Customer Reviews

In-Flight Czech: Learn Before You Land

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The lessons go by very fast, with each phrase spoken only once. In order to learn, you must either have a super-human ear and memory, or you must listen to the CD 500 times. The CD might be a good review for someone who has already learned the language, but for the first-timer, consider the Pimsleur method instead.

wow, can you slow it down a little? i have lived in the czech republic for 6 months already so when i got this program, i was hoping to just brush up on the basics. unfortunately, i was disappointed...they zip through the "essential" phrases at light speed, phrases which my czech friends have told me in between chuckles that no one uses anymore anyway. they make no attempt to explain the difference between the masculine and feminine variations and all the phrases are the formal versions even though the informal is much more commonly used these days...at least give us the option. and the numbers...well, any native english speaker who has ever attempted to say the czech word for "four" will understand that you need time to get your tongue around it the first 50 or so times, whereas this cd gives you about a second to attempt the pronunciation.

i would recommend this only if you are visiting the czech republic for a short period and want to make a polite attempt at the language so as not to be taken as the typical tourist - but you will need to have a lot of time before-hand to practice. if you are actually trying to learn the language for day-to-day use, i would invest in a more professional program...or better yet, get some czech friends and learn from them.

This product is just a quick run down of basic phrases and not a true Czech teacher, this won't teach you basic sentence structure, masculine and feminine differences, or even point out different variances of the words.

For example; they will list "dobrư den" as "good day" but "dobrou noc" as "good night" but not explain why there is a difference with "dobrư" and "dobrou." I say buy this as a quick bloody or introduction to the Czech language, but don't visit Prague with just this if you want to have passable Czech.