Czechmatediary

Tell us your story… What led you to come to the US?
I came in August 2001 to visit my friend as well as to work as an au-pair. I also wanted to get to know this country a little better, learn English…the usual stuff. Originally, the plan was to stay just for a year and I have been here for 6 ½ years now:). I live here by myself, my whole family still lives back in Czech. At first I had started attending a local college to take some ESL courses, which turned into getting my GED and I have been currently finishing up a second year of the Business Management program here and I love it.

How is the Czech community in Atlanta? Was it easy for you to find new Czech friends?
I have met a lot of great people here. The Czech community in Atlanta is pretty big. We have a Czech supermarket here, Czech restaurant, as well as a Slovak restaurant. (more…)

When I was a little girl I loved dolls (what a surprise, right?). I loved them so much that every time my dad was leaving for work I would ask him to bring me one. Well, one of those days has become a memory for the rest of my life.

It was summertime and I was vacationing with my family at our cottage. Since our parents didn’t have as much time off as us, kids, my dear grandma Kaja would baby-sit us during that time. This grandma became one of my most influential people in my life. She survived both wars, raised 2 kids during W.W.II and feverishly taught French for most of her life. She also believed in a true and pure communism (nowadays we call it Utopia). Anyhow, since grandma Kaja endured through the war times she has always had the survival-of-the-fittest attitude and therefore learned to be VERY frugal and VERY resourceful. Let me just give you an example (and I am sure some of you may relate as their grandmas did similar things):

1. She would never throw away milk bags (during communism milk was sold in plastic bags) to use them later for other purposes such as a storage for her rubber bands. (more…)

I was sitting out in the hall waiting for my Czech class to begin and trying to ignore a sore throat when an instructor in German came along. She noticed my Czech grammar book and asked me if Czech was a difficult language to learn. It struck me then and there; everything is relative. On the sliding, sore throat scale, German is definitely harder to speak than Czech, even with its letter ‚ch‘. I suppose the nasally French language may be the most soothing of all but I never took that language so I’ll have to make the typical ‚gallic‘ shrug on that one.

A ‚simple‘ formula for constructing a sentence in Czech:

1. pick a verb, any verb. Sip it, hold it in your mouth a moment; savor it. Does it have good ‚legs‘; does it decline well. You don’t want one of those hybrid verbs, half conjugation type 1 and half type 3 (probably should call these renegade verbs). And definitely stay away from the ‚landmine‘ verbs whose declined stem does not even look like the infinitive. (more…)

You may have glanced at the TV show Wifeswap (where families exchange their wifes/moms for a certain period of time) while surfing your TV channels or it can be one of our favorite shows that you faithfully watch every week. If that is the case then you are not alone. Not only it is a hit in the US but the Czech version (Vymena manzelek) produced by the NOVA channel has become pretty much the number one reality TV show (even more popular than Big Broher!) in the Czech Republic. According to the ATO-Mediasearch about 58% of people are hooked on the Vymena manzelek where the final episode was watched by 1/3 of the Czech population (2.82 million Czechs). In fact, the show is so popular that the members of the Czech Parliament want to take it off the air. (more…)

Did you like the movie “I, Robot” or “A.I.” (Artificial intelligence)? These movies are a pure rip-off of one of Karel Capek’s novels called the R.U.R. (Rossum’s Universal Robots). In this masterpiece Capek introduces the now frequently used international word “robot” - the non-human intelligent being. The word itself was invented by Karel’s dear brother Josef and it is derived from a Czech verb “robotovat” which is an archaic word for “working”. Capek is one of the great - if not the greatest - writers of the inter-war Czechoslovakia. Beside being an author of numerous fabulous books what was he like? Don’t be misled by his meek look. He had quite an adventurous life: he was expelled from high school, later married an actress and becomes a good friend of the president (T.G. Masaryk). (more…)

Here is a guest post of a gentleman named Michael whose enthusiasm for learning the Czech language is quite inspirational. See for yourself…

CZ: Je na case predstavit meho mileho hosta Michala. Je zakem druheho rocniku ceskeho jazyka na mistni universite a jeho nadseni k uceni tohoto sloziteho jazyka je proste nakazlive. Posudte sami:

“IF I HAD TO CHOOSE MY FAVORITE CZECH WORD…”

If I had to choose my favorite Czech word, “pokoj” comes to mind immediately. With its double meaning of ‘room’ and ‘peace of mind’, it is, to me, the perfect example of why one should learn the language to know the culture. (more…)

The Czech Republic (and Slovakia) has an interesting tradition. If you are a high school student your mom will most likely force you to go to “do tanecnich” ( Dancing school). It is a very inexpensive way to not only learn how to dance almost any type of dance that currently exists (seriously, they teach you anything from Polka to Samba to Foxtrot) but it is also a socialization tool for all of the pimply kids out there. When you are 15 or 16 years old, it is hard to talk to the opposite sex (well, for most of us anyway). But this dancing school makes you to do exactly that. At the beginning of each weakly session you are forced into pairs (male -female) whether you like it or not. (more…)

The ultimate evil has finally descended onto the streets of beautiful Prague! What am I talking about? The first Starbucks will be opening there at the end of the month. This cookie-cutter,McDonald’s-like restaurant chain, where even the toilet bowl faces in exactly the same angle at every single Starbucks location in the world, will be located at the Gromlingovsky palace at the Malostranske square. Gromlingovsky palace has been a hang-out place of famous philosophers, writers and other various artists for centuries and this tradition is basically going to end right here. Why? Because the Starbucks sterile and monotone environment does not exactly wake up one’s creative muse. Don’t get me wrong, I love Starbucks. I love it so much that I used to work there for about 3 years ( that’s a story for some other time - or post). The coffee quality is great and consistent and it basically saved the US from drinking mud water until eternity. But does Europe need Starbucks? Does Prague need Starbucks?? NO! (more…)

The legendary Czech singer, Karel Gott (68), got married on Monday in Las Vegas! His new wife is called Ivana Machackova and comes from the city of Opava. Ivana is 31 years old (37 years younger than Gott) and although young in age, she has had some exciting dating history. Among her past boyfriends is also listed the famous American actor, Michael Douglas, whom she dated for 2 years. The Gott family is now expecting another baby and everyone is hoping for a boy since Gott has 3 other daughters, 2 of them coming from his former relationships. (more…)

In her article “The secrets of the Czech complexion” Rosie Johnson expresses her perplexion over the beauty of Czech girls’ skin during the winter times and calls them the “Sun-kissed goddesses”. I don’t mean to brag or anything but being Czech myself, I have to say I have gotten some positive comments on my skin complexion as well. Needless to say, that I have just recently discovered that there is actually a specific kind of soap for your face! I is kind of embarrassing that up till recently I have just been using water (or a regular bar of soap) to wash my face down. But my friend decided to educate me one day and made me buy one of those fancy face soaps (for about $20,000 a bottle) and the result??? (more…)