My linguistic buddy Jamie had a great post idea. I am to ask people what kind of strange English phrases were they taught back in Czech/Slovakia?
Here is his experience for example:
‘When I arrived at the hotelovka (vocational school for waiters and hospitality services), they were training kids as servers to ask restaurant customers, “Do you have any wishes?” When I first arrived in the CR, nearly everyone was pronouncing “sweater” as “sweeter”, and when we would correct them, they would protest that “sweeter” was “British English”, but the British don’t say it. They also taught the kids to call the školník the “school servant”, which, as far as I know, is only used in Singapore.’
Isn’t it so funny? I myself don’t remember any stupid English phrases I was thought (I am sure there were many) I just know we were thought some STRANGE pronunciation ;0))
Got anything to share? Do it!
CZ: Nas veleznamy lingvista Jamie mel vyborny napad na post. Co jste se pry v ceskych/slovenskych skolach ucili za v praxi neexistujici nebo zastarale anglicke fraze?
Jamie ucil nejaky ten rok v Karlovych Varech anglictinu a toto byla jeho zkusenost:
‘When I arrived at the hotelovka, they were training kids as servers to ask restaurant customers, “Do you have any wishes?” When I first arrived in the CR, nearly everyone was pronouncing “sweater” as “sweeter”, and when we would correct them, they would protest that “sweeter” was “British English”, but the British don’t say it. They also taught the kids to call the školník the “school servant”, which, as far as I know, is only used in Singapore.’
Ja si osobne zadne takove fraze z mych hodin anglictiny nepamatuju, ale co si vybavuji je ta PRISERNA vyslovnost, kterou nas pani profesorky ucily. Tak napriklad slovo ‘vegetable’ jsme museli vyslovovat jako ‘vegetejbl’, nebo slovo ‘parliament’ jsme museli vyslovovat doslova jako ‘parLIAment’ apod.
A co vy? Jakou mate zkusenost s ceskym skolstvim a ‘perlami’ ceskeho jazyka?
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Hey cool, you know Jamie! We worked on some projects together back in the mid-90s.
Not sure if it was taught in schools or just somehow caught on in television or something, but I was always amused by the pronunciation of Chicago as Čikejgo. What quirks do you notice when native English speakers speak Czech?
Actually I have never heard “sweeter”, I think “sweater” was not the problem. I was taught “jumper” and “sweater” was a pleasant surprise since it is almost like “svetr”. I think most issues I had were with the difference in British and American English, when I came here and said “lift” instead of “elevator”, etc. But I do remember they taught us that trash is “waste paper basket” and I was always struggling, why such a long translation for “koš”.
I have to say that I had a really good English teacher, so I really didn’t have many issues. I think the problem was where English was taught by people that took one course somewhere and then were hired to teach others, especially if these people never visited English speaking countries to hear the language from the natives.
Since we are talking about sweaters and jumpers, I mentioned that word just the other day! I said something idiotic like “..and don’t forget to take your jumper with you it will be cold..”
)))
MiGrant, I think there is many quirks to listen to when native English speakers learn Czech because Czech is so difficult! It is very commendable that they are even trying to speak
Jamie měl asi děsné zkušenosti a na základě toho soudí celý národ. My jsem měli skvělé učitele a ne, svetr není svítr, svetr je sweater, nebo pullover, nebo taky jumper, záleží, kdo a co vás učil. Jamie bude asi jeden z těch, kteří učili bez jakékoliv kvalifikace a bez umění umět naučit. Tzv. baťůžkář z USA.
Kamarád mi tento blog doporučil, nechápu, proč se Češi nebaví mezi sebou česky. Pisatelce snad jde čeština lépe než angličtina?
a naučte se jméno vaší rodné země. Buď Czech Republic nebo Czechia, ale nepište, prosím vás, in Czech/Slovakia.
Ahoj Lady a vitej. Vidim, ze rad kritizujes tak si snad asi zaloz svuj vlastni blog kde budes svym kralem, ne? Preji hodne stesti!
Lady, ahoj. Jamie ma doktorat z linguistiky, takze ja bych mu do batuzkaru moc nenadavala. Blog je bilingvni a to aby byl dostupny nejen Cechum, ale take Cecho-Americanum a cizincum, ktery maji radi ceskou kulturu.
Jak jsem jiz rekla, bylo by asi nejlepsi, aby jsi si zalozil svuj blog a zaril svou kritikou tam? Tady na to opravdu neni nikdo zvedavy. Preji hodne stesti!
Lady UK, this blog is bilingual and sometimes trilingual (I was using some Russian words in past)…
. Even if this bloh is called “czechmatediary” I always am happy to see brothers and sisters for Slovakia on this blog, that’s why some people write Czech/Slovak to show, that we are a family 
I think (I cannot speak for Tanja), that this blog serves as a bridge between English speaking world and the Czech Valley
Tanja, don’t be so sensitive to a criticism… when people criticize, they either expose their own imperfectness or they strive for making the other people perfecter (well, more perfect)..
Jinak na vyuku anglictiny si moc nevzpominam, jedine co mi utkvelo v pameti je, ze jsem te ucitelce nikdy nerozumel a ze me odradila od vseho, co znelo anglicky.
Postupne jsem ale toto trauma prekonal a kdyz jsem zjistil, ze se mohu naucit i rusky, tak jsem si rekl, ze mozna ta anglictina taky nebude spatna… Myslim, si, ze ucitel jakehkoliv jazyka by mel byt “native speaker”, v mnoha pripade mistni stripper me muze naucit lepe anglicky nez ceska/slovenska ucitelka anglictiny v CR/SR (nebo v CSSR)…Ja se docela anglicky domluvim, ale netroufal bych si mucit studenty mou vyslovnosti a slovosledem..
Vlastimile, to nevim, jestli je lepsi “native speaker”. Myslim, ze zvlast pro zacatecniky ne, jak nekomu vysvetlis treba gramatiku v cizim jazyce, kteremu nerozumi? Ale samozrejme konverzace je pak lepsi s “nativcem”. My jsme meli kocku z USA a ze zacatku jsme z ni byli na mrtvici, protoze nam rikala “Guys” a my mysleli, ze je to “Gays”, atd.
S “Lady Gaga”, pardon “UK”, souhlasim s tou cestinou, anglictina mi nechybi, meli bychom tu moznost psat cesky vyuzivat. Ale na druhou stranu, kazdy at pise jak chce, stejne jsme vetsinou bilingualni, ci trilingualni, ze Vlastimile
Thats like when my grandma got a pamphlet in the mail about learning english, and one of the “common phrases” was
“Would you fancy joining me to the cinema this Friday evening?” Now that may work in the UK, but I don’t think you’d be taken at all seriously if you tried that in the US.
That sounds like it was taken right from the 1820′s or something
….Did you grandma go for it? 
Jamie ma doktorát z lingvistiky? No pardón. Na které Ivy League studoval? A čím že se dnes živí, ten pan Dr. Jamie?
When I was teaching in Prague, I noticed that my students and Czech friends would often refer to “the nature.” It became a bit of a joke among the American teachers. Whenever we were planning on hiking or camping, we would joke about “spending time in the nature.” It’s just not something a native English-speaker would say, at least an American (I can’t speak for the British). We would just say “nature,” spending time in nature, etc.
Zajimave, ja jsem si prispevkyt LadyUK nevylozila nijak negativne… asi jsem “zamerikanizovana”…:-) Nazory z opacneho “point of view” mne nijak neohrozuji.
Manzel mi pripomnel, ze nekteri Cesi z nejakeho duvodu vyslovuji slovo “problem” jakou “proUblem”. Bylo toho vic, ale nevzpomenu si a nevzpomenu.
A co takhle: “It was based on the equally-named book…” – objevilo se v predchozim clanku. Jsem zvedava, jestli mne za to ukamenujete, ze to zminuji… Nesedi mi to “equally-named” – myslim, ze “equally” znamena spis “rovnomerne, -y”. Osobne bych pouzila “book of the same name…”
Co Vy na to?
Oh, prece jen jsem si na neco vzpomnela – misto A/C pro klimatizaci jsem pouzivala slovo “climatization”
I don’t think many native English speakers would “spend time in nature” without the article either. We might love nature, but the place we like to spend time is “the outdoors” or even “the great outdoors”.
Eva Z, ja jsem quatrolingualni
Muvim plynule cesky, rusky, svedsky, anglicky a rozumim slovensky 
Umim take vyznat lasku v polstine …
Ale myslim, ze anglicky se tu pise proto, abych se ji naucil, protoze ja pracuji mezi Indama, a od nich se anglicky nenaucim….
Melissa, in Sweden ( I speak Swedish) people would say
“i naturen” , which means “in THE nature”… I think it is very logical to say in the nature .. But I understand, that each language has its own logic and when I am in US, I am spending time in nature, in Europe
I spend time in the nature (I simple go deeper for it
I don’t know all the quirks to be heard when native English speakers learn Czech, but it was remarked one day in front of me that we all said, “obyčejně” instead of “většinou”. The person pointing it out said, “They must be taught that in their textbooks!” which was true.
One common mistake of English speakers beginning in Czech is to say, “Musím do záchodu.”
Kind of like my 3-year-old daughter; she translates some of the Czech expressions literally from English too.
Her future tenses are the funniest! Instead of saying “Ja pujdu na prochazku” rekne “Ja budu chodit na prochazku”. The sad part is that I can’t even logically distinguish these two tenses in my brain – I comes to me naturally….It’s time to crack open Czech grammar book!
Haha, climatization! I think I was saying that too at first, Milusko! Equally znamena “stejne”, takze “equally-named” je docela logicke. Ale to asi zalezi jak kdo si vysvetli vyznam urciteho slova a potom se mu to “hodi” ci “nehodi” do vety. Tim se ziskava cit na jazyk, stejne jak “jdu do zachodu”. Ja se smirila s tim, ze moje anglictina asi nikdy perfektni nebude uz jenom tim, ze treba necitim kam dat “the”, “a” a nebo nic, v mnoha pripadech to mam naucene ale ve spouste veci je to pokazde jinak.
No prave, moje anglictina take samozrejmne nikdy perfektni nebude (ted uz ani ta cestina), ale o tom to preci neni. S tim “the” a “a” uplne souhlasim, je to naprosta zahada. Clovek to proste musi mit vrozene
PS: “Climatization” zni docela verohodne!
Ja si moc nepamatuju spatne vyslovnosti ci fraze z Ceska, ale ted se spis bavim svymi nemeckymi kolegy, kteri rikaji “prouses” kdyz vyslovuji “process” and “proublem” instead of “problem”.
Tanjo, kdyz mluvis o cestine…Moje mamka je ucitelka cestiny a vzdy si davala zalezet na tom, abychom meli cestinu perfektni. Vzdy jsem nosila jednicky z diktatu a vzdy byla prikladem (kolikrat nechtenym). Ted uz bohuzel to neni tak slavne. Hrubky nedelam, ale treba velka pismena pisu podle anglictiny a to uz by mi v diktatu neproslo!
Mnoho Čechů nikdy nepřestávají říkat houtl misto hotel. Němci to dělají také a netuším, odkud to mají, protože Angličané říkají hotel, stejně jako Američané.
Strašně mi baví, když tvrdí krejčová, že pracuje jako “sewer”. To nedělají jenom Češky.
Evco, to mi taky dela nekdy problemy. Od te doby, co se bavim cesky s dcerou se to ale vsechno zlepsuje, pravidla ceske mluvy se pomalu ale jiste vraceji do meho zmateneho, bilingvniho mozku.
Asi tak pred rokem jsem delala anketu an to, jake gramaticke chyby delaji Cesi nejcasteji a zde jsou vysledky, kdyby te to zajimalo:
http://czechmatediary.com/2009/02/12/what-in-the-czech-grammar-gives-you-the-most-problems/
Tanjo, diky za link! Vidim, ze nejsem sama, kdo trpi problemy s velkymi pismeny! Myslim, ze to chce zvyk a soustredit se na to, jak rikas, ze ted s malou si to vic procvicis. Byla by skoda to uplne zapomenout a pak psat jak “hotentot”
Jamieho “sewer” mi pripomnelo historku, kde jedna znama mela na navsteve v CR Americana a on pro ne neco ugriloval. A ona kolem nej behala a chtela perlit s anglictinou, tak mu porad rikala “you are a very good cooker!”
)) On chvili koukal a pak se tomu ale taky zasmal!
“You are a good cooker,” by nebylo pro Američana taková perlička, protože slovo “cooker” v Americe neoznačuje sporák. Horší je, když řekne Čech(ka), “You are quite a kook,” což by znamenalo něco jako, “Ty jsi pořádný šilenec.” (Češi a další cizinci ve vyslovnosti většinou neumí rozlišovat slova “cook” a “kook”.)
Jedná znamá ze Švicarska mi vypravěla, jak, když nejdříve chodila s africkým manželem, často mu nabízela: “Shall I cook you?”
No sice to neoznacuje sporak, ale treba papinak je “pressure cooker”. Treba to ten African bral jako inovativni formu predehry
Ne nektere zenske rikaji: “Ja te tak miluju, ze bych te
celeho snedla”… No a tak si chtela toho Africana uvarit, prece jen na syrovo to neni ono..:))
Vlastiku, mas pravdu, poradne osolit a opeprit! :d
Cook and Kook mi pripomnelo dve historky – jednu jsem cetla v nejake ucebnici anglictiny, jejiz autorka pusobila par let v USA jako ucitelka. Psala tam o svych zkusenostech a zazitcich a celkem me dostal pribeh o jejim prvnim dnu v praci, kdyz nevedela, co je “restroom” – myslela, ze je to neco jako “odpocivarna” a tak vsem tvrdila, ze na ceskych skolach zadne restrooms nemame…
Druha story je od znameho, ktery sel do HomeDepot koupit “one sheet of… (uz si nepamatuju ceho) a pozadal prodavace o “one sh#t”.
Jo, a znate nekdo tuto reklamu?: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VSdxqIBfEAw
a nezapomente na nej dat cesnek a pazitku…mnam
Ja teda mel asi normalni ucitele. Ucili jsme se normalni britskou anglictinu, kterou jsem pak uplatnil celkem slusne tady v US, akorat jsem se musel doucit par slovicek a trosku jinou gramatiku nebo hlaskovani.
A kdyz uz se tady resi Umberto Eco, tu knihu miluji, ale novel je roman a equally named je blbost na entou. Equal a same nejsou v tomto pripade zamenitelny, asi nemate cit pro jazyk, kdyz to tak vidite. Equally named book je proste WRONG!!!! Based on the book of the same name, tak se to vzdycky v novinach pise a je to tak spravne. Ten nazev knihy a film si nejsou rovny, nemluvime o rovnopravnosti, ale jsou stejne, cili totozne.
A novel je ROMAN, novela je uplne neco jinyho. Opravite si to tam?
Roman je “novel”. Novela je “novella”. Nejsou stejne.
“Equally named book” je nesmysl, jak rikate, Gandalf.
What about “equally named” when I want to say “named in the same manner” ? In software programming, you can name thing in the same manner and still the names can be different….
Gandalf, I am going to write in English so everyone can understand. First off all, I have lived here for 12 years so yes I will lose some feel for a few Czech words.With English it will be the same – I will make a mistake from time to time. Do you make mistakes? Evidently not, because you (and a few others around here) seem to feel this is a place where you can show some sort of language-superiority by pointing out mistakes in my writing.I am open to correction of course, but when people like you just drop in and start criticizing my writing and make your life mission to correct every wrong (without any other input or conversation), its completely RUDE and ridiculous. It’s like GET A LIFE AND WRITE YOUR OWN GRAMMATICALLY PERFECT BLOG. People like you make me want stop writing this blog and move on to something else in life. You are just really spoiling it for me.
So, to answer your question, I am not going to correct that word, mostly because of the way you came across here. If you were nice, respectful and polite about it I would take your advice in but not like this.
To my other readers- sorry for venting here but you would not believe some of the negative,rude,critical and downright mean emails and comments I get (that I do not often post) and it just gets really, really old. I guess I am learning in life when you step out and do something that is constructive, creative AND public, there are always people that will try and prove their so-called superiority and tear you down, rather than just go and do something of their own. Oh well.
Where’s the “Like” button?
Taníčko, don’t let the haters spoil it for you or the rest of us who love your blog!
Thanks MiGrant! I needed a little ray of sunshine here
Now I know, why RUDE pravo is RUDE
Tanja, compared to you, my English is different, I speak and write correctly from “time to time”.
It is normal to make mistakes, so even if you forget some Czech words or make incorrect use of English ones, so what? Live is a journey, and everybody has its own ups and downs… There are people around us, who have only “downs” in their live, and hate people who have “ups” in their live… Unfortunately people , who are real losers, are slowly taking over the society and and will force the rest of us to share with them whatever they don’t have….
I guess they are not loser’s after all…rudeness, incomeptence and arrogance pays
I made some errors to prepare some food for our blog haters
)
Oh – oh! Doufam, ze me neradite k “hater” za to, ze jsem se na to slovni spojeni zeptala. :-O Nechtela jsem Tani ublizit.
Tani, please, nehaz flintu do zita. Divej se na tu “BIGGER PICTURE” – zjevne, Tvuj blog je popularni, pod clanky to zije, to znamena, ze je lidi ctou, premysleji a diskutuji.
Podle mne musi zazivat KAZDY blogger – pochybuji, ze existuje blog s VYHRADNE pozitivnimi ohlasy.
A co to je, jedna chybicka v jednom clanku z takoveho mnozstvi? Kapka v mori. To se stava. Kazdy delame chyby.
Ja osobne mam Tve clanky rada, kvuli napaditym nametum a samozrejme zpracovani.
Soustred se na ty pozitivni ohlasy, na lidi, co Te podporuji. Obojiho je vic. WHAT YOU LOOK AT, GROWS.
Thanks guys, now I feel much better!
)
)
Diky lidicky, uz se citim lip, to vite, par hezkych pozitivnich slovicek hned cloveka povzbudi!
No tak existuji blogy s pouze pozitivnimi ohlasy…kdyz si autor blogu maze vsechny negativni komentare a nepusti na blog nic, co by ho mohlo urazit. Nac takova tirade? Normalni clovek si opravi chybu, kdyz nekdo ukaze na to, ze je nekde chyba, ale vy ne. Vy misto toho zacnete fnukat, jak je zivot zlej a nespravedlivej a hned za vsecko muzou lidi ostatni. Oni vam to kazi, boze, seberte se zenska, kolik vam je? Ostatne ani nevim, zda schvalite tento komentar, protoze si dovolim rict, ze delate chyby jak v cestine, tak anglictine. Za 12 let jste moc pokrok neudelala a kdyz vas nekdo opravi, tak radsi budete plakat misto toho, abyste se neco priucila? Divna zenska. Takovou bych doma nechtel. Uz sem radsi nebudu chodit, tady je to samy posramoceny ego.
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