Czechmatediary

According to the National Security Council of the Czech Republic more than 390,000 immigrants came to the Czech Republic in 2007. That is 22% increase when compared to the last year’s figures. Why this sudden increase?

1. Czech economy is doing great
2. unemployment rate is low (5%)
3. government subsidizes programs for various industries

Although it is easier to get in the Czech Republic when compared to other countries in Western Europe, it is much harder to stay, which a lot of immigrants don’t know.Marie Jelinkova, the spokesman of the Prague Multicultural Centre further explains: “You can come to the CR when you have a certain purpose (job, study). Once you lose you purpose, you are expected to leave..“. And what countries do most foreigners come from? (more…)

Did you know that prices of some food items in the Czech Republic went up 20 - 30% since the beginning of the year? That’s outrageous! I thought we had it bad here in the United States with the ever-climbing gas prices. The magazine Radio Praha digs deeper to find the cause of this Czech groceries crises (click here)…

CZ: Vite, ze vetsina ceskych potravnin je od pocatku tohoto roku o 20 - 30% drazsi? Kolik ted vubec stoji Fidorka? 50 kourn, nebo i vic?? Ja tady v Americe placu nad cenami mistniho benzinu, zatimco v Cechach to maji mnohem horsi. Nad duvody teto potravinarske krize se pozastavuje magazin Radia Prahy (kliknete zde).

Source: http://www.radio.cz/en/article/103977

Every 2 years the EU commission assesses the situation of those countries of EU which in the future are planning to use the Euro currency system. The criteria range anywhere from the proper rate of inflation, share quotations to the rate of interest and other financial measurements. The Czech Republic for example does not fulfill the required inflation rate (in 12 months the IR = 4.4% with the EU limit being as low as 3.2%). Besides the CR other European countries such as Slovakia, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Bulgaria and Sweden, were going through a similar scrutinizing investigation. (more…)

The “My Czech Republic” website did a poll on people’s favorite Czech meal and here are the results:

1. Beef goulash with dumplings (Hovezí guláš s knedlíkem) - 18% [27 people ]
2. Beef sirloin with dumplings and vegetable cream sauce (Svícková na smetane, knedlík) - 21% [ 32]
3. The winner: Roast pork, dumplings and sauerkraut (”vepro-knedlo-zelo”) - 28% [42 ] (more…)

Money is always a hot topic. Do you ever wonder who makes the most money? Is it the Germans? The Swiss? Or maybe the Dutch?? Well, the truth has finally been revealed. The biggest salaries are currently being earned by the Swiss, specifically those who work in Zürich. The current European salary table looks like this: (more…)

It’s kind of embarrassing but the most common Czech words are :

• voni ( the colloqial “oni” meaning “they”)
• proste (colloquial “right”)
• teda (”well”)
• bejt (the colloquial “byt” meaning “to be”)

Do they not look familiar to you? That is because they are used in spoken Czech. So unless you have the Dictionary of Spoken Czech near by you are pretty much left guessing to what those words might mean. Profesor Cermak, the creator of one of the above mentioned dictionaries, recorded in his research sample speeches by over 500 people and discovered that the spoken Czech uses huge number demonstrative pronouns such as “that”, “there”, “here”, “that” as well as the pronoun “I”. Also particles such as “vzdyt”, “no”, “aby”, “ze jo” (”after all”, “well”, “right”..) are very common through which we express our +/- attitudes, expectations or doubts.

What are one of the most frequent Czech nouns? (more…)

According to the Eurostat’s new statistical data the Czech Republic rates as one of the safest countries of the European Union. Surprisingly, the most dangerous EU states are:

• Sweden
• Belgium
• Great Britain

Only every 30th Czech is predicted to commit a crime, whereas every 7th Swedish person has a high probability of joining the “dark side”. (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…)

Have you decided who would you like to be the future president of the Czech Republic? Svejnar or Klaus? Are you still undecided? When the lidovky.cz survey asked people who would they pick to be a new Czech president, these were the results:

• 921 voted for Klaus
• 524 voted for Svejnar (more…)
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The 2000 United States census counted 1,262,527 people of Czech ethnicity (0.4% of the US population), 797,764 of Slovak ethnicity (0.3%), and 441,401 persons that listed themselves as Czechoslovakian (0.2% of US population). That’s over 2.5 million of our brothers and sisters living the US - not bad! The biggest US ethnic group are the Germans (15.2%), followed by the Irish (10.8%) and the English (8.7%).

CZ: Ve Spojenych Statech zije pres vice nez 2,5 milionu Cechu a Slovaku (2000), coz je 0.9% celkove Americke populace; tak to neni spatne! Nejvetsi etnickou skupinou jsou Nemci, pote Irove a Anglicane.

These are the largest Czech/Czechoslovak/Slovak communities in the US: (more…)