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The internet pages of the iDnes magazine re-created the communist shopping mall and it is AWESOME! Talking about reminiscing, this will definitely bring back some weird memories (I mean who didn’t have Krasohled!!!! - see picture above)…… (more…)

Have you ever found yourself translating Czech idioms into the English language? I have; and once you do there is no way out. No matter how serious the topic is, once you throw in the “…you can kill two flies with one swap that way….” (an equivalent of “kill two birds with one stone”) or “...that’s totally a Spanish village for me….” (meaning “I have no clue on this one”) you are bound to get confused looks from your English-speaking listeners and the serious conversation is over because everyone starts to laugh. Anyhow, here is some more of these play-on-words thingies that I found or thought of. Feel free to add some!

CZ: Taky vzdycky udelate tu samou chybu a prelozite jeden z nasich ceskych idiomu do anglictiny? A taky dostanete zmatene pohledy? Ja jsem v tomto ohledu “nevylecitelna”. Jestlize vam repertoar jiz dochazi, tak tady si jich par muzete pripomenout…

• Take your legs on your shoulders = vezmi nohy na ramena (take to your heels)
• Like soaked hen = vypadas jako zmokla slepice (you look glum)
• Throw it behind your head = hod to za hlavu (forget about it)
• To have a milk on your chin = tece mu mliko po brade (to be still very young and naive) (more…)
  If you liked this post buy me a coffee! (Suggested:$3 a latte $8 for a pound) Thanks!

There is a big difference between the Czech police versus the ones in the United States. I just wish I would have known it earlier – much earlier. That way I wouldn’t have to go through yet another embarrassing experience. Let me explain. About 2 years after I had come to the US I finely got my driving license and purchased a used Ford Tempo from about 1912 – I mean,a really old car. But I was happy as a clam, aimlessly driving around the block for days, feeling like a queen. One of the main reasons why I bought the car was so I could get myself to school every day. One of my classes during that time was held in the evening so I had to drive home after dark. As I was leaving the school campus one of those days all of a sudden a campus police car appeared in my rear-view mirror. (more…)

Maybe the Czechs (and all of Europe, actually) got it right: smoking is good for you after all! Don’t believe me? Watch this YouTube “medical report”:

Mozna, ze Cesi (a vubec cela zakourena Evropa) maji s tim kourenim pravdu: koureni podporuje zdravi! Neverite mi? Tak podivejte na toto “zdravotnicke” YouTube video: (more…)

Just a ‘simple’ day in the life . . .

. . . of a Czech language student. Lots of conditionals, imperatives, and motion verbs to think about and memorize; no big deal, just the simple life in a second level Czech language class. But, then there is that certain special day that puts it all into perspective; in fashion terms, gives it ‘bling’.

Our class is taught by a young ?eška graduate student. The university Slavic languages department is searching for a permanent faculty position in Czech language and literature. Each of the four candidates for this position has had to come and teach our class for one session with the search committee members looking on. The other day, we had our last candidate come to our class. I say ‘we’ and ‘our’ but this would be misleading. On this fateful day, of six students, only one showed up (a particularly poor comment on student attendance). That would be me. (more…)

I stumbled upon this article the other day and I thought it was worth for me to share it with you. It is called “What Europeans think of each other“, written by an American who have lived there for 4 years. It is a very raw, blunt humor but that’s why it’s so funny. Just to give you a taste, this is what the Dailycandor writes about the Polish:

The Poles — Not much seems to register about Poland and the Poles except that they’re quiet. They are a relatively big country (40 million people) so the supposed scare of being overrun by Eastern Europeans when a bunch of Eastern European countries joined the EU in 2005 focused in on the Poles. The Germans really don’t like Poles, and among Germany’s 9 neighbors, are disliked the most. Poland is considered a country of car thieves by the Germans. Really, the relationship between Germany and Poland is similar to that of the United States and Mexico, and often for many of the same reasons (differences in income, history of war, different languages, etc.).Poles really shore up their hatred for their eastern & southern neighbors, primarily Russia and Ukraine, although they don’t like Czechs, Slovaks or Lithuanians either. Oddly, they don’t really mind the Germans, and probably still fear them a bit — you never, ever hear jokes about Germans in Poland. (more…)

The Czechs will never have to take a shower again! You can blame the Czech scientists for that. This time they are working on a self-cleaning textile material, which means that the clothing made out of this stuff will clean itself “on the go” - while being worn. This is going to be accomplished by the help of a special lining which is activated by th sun’s rays. Sun simply melts those impurities away. This kind of special textile has been already been used to make table-cloths where the inevitable food stains don’t penetrate the cloth as deep, hence the washing process becomes much easier and faster. (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…)

No matter what way you slice it women all over the world go by the same equation: they like to shop, they like to talk and explode if handled without care. The e-mail I received the other day just confirms it - see for yourself:

CZ: Zeny na celem svete “funguji” podle stejnych pravidel: radi nakupuji, jsou ukecane, a kdyz se s nimi nejedna opatrne, muzou take vybouchnout. A e-mail, ktery jsem nedavno obdrzela to jen potvrzuje:

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