ready to test your Czech knowledge?

Try our interactive language guessing game and see if you can identify Czech from text samples.