Czech compared to Portuguese and Spanish
Posted July 31st, 2007 by JRdeAssis
Hi,
I´d like to know if anyone knows how is Czech compared to Portuguese or Spanish languages. If it is hard to native Portuguese or Spanish speaker to learn it; which is more easy or difficult, the grammar, vocabulary, pronnunciation.
Thank you for the attention,
Good bye.:
Well, these languages have really very little in common so learning Czech for a Spanish speaker is just as difficult as Russian, Polish or Norwegian.
There are some cognates: school = škola and some grammatical similarities. Czech doesn't use an overt personal pronoun to indicate the subject of a verb and there is also a way to distinguish between acquired and inherent properties (through case). But other than that, they are not very similar.
Hi,
thank you Dominik Lukes.
What do you mean by "inherent properties"? Probabily I know the name in Spanish or Portuguese.
Actually, as a Brazilian, my native language is Portuguese, but once its structure is very much close to Spanish and Spanish is more famous around the world, it is easier to get some information.
Good bye.:
Hi,
Dominik, well, I am not sure if this 'predicative instrumental' is the same for Spanish and for Czech. The Spanish 'ser' and 'estar' is just the same of Portuguese, in infinitive form they are the same, the meanings too, they only variate a little when conjugated.
For me it is not a matter of "to become", of I´ll be. "estar" refers to now.
In Spanish you may say:
She is pretty
Ella es bonita ( she is always beautiful, naturally)
Ella está bonita (she is well dressed, good make up etc)
Perhaps I have misturderstood you, for far I understood, I am not sure wether it is the same logic or not.
Thank you anyway for the willignes, and for that Learn Spanish website.
Good bye.:
Yes, you are right. They are not quite the same. Your example would not apply in Czech where you'd need a noun expressing a status rather than an adjective expressing an attribute - mostly it is relegated to professions. The essential logic of the difference is the same but the actual use of it is probably different enough not to make that very useful (in that it is similar to the article in different languages - they express definiteness or indefiniteness but they are not used in the same way).
I was giving this more as an interesting example of linguistic similarities than something a student can make much use of. When you want to learn a new language you basically have to learn it on its own terms. Other languages can help remember vocabulary or make sense of the logic but for true proficiency you need to leave them behind.
Hi,
This "Ser-Estar" thing is very peculiar to Portuguese and Spanish, in my first classes of English course I thought it was very strange the fact of there is only one "to be" - and then, later, I found out that the expection were us, once it seems that other languages have only one "to be" as well.Anyway, yes, Dominik, I agree with you that we need to take some distance from other languages (mainly from our native one) when learning a new one. But it is a hard task, this year I started to study Spanish more seriously by myself, to leave Portuguese completly behind would not be good, since both languages has the same 'base', but there are also some slightly, and dangerous difference, even in grammar or in vocabulary (and in vocabulary they can create some bad situations).
Arthur Schopenhauer wrote an essay about it, I do not know what is the common tranlastion for its name in English or in Czech, but I can give you the original title - Über Sprache und Worte. Perhaps you already know it. It is interesting, althought not very 'friendly', I must say. He writes that many people when speak a foreign language use expression of their own, they do not 'think in the other language', and he defends that it also happens because some of these people do not know how to use their own language very well, only have "recorded" some "done expressions" and repeat them. Not a 'friendly' point of view indeed, but interesting.
By the way, Dominik, do you speak Spanish very well? Or only have some notions of it?
Thank you again,
Good bye.:
I don't know the essay but I will have a look at it (the English translation is On Words and Language the Czech might be O slovech a o jazyce but I don't know if that's how it's been translated.)
I took month-long course in Spanish in 1998 when I lived in Barcelona but have forgotten almost everything by now except for some salient linguistic features.
Hi,
I thought it was "About Words and Language", well, I hope you like it. There are others with similar themes; about books, writers, thinking by yourself.
Ah, it is a pity you have forgotten almost everything, Spanish is interesting, and perhaps it becomes the next Lingua Franca. To learn Spanish in Barcelona must be nice, you may learn Spanish (Castellano) and Catalan at the same time ^^.
Next time, spend a month in Lisbon and learn some Portuguese =)
Good bye.: