Czech Update
The latest updates from news and events for all interested in Czech language and culture.
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Svatý Valentýn comes to Prague, fills expat paper's space
Author: Dominik Lukeš Posted: February 13th, 2009
Categories: About Czechs and Czech Republic
• Habits and customs
• History
• Holidays
• Numbers, statistics, surveys and polls
The Prague Daily Monitor makes a 'desperate-to-fill-space-on-the-page' connection between the increasing popularity of the previously un read more »
EU Skeptic Ideologue Praises 'Courageous' Czechs in a Newspaper that Once Supported Hitler's Annexation
Author: Dominik Lukeš Posted: February 8th, 2009
Categories: About Czechs and Czech Republic
• History
• International perspectives: Czechs and the world
• National identity
• News
• Numbers, statistics, surveys and polls
Prominent UK right-winger, Peter Hitchens lays out the involved history of the Czech land in a typically tendentiously der read more »
Death of former child star, a time to reminisce
Author: Dominik Lukeš Posted: February 6th, 2009
The death of Czech actress Dana Vávrová reminded of what for many people of my generation was the golden a read more »
Czech drinking habits revealed
Author: Dominik Lukeš Posted: January 27th, 2009
Categories: About Czechs and Czech Republic
• Food and drink
• Habits and customs
• Health
• International perspectives: Czechs and the world
• Numbers, statistics, surveys and polls
1 in 10 Czechs drink like fish, 1 in 10 are teetotallers and the rest have the occasional tipple adding up to 10 liters of pure booze per head per year. All that and more was revealed by a recent survey. read more »
40th Anniversary of Jan Palach's Suicide
Author: Dominik Lukeš Posted: January 16th, 2009
Today is the anniversary of Jan Palach's suicide. read more »
Google Maps Adds Public Transport info for Prague
Author: Dominik Lukeš Posted: January 15th, 2009
Categories: About Czechs and Czech Republic
• International perspectives: Czechs and the world
• Tourism
The ever-improving Google Maps just added another feature to its map of Prague. In addition to relevant photos, videos and Wikipedia entries, you can now see if there's any public transportation near where you want to go. read more »
Scottish Harvest in Bohemia Wins BCSA Prize
Author: Dominik Lukeš Posted: January 2nd, 2009
From a BCSA press release: read more »
Czech Republic Enters the Year Presiding over the EU
Author: Dominik Lukeš Posted: January 1st, 2009
Categories: About Czechs and Czech Republic
• International perspectives: Czechs and the world
• Politics
Nobody described the challenges ahead than Radio Netherlands:
International news - Radio Netherlands Worldwide - English
www.radionetherlands.nl/news/international/6117... read more »
Books by Čapek out of copyright on 70th anniversary of his death
Author: Dominik Lukeš Posted: December 26th, 2008
The title says it all really! Thanks to the people at the MobileRead forums. I assume this only applies to his works in Czech rather than the English translations which are more recent and carry their own copyright. read more »
Google Announces Czech<->English dictionary - Best Online Tool Yet for Learners
Author: Dominik Lukeš Posted: December 11th, 2008
Google just released a Czech/English - English/Czech http://www.google.cz/dictionary that is the best online tool I've seen for learners. read more »
Google Czech live long, Google Prague, get rich
Author: Dominik Lukeš Posted: November 27th, 2008
Resuming Czblogging after a hiatus with the amazing news that simply Googling Czech can have beneficial consequences. A new Google mashup StateStats shows correlations between US states' socioeconomic characteristics and the frequency of particular search terms originating from those terms. read more »
Czech president sulky over same sex unions
Author: Dominik Lukeš Posted: June 27th, 2008
For an atheist and reasonably liberal country, same-sex unions are having a tough time in the Czech Republic. Finally, a new laws gives some rights to same-sex couples but it sent the president Václav Klaus into a tizzy. The president, as always happy to bolster his typical opportunistic populism with inherent homophobia, decided to signal his opposition by not signing the bill. read more »
Spread Bohemica.com with new widget!
Author: Dominik Lukeš Posted: June 24th, 2008
You can now help spread Bohemica.com by sharing this widget on your site or on Facebook.
read more »
Lost in translation: Prudish Washington Post journalist mistranslates spa, has time of her life in Karlovy Vary
Author: Dominik Lukeš Posted: February 7th, 2009
Categories: About Czechs and Czech Republic
• Environment
• Habits and customs
• Health
• History
• Holidays
• International perspectives: Czechs and the world
• Language
• Tourism
A slender blonde sitting next to me on a bench in Karlovy Vary's Spa III got up, tossed off the white read more »
Most Czechs feel EU alegiance
Author: Dominik Lukeš Posted: January 28th, 2009
Categories: International perspectives: Czechs and the world
• National identity
• Numbers, statistics, surveys and polls
It appears that most Czechs feel good about the EU membership - even half the communists - as the Czech six-month EU presidency gets under way. read more »
Amazing images of Czech countryside on Flickr
Author: Dominik Lukeš Posted: January 22nd, 2009
A photographer calling himself 'svedek' (wittness) has an a set of absolutely astonishing snapshots of the 'Czech lands' on Flickr. A must-see for anybody nostalgic after their visit or looking for motivation to go have a look. It's a collection of the new and the old, city and country, sacred and mundane. read more »
Czech Language Institute makes dictionary available online
Author: Dominik Lukeš Posted: January 16th, 2009
Czech Language Institute, the guardian of Czech language usage guidelines, made available a wonderful online resource on http://prirucka.ujc.cas.cz. It's targeted at Czechs, thus the interface and many of the grammatical explanations are in Czech but even beginner learners can take advantage of the search. Just type in any word in any form, click [Hledej] and get a full listing of its other forms as in the picture below. read more »
A little glimpse of Czech history
Author: Dominik Lukeš Posted: January 7th, 2009
Categories: About Czechs and Czech Republic
• History
• International perspectives: Czechs and the world
An interesting article from 1939's Telegraph appeared giving us a glimpse of Czech history at a painful moment in the country's memory as it was casually described by the British press little realising that it was but the first step on the way to the invasion of Britain.
read more »Czech year in pictures
Author: Dominik Lukeš Posted: December 27th, 2008
Categories: About Czechs and Czech Republic
• History
Czech online newspaper Aktuálně.cz published an excellent overview of the Czech political year 2008 in pictures. Including this picture of the Brother Mašíns' rehabilitation debate. read more »
Learn multiple Slavic languages at once with NiceTranslator
Author: Dominik Lukeš Posted: December 13th, 2008
Nicetranslator.com uses the Google Translate service to give instant response as you type and you can even choose multiple languages at once including Slovak, Polish, Russian, Slovenian, or Croatian. This could be useful for students of Slavonic languages in general but it also shows bits of sentences as you type them in. read more »
Google struggling to translate 'friends' into Czech
Author: Dominik Lukeš Posted: December 4th, 2008
Categories: Habits and customs
• Idioms
• Language
• Technology
• Vocabulary
• friend
• frienship
• idioms
• Translation
According to Zive.cz, Google.cz is asking the Czech internet community how they would like to translate the now ubiquitous word 'friend' into Czech. This is a real problem. read more »
Czech crooners (dead and alive) on YouTube
Author: Dominik Lukeš Posted: July 7th, 2008
Karel Hála, a star of Czech big band pop music since the 1950s just died as reported by Lidové Noviny. Here's a cliop of him and another stallwart of Czech pop Karel Gott.
read more »
Czech animation reviving rich history
Author: Dominik Lukeš Posted: June 27th, 2008
Czechs have always been on the cutting edge of animation (even helping with some of the Tom and Jerry cartoons in the 1950s and 1960s) and now it seems, things are looking up again, as this short article in Variety suggests. The name from the past to take note of is Jan Švankmajer who's cited as an influence on Tim Burton and Terry Gilliam. read more »
Czech Worldmusic via Čankišou on YouTube
Author: Dominik Lukeš Posted: June 23rd, 2008
Categories: Music
• You Tube Pick
Czech folklore music often counts as World Music but this is Czech musicians having fun with what they perceive to be the music of the world. I found out about this video via an American friend who saw it on a World Music channel. read more »
