Nicki J Markus / Asta Idonea: My Czech Language Learning Resources

My Story Learning Czech

I started learning Czech after my first visit to Prague. I had a penpal there who invited me to stay with her. I was in my late teens and it was my first solo trip abroad. I fell in love with the language while there and when I returned home I bought the Teach Yourself book and started studying. I was able to practice reading and writing through the letters to my penpals, plus I was listening to a lot of Czech musicals at the time and singing along with the songs.

For a while I was pushing towards an intermediate level, but then I lost contact with both penpals I had there and no longer had easy means to practice, especially as it's not a language with huge amounts of available learning resources online. As such, I feel like my skills are getting rusty. I am doing no major study at present, but I try to retain as much as I can through listening to podcasts and watching videos at the channels I have linked below.

You can watch the video here to listen to me talking more about my journey with Czech.

Resources

The following resources are ones I've found useful.

Please note that I am not receiving any incentive to recommend any of these resources. Nor can I say they will suit every learner, as everyone's learning style is different. I am sharing only my personal experiences with these assets and cannot guarantee they will benefit everyone.

Books

Teach Yourself Czech - A decent introductory text, but the grammar explanations could be better. I also wondered why a beginner book had a scenario featuring a man at the airport explaining his bags contained stones because he was a geologist. Hardly everyday beginner vocabulary!

Essential Grammar: Czech - I have found this mini grammar guide super useful over the years if I just needed to quickly check a conjugation or declension while writing.

Czech: An Essential Grammar - A good grammar overview with clear explanations.

YouTube

Slow Czech is a channel featuring a mix of videos covering grammar, vocabulary and listening comprehension.

Easy Czech offers a series of vlogs interviewing people on the streets on a range of topics, as well as vocabulary videos.

Czech by Zuzka is a channel where Zuzka explains Czech grammar clearly and simply in English.

Because Czech is Cool is a channel with some good videos on grammar and pronunciation. Earlier videos were presented at least partly in English, but some of the more recent postings will be more for those at an intermediate level, as the presenter now speaks mostly in Czech.