Blog written by two Prague residents about life in the Czech Republic.
Petr Čech was named the best football (soccer) goalkeeper in the world for the year 2005 by the International Federation of Football History and Statistics, an organization which has been ranking goalkeepers since 1987. The 23 year-old Czech plays in London for the Chelsea Football Club.
You can read more about Petr in an article on Radio Praha and in his profile on the Chelsea Football Club official website.
Congratulations Petr!
By Dana 2 Comments
I grew up in a country where the Czech and Slovak languages intermingled with each other. The government consisted of Czechs and Slovaks, movies were filmed in the Prague studio with Czech actors or the Bratislava studio with Slovak actors, news was read in either language. One of the most popular sports commentators was from Slovakia and the best band of my teenage years was Elán, also from Slovakia (still going strong by the way). We all watched the films, listened to the news and sang along to the songs, not giving a second thought to the language in which they were presented. No one cared and everyone understood.
On January 1, 1993, the Czechoslovak federation split into two independent countries, the Czech Republic and Slovakia. The Czechs and Slovaks who had lived together in one country for almost three quarters of a century suddenly became two separate nations with their own capital cities, flags, presidents, and languages. Right after the split, the Slovak language virtually disappeared from the lives of the majority of Czechs.
To me, Slovak is so insanely similar to Czech and is so ingrained in my brain that I don’t even consider it a foreign language. Slovak is much more understandable to me than the Czech dialect spoken in Brno or Silesia. When asked by foreigners if Czechs and Slovaks understand each other, I have always said, “Well, of course!”. But now I’m not so sure…
Someone recently told me that Czech children supposedly don’t understand Slovak because they have no exposure to the language. I couldn’t believe it and argued passionately with the author of the preposterous statement. Then I read that a Slovak film had been dubbed into Czech before it was shown on Czech TV. I have also heard something to the effect that Czech children’s movies are not allowed to be shown on Slovak TV (in Czech I presume) because Slovak children wouldn’t understand them. What is going on?
Is it even possible for Czechs and Slovaks to not understand each other? I have thought about this long and hard. My initial reaction is a big and bold NO. The vocabularies of both languages contain a large percentage of words that are identical or differ only slightly (e.g. který – ktorý, velmi – veľmi, mléko – mlieko). On the other hand however, there are words that look and sound completely different. I wonder if there are just enough of them to hinder understanding between today’s kids and teenagers who aren’t growing up hearing those words and who are completely out of touch with the language that once came as a second nature to us.
It has been thirteen years since Czechoslovakia split up. Is it possible that we were able to “lose a language” in such a short time?
I previously posted about the new Czech high speed trains. They started running on December 11 and I wanted to provide an update.
* There are both first class and second class cars on the trains.
* Reservations are required.
* It’s possible to purchase a ticket online at the official Czech Railways Pendolino site. Right now the site is only in Czech.
* A special bus line has been introduced to connect Prague Airport and the Holešovice train station. The bus runs every 30 minutes and is free for passengers with a Pendolino ticket. Others can use the bus as well but must buy a ticket for 45 CZK. Prague public transport tickets are not valid in this case.
Happy New Year! 2006 is here and Jeff and I are slowly starting to get used to the new number. Our Silvestr (the Czech name for New Year’s Eve) was mellow. We made chlebíčky and jednohubky (small open-faced sandwiches and canapés), which are required on a Czech Silvestr night, put out some leftover Christmas cookies, opened a bottle of wine and watched In America on DVD. A strange agenda for New Year’s Eve, I know, but we’re just not into the you-have-to-go-out-and-party (= pretend you’re having the time of your life, get drunk and be sick the next day) concept. Not anymore anyway.
Luckily the weather forecast I posted on Wednesday didn’t quite materialize and Saturday night was at a comfy two degrees below zero, so I hope it wasn’t too bad for those of you who spent the night out in Prague.
We toasted the New Year with a glass of red and watched the fireworks from our window. Our building seemed to be right in the middle of it all. It is now the evening of January 1 and we can still hear the occasional fire cracker go off in the neighborhood. Some residents are probably having a hard time accepting the fact that their yearly chance to blow off some steam and shoot into the sky for ten minutes is over for another year.
May 2006 be good to you all!