Radio Prague International - Topic «Czech language course»

Hello and welcome to a fresh edition of SoundCzech, in which you can learn Czech phrases with the help of song lyrics. Today’s song is by the famous singer-songwriter Karel Plíhal. The song is called Lelek and the phrase to listen out for is chytat lelky:

Hello and welcome to another edition of SoundCzech in which you can learn Czech words and sayings through song lyrics. In today’s episode the word to look out for is šilhat, meaning to have squint-eye, slang for the medical condition known as strabismus, where one eye wanders. The word is found in the song Balada O Rozhodujícím úderu šilhavého řezníka Josky about a pig slaughter and a squint-eyed butcher Joska.

Hello and welcome to this week’s edition of SoundCzech, Radio Prague’s Czech language course in which you can learn new phrases with the help of song lyrics. This week the music is from an old black and white movie starring comic Vlasta Burian who is presenting his own “Russian” version of Black Eyes –Oči černé.

Czech expats from around the world gathered in Prague last week for a conference on maintaining their native language skills abroad. Czechoslovak exiles who fled the country after the war or after the Soviet-led invasion of 1968, descendants of the old Czech settlers, as well as members of the younger community of Czechs who went abroad to study or work met for a two-day event held in the National Museum building in the centre of Prague to discuss their cultural and linguistic heritage.

Hello and welcome to a fresh edition of SoundCzech, in which you can learn Czech phrases with the help of song lyrics. Today’s song is by the legendary rock group Jasná Páka and the phrase to listen out for is šplouchá mu na maják, which is repeated several times in the songs’ chorus:

Hello and welcome to another edition of SoundCzech in which you can learn Czech phrases with the help of song lyrics. Today’s song is by the group Spiritual Kvintet and the phrase to listen out for is “správné slovo”.

Each summer the small eastern Bohemian town of Dobruška becomes a home to dozens of people from around the world who come to reconnect with the language and customs of their Czech ancestors. The summer programme, organized by Prague’s Charles University and supported by the Czech government, offers intensive language courses as well as an insight into Czech culture and way of life.

Welcome to a new edition of SoundCzech, Radio Prague’s Czech language course in which we explain idioms and phrases with the help of song lyrics. Today’s song is called “Malovaný džbánku” and is sung by the Czech pop-music diva Helena Vondráčková.

Welcome to a fresh edition of SoundCzech Radio Prague’s Czech language course in which you can lean new phrases with the help of song lyrics. Today’s song is by the rock group Natural and is called Já na to mám.

This year's Summer School of Slavonic studies is in full swing at Prague's Charles University. Almost 250 people are immersed in the study of Czech language, culture, and life. Students from all over the world - around 40 countries in all - and all degrees of education come together to brave the difficulties of learning Czech.

Hello and welcome to another edition of SoundCzech, Radio Prague’s Czech language course in which you can learn new phrases with the help of song lyrics. Today’s song is by Dalibor Janda and it is called Žít jako kaskadér - Living like a stuntman.

Hello and welcome to another edition of SoundCzech, Radio Prague’s Czech language course in which you can learn new phrases with the help of song lyrics. Today’s song is by a singer going by the name of Xindl X and it’s called Poslední večeře - The Last Supper.

Hello and welcome to SoundCzech, Radio Prague’s Czech language course in which you can learn new phrases with the help of song lyrics. Today’s song by Michal Tučný and is called Mam Páru – and that is the phrase to listen out for.

Welcome to another edition of SoundCzech, Radio Prague’s programme explaining Czech vocabulary through song lyrics. Today’s song is the 1969 Czech cover of “Hey Jude” by The Beatles. It is sung by Marta Kubišová and the Czech lyrics were written by Zdeněk Rytíř. We shall concentrate on the chorus which features a number of idioms. Let’s start by listening to the whole chorus which begins by the line Svět je krásnej, svět je zlej, hej, Jude, věř v něj meaning “the world is beautiful, the world is evil, hey Jude, trust in it”.

Welcome to another edition of SoundCzech, where you can learn Czech words and idioms through song lyrics. The expression to listen out for today is nemá ani šajna, which is a colloquial way to say that someone doesn’t have a clue. The title of the song is “Dítě školou povinné”, or Schoolchild, and it was written by the 1960s legendary Czech duo Jiří Suchý and Jiří Šlitr.

Welcome to another edition of SoundCzech – Radio Prague's Czech language series in which we explore idioms through song lyrics. Today, we'll be listening to a song called "Nikdy nic nikdo nemá" (or “Noone should ever”) by the pre-World War II comic duo, Jan Werich and Jiří Voskovec. The phrase to listen out for is "život je pes".

Hello and welcome to SoundCzech, Radio Prague’s Czech language course in which you can learn new phrases with the help of song lyrics. Today we are playing a Christmas carol called Veselé Vánoce – or Merry Christmas.

Welcome to another edition of SoundCzech, where you can learn Czech words or expressions through song lyrics. The key word in today's edition is starý (starej in the colloquial) meaning old. The name of the song, by Czech hard rock band Kabát, is Starej bar – old bar. In it frontman Pepa Vojtek sings about stumbling into an old, mostly empty dive, with only a jukebox, a few stools or chairs, and an ancient barman who convinces the song's protagonist to have a drink.

The Czech Republic –or Czechia – a dilemma that Czechs have been unable to resolve since the 1993 Czech-Slovak divorce left the country without a one-word name that would roll of the tongue easily and that the public could identify with. On a state visit to Israel this week, President Miloš Zeman revived a twenty-year-old debate on an informal English name for his country, publicly thanking his host, President Simon Perez, for using the informal name Czechia rather than the official Czech Republic. I discussed the proposal with the head of the Czech Language Institute of the Academy of Sciences, Karel Oliva.

Hello and welcome to another edition of SoundCzech Radio Prague’s Czech language course in which you can learn new phrases with the help of song lyrics. Today’s song is by Hana Zagorová and is called Spěchám –the word to listen out for today.

Welcome to another edition of SoundCzech. In today's edition we look at at expressions using the word 'líný' or ‘línej’(informal) - featured in the song Jsem tak línej by the legendary Czech pop group Olympic. Yawn. What could be more appropriate for the lazy days of summer, on a weekend when temperatures are expected to hit around 35 degrees Celsius!

Hello and welcome to another edition of SoundCzech, Radio Prague’s Czech language course in which you can learn new phrases with the help of song lyrics. Today’s song is by Dalibor Janda and it is called Žít jako kaskadér - Living like a stuntman.

Welcome to another edition of SoundCzech, our series where you can learn Czech expressions through song lyrics. Today we feature the expression chodit po špičkách, which translates as walking on one's toes or tippy toes.

Welcome to SoundCzech, a mini-series where we teach you Czech words and phrases with the help of Czech musicians. This week we will talk about fear and how to handle it, and we will listen to a part of a song Vyvolený, by the punk-rock group Jaksi Taksi.

Welcome to a fresh edition of SoundCzech in which you can learn Czech phrases with the help of song lyrics. Today’s song is a 1970’s Semafor Theatre hit called Máme radi zvířata and the singer is Jitka Molavcová. The word to listen out for is “zvířata”.

Welcome to another edition of SoundCzech. In today’s edition we’ll be hearing a song called called Zubatá by the legendary Czech band Pražský výběr. The root of the word Zubatá is zub, which means tooth. Zubatá, could be loosely translated as ‘Ol’ Toothy’ or the ‘Grim Toother’, referring to the Grim Reaper and his unflinching skeletal grin. One difference is that in Czech, Death is female.

Hello and welcome to another edition of SoundCzech in which you can learn Czech phrases with the help of song lyrics. Today’s song is by the group Spiritual Kvintet and the phrase to listen out for is “správné slovo”.

Hello and welcome to the newest edition of SoundCzech. To help you shake off the winter blues, and learn a bit of Czech in the process, we will listen today to Jaromír Nohavica’s song Ahoj, Slunko, which translates as “Hi, sun”. And it is the sun, often elusive at this time of year, that we will be talking about today, and also a bit about compliments. So listen to how the song begins, with Nohavica addressing the sun – ‘slunko’ – and giving it a first compliment.

Welcome to another new edition of SoundCzech our long-running language series in which you can learn words and idioms through song lyrics. Today's song is by the Czech pop group Chinaski and is called 'chytrej kluk'. Chytrej is the ungrammatical version of chytrý and chtrej kluk means smart boy or smart guy.

Welcome to this week’s SoundCzech, a series where we teach you useful Czech words and phrases through songs. Today we will listen to Tomáš Klus’s song Panu bohu do oken. And since this is the presidential election weekend, we will focus on words connected with voting. The word you want to look for first is "volič".

Welcome to another edition of SoundCzech – Radio Prague’s language course in which you can pick up useful phrases with the help of song lyrics. Today’s song is called Další blbej den (the Czech version of Nick Cave’s Death is Not the End ) and is sung by the duo Aleš Brychta and Pavla Kapitanová. The phrase to listen out for is actually hard to miss because it is simply everywhere : blbej den.

‘English is attacking Czech from all sides’ one newspaper columnist recently despaired, while others talk of Czech’s ‘battle for survival’ in a world in which ever more English is spoken. From terms like ‘setobox’, ‘vygooglovat’ and ‘mobil’ on the one hand to words like ‘sorry’, ‘byzy’ and ‘lůzr’ on the other, English does seem to be making an impact on today’s Czech. But are these English borrowings really a threat to the Czech language, or do they enrich it instead? I asked some Czechs for their opinion:

Every summer the north-east Bohemian town of Dobruška turns truly cosmopolitan, opening its doors to Czech language students from around the world. The Czech language summer school organized by Charles University lasts for a month and is specially tailored for Czech expats and people who have developed an interest in the Czech language and culture.

How did communist propaganda brainwash people? What were the most frequent words used in the communist press? And was it at all possible to learn any real news from the censored newspapers? These are some of the questions a team of Czech linguists is trying to answer in their Dictionary of Communist Totalitarianism.

Welcome to SoundCzech our long-running language series in which you can learn Czech idioms through song lyrics. Today’s final edition looks at the expression vypdanout z týhle díry – to get out of this hole. The expression features in a song by Mňága a Žďorp a very popular alternative rock band from Valašské Meziříčí, called Ve 4 rano – At four in the morning. The setting is a bar or club just before closing: the music has come to an end, no one has anything left to smoke and the tables are dirty from spilled drinks.

English speaking foreigners to the Czech Republic who are interested in the language are often befuddled or even annoyed by the feature of formal and informal speech in Czech grammar, called vykání and tykání - that is, the formal, plural “you” and the informal, singular “you”. Nowhere is that characteristic more frowned upon than in multinational companies, where new employees, called “formal you” at the job interview, are renamed “demotic you” on their first day of work, and told to address everyone else accordingly.

Welcome to a new edition of SoundCzech, our long-running series looking at sayings and expressions through song lyrics. Today’s expressions all have to do with the Czech word for work – práce – at a time when people either don’t have enough or have too much, trying to clear their desk ahead of the holidays. Featured is a song by 1990s punk band E!E called Práce. In the tune, the group sings “práce, jé práce, práce, je práce”, which translates as work, yay work, work there’s work. The accent on the “e” in the first jé makes all the difference.

Hello and welcome to SoundCzech, our popular miniseries in which you can learn some interesting Czech phrases while listening to music. Today’s song is by Vladimír Mišík and it’s called “Co ti dám”. The phrase to listen out for is “na hromádce”.

Hello and welcome to another edition of SoundCzech, Radio Prague’s Czech language course in which you can learn new phrases with the help of song lyrics. Today’s song is a traditional Czech folk song sung by Standa Hložek – and it’s called “When I used to come to your house.” The phrase to listen out for is “krev a mlíko”.

Welcome to another edition of SoundCzech, our long-running language series which looks at popular Czech sayings through song lyrics. The expression in today’s episode is Hele, nemachruj (Hey, don’t brag) featured in a song of the same name by 1980s Czech pop icon Michal David.

Hello and welcome to another edition of SoundCzech, Radio Prague’s Czech language course in which you can learn new phrases with the help of song lyrics. Today’s song is by a singer going by the name of Xindl X and it’s called Poslední večeře - The Last Supper.

Hello and welcome to SoundCzech, the only programme on global airwaves in which you can learn something interesting about the Czech language while listening to song lyrics. In this edition, we’ll hear the track “Ani k stáru”, part of the music score for the popular Czech film, “Vratné lahve”, or Empties. The phrase to listen out for is “nemám páru”.