Czech I, Continuing and Professional Studies, NYU

Once again, it was great to get together with all of you last night at Koliba. I really enjoyed it.

Some of you were talking last night about how to stay in practice during the break between semesters, so here is a link to Radio Praha (Český rozhlas 7), which offers vysílání Českého rozhlasu do zahraničí (literally, "broadcasting of Czech Radio to abroad"). If you can't figure out the instructions for how to listen, you can cheat by using the English page. But try to listen in Czech!

In Tuesday's class, our next to last, we learned the accusative for plural nouns of the masculine animate gender, along with the corresponding pronouns and adjectives, as well as the numbers 2, 3, and 4.

Masculine Animate Accusative Plural, page 58 (Nominative in Lesson 8)

The Demonstrative Pronoun "That" (with to, "These")
ten > ty
tento > tyto

Numbers Two, Three, and Four
dva, tři, čtyři > no change

Possessive Pronouns
můj > moje
tvůj > tvoje
jeho > no change
její > no change
náš > naše
váš > vaše
jejich > no change
and
svůj > svoje

Masculine Animate Nouns
student > studenty
muž > muže
učitel > učitele
BUT člověk > lidi AND přítel > přátele

We then practiced this case using verbs that take the accusative, most of which should be familiar to you by now (for example, see the posting below of Nov. 20).

We then looked at a sample menu and some phrases, all of which you can find on this page below, in my previous posting.

Homework for next week, in addition to the sentences I gave you to translate last week, is Exercises 1, 2, and 3 from your textbook, page 59.

I will also, in a few minutes, be sending some more sentences to translate, if you have time, though I realize that most of you have yet to finish the translations from last week. Do your best.

Uvidíme se v pátek u Koliby.

Here is a page with recordings of phrases you can use while eating out, as well as some traditional meals and other useful vocabulary. I'll be going over some of them, as well as a few more, in tonight's class: http://www.locallingo.com/countries/czech_republic/language/lessons/eating.html.

Here, too, is a typical, simple Czech menu: http://www.totalka.cz/jidl.html.

You can find many others by typing the words "jidelni listek" into Google: http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&q=jidelni+listek.

Feel free to print these out.

Uvidíme se dnes večer!

Looking for translations of Czech literature on the cheap? Catbird Press is, unfortunately, going out of business, so publisher Robert Wechsler is offering rock-bottom prices on his catalog.

To see if they've got what you're looking for, visit the Catbird Web site here. Or, to order a Clearance Sale booklet call 203-230-2391 or e-mail orders@catbirdpress.com.

Tuesday we covered the last topic in this lesson, the accusative case of personal pronouns.

As Michael Heim notes in his text, Contemporary Czech, “There is a great deal of vacillation in the masculine and neuter forms.” As a result, every textbook has a slightly different scheme for the declension of these pronouns. The one I have chosen to teach you is NOT the one in your textbook, and it goes as follows:

já > mě
when stressed = mě; after a preposition = mě

ty > tě
when stressed = tebe; after a preposition = tebe

on > ho (MAn or MIn)
when stressed = jeho (MAn only) or jej (MAn or MIn); after a preposition = něho (MAn only) or něj (MAn or MIn)

ona > ji
when stressed = ji; after a preposition = ni

ono (to) > ho or je
when stressed = ho or je; after a preposition = něj or ně

my > nás
when stressed = nás; after a preposition = nás

vy > vás
when stressed = vás; after a preposition = vás

oni, ony > je
when stressed = je; after a preposition = ně

The stressed form, in which the pronoun comes at the start of the sentence, is used, logically enough, when you want to stress the pronoun, e.g.: Neznáš mě = "You don't know me" but Mě neznáš = "Me you don't know" (unlike any other number of people whom you do know).

For examples of how these are used, read the Notes on page 49 in your textbook.

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We then looked at the expressions in the box on page 43 and read through the Dialogue on page 42, after which I posed questions to you based on the Dialogue.

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Homework

Ze cvičebnice (from the workbook): čísla 3, 4, 5, strany 17–18; čísla 11, 12, 15, 16, 17, strany 19–21.

Instructions as follows: 3 (Fill in personal pronouns in the correct form); 4 (Fill in personal pronouns, replacing the underlined words); 5 (Answer the questions, using personal pronouns to replace the underlined words); 11 (Fill in either se or si if necessary); 12 (Form sentences from the following words); 15 (Write out the following numbers in words); 16 (Answer the following); 17 (Give appropriate responses to the following words and phrases).

See you next Tuesday. And don't forget to let me know by tomorrow (Friday, Dec. 5) how many people you will be bringing with you to dinner on Dec. 12, so I can make the reservation!

To je všechno.