Czech Voice Over Agency

Everything you never needed to know about speaking Czech

Some Czech words have no vowels
In the Czech language consonants can act as vowels so some words look like they haven’t any vowels at all. Czech words we use in English include robot, polka and pistol.

There’s a huge castle in Prague
Prague castle is the largest in the world. It is 570m long and 128m wide. In comparison Buckingham Palace in London is 108 metres long and 120m wide. There are over 200 castles in the Czech Republic, so if you love history this is the place for you.

The clock with horoscopes
Prague also has a huge clock which shows you the time, date and the astrological signs. It’s called the Astrological Clock and it’s the oldest of its type in the world.

Na Zdavi (cheers)!
The Czech people love drinking beer. They consume more beer per capita than anyone else in the world. Pilsner Urquell is the oldest pale lager. It was first brewed in 1842.

Seeing is believing
Those of you who wear soft contact lenses can thank a Czech chemist for the invention. They were manufactured in 1959. Soft contact lenses are popular because they are not as rigid as hard lenses, and they are more comfortable to wear.

Try a Spa with no water
If you fancy a spa day with a difference visit a beer spa in Prague. Apparently hop oil opens your pores and cleanses the skin. Whilst your soaking in the oak tubs you can also enjoy a refreshing beer and a chat with your fellow spa guests.

The street where you can’t meet in the Middle
There’s a street in Prague that’s so narrow pedestrians have to walk up and down it using traffic lights. This is because if two people are walking in opposite directions and meet in the middle there isn’t room to pass.

Sun and Ski
In the winter you can ski in the Czech Republic. Some of the most popular destinations are the Sumava National Park, the Giant Mountains, and the Ore Mountains. Despite the fact skiing conditions aren’t as good as most Alpine resorts the Czech Republic has an Olympic gold skier called Ester Ledecka.

Famous Faces
Every year there is an International Film Festival held in Karlovy Vary. The festival is held over 5 days, and you can watch over 200 films. It attracts stars from Hollywood and all over the world.

Czech by another name
The Czech language used to be called Bohemian which is a region in the Czech republic in the central and western parts of the country.

A short history on the Czech language

Czech is classified as an Eastern Indo-European language. Together with Polish, Slovak and Sorbian, it belongs to the Western Slavic group of languages. It is also closely related to the Eastern Slavic languages (eg Russian, Ukrainian) and Southern Slavic languages (eg Croatian, Serbian).

The Czech language has its roots in ancient Slavonic, from which it began to separate at the end of the 10th century. It developed during the Middle Ages and spread geographically with the expansion of the Bohemian state (it was known as Bohemian in English until the 19th century).

The literary form of the language became more standardised during the 15th and 16th centuries. This process was influenced by modifications to Czech orthography made by the religious reformer Jan Hus, to accommodate Czech sounds that could not be represented by the Latin alphabet.

Today there are differences between traditional written Czech and common spoken Czech, and several distinct (but mutually intelligible) dialects are spoken within the different regions of the Czech Republic – Bohemia, Moravia and Silesia. It is very similar to Slovak – Czechs and Slovaks can understand each other fairly easily.

Which countries have Czech as a national language?

Czech is the official language of the Czech Republic, where it is spoken by approximately 96% of the population. Other languages spoken in the country include Slovak, German and Polish.

Czech is one of 24 official languages of the European Union.

How many people speak Czech as their first language?

Around 12 million people speak Czech as their first language, the majority of whom live in the Czech Republic. Other countries with significant Czech-speaking communities include Slovakia, Austria, Poland, Germany, Ukraine, Croatia, Romania and the United States.

Did you know…

• There is a particularly large Czech-speaking community in Texas, as a result of thousands of Czech immigrants settling in the state during the 19th century. However, researchers say that the language is dwindling there, and will not survive for much longer.
• The name čeština/Czech comes from that of a Slavic tribe who lived in Central Bohemia. Legend has it that they originally took their name from the Forefather Čech, who brought his tribe to the land.
• Several Czech words do not contain any vowels at all – such as zmrzl (frozen solid), ztvrdl (hardened), scvrkl (shrunk), vlk (wolf) and smrt (death). The Czech language has one consonant widely agreed to be completely unique – the letter ř.

The Czech economy

The Czech Republic has one of the most successful economies of the post-Communist democracies of Central and Eastern Europe, particularly since its accession to the European Union in 2004.

The Czech economy relies heavily on industries such as machine-building, the production of iron and steel, electronics, textiles, chemicals, pharmaceuticals and so on.