 |
| Box for returning library books in central Ostrava. |
Yesterday, I learnt a sentence in Czech language class that
I really should have learnt during my first week here: “Prominte, nerozumím. Nemluvím moc česky”, i.e. “Sorry. I don’t understand. I don’t speak much Czech”.
Until now, I’ve just been telling people in English that I don’t speak Czech, which is of
course kind of rude, but I simply didn’t know how to say it in Czech. I did learn the
expression "nerozumím" earlier, but whenever I was in the actual situation where I would’ve
needed it, my mind just went blank and I couldn’t remember how to say it. Now – after just
over 7 months of living in this country – I’m finally able to say…..well, that
I don’t understand...
This could be depressing, but Czech is not really an easy
language, so I haven’t set any mental deadlines for myself for when I’m
supposed to be able to speak it. Here one can get “permanent resident” status
only after 5 years of living in this country, so I figure that if I speak Czech
in five years, I’ll be pretty happy.
When I came to this country, I did not just
immigrate: I also started a new job, which has been pretty
challenging. I’ve had tons of new things to learn at work, so I haven’t had
much energy left over for actually studying Czech. So what I learnt during the
first 6 months or so I just kind of picked up by osmosis – so I’ve been
learning in the same way a child learns his or her mother tongue. I just keep
hearing a word and I start to wonder what it means and then I ask or look it
up. This is how I learnt the word “prominte” – sorry. I kept hearing it and it
started to bother me that I didn’t know what it meant.
I always say that I
study languages simply because I am really curious and it annoys me if I don’t understand what people
are saying! I started studying Greek only because of one word: "paragalo" (παρακαλώ)*. I was on vacation in Greece and I kept
hearing that word and did not know what it meant - and it simply drove me nuts....so I started to study Greek. Strange logic, I know.
Now that I’m officially studying Czech, it’s amazing how I
am able to understand more every day. For example I have many times passed a
big sign on a garage door that says “neparkovat”. Well, I guessed earlier that
it probably meant something along the lines of “parking in front of the door
not allowed”. However, only today did I look at it and suddenly realize that
I know that verb: parkovat (infinitive) and I know how to conjugate it
(parkuju, parkuješ, parkuje, parkujeme, parkujete, parkujou). I also know that
all loan words that are verbs (loan verbs?) are formed in this same way, e.g.
chatovat (to chat) or skypovat (to Skype). So studying Czech grammar is really starting to pay off.
Our teacher is very big on grammar and in some ways I understand her because
Czech grammar is pretty much a nightmare. But more on the gory details in some
later post.
Not understanding a language reminds me of not being able to
read as a child: you look at text and it means nothing to you; it’s just
bla-bla-bla. I’ll give one example: I drink a lot of Coke Zero and on the Czech
Coke Zero bottle, there’s the text: “PRAVA CHUŤ NULA
CUKRU”. I had seen that text every
single day for 3 months and it said nothing to me. Then one day I was looking
at it and suddenly - in a flash - I understood! This was my logic: “prava” sounds similar to
the Russian word “pravda” (truth, the name of a Russian newspaper). By then I
had also leant the expression for “bon appetit”: dobrou chuť.
So I suddenly realized that “prava chut” means “genuine taste”, or something
along those lines. And then I also immediately figured out that “nula cukru” must mean “zero
sugar” ("nula" as in null, "cukru" as in sucrose). Suddenly figuring this out after
having been in the country for 3 months was an amazing feeling – I guess
similar to how happy a child is when he or she learns something new. Oh, the
simple pleasures of life abroad….
No comments:
Post a Comment