Czech and Slovak - Are they Mutually Intelligible Languages?
Are the Czech and Slovak languages similar enough to be mutually intelligible? Well, I think it depends on who you ask. If you ask me, I’d say, definitely not.
From the time I moved to Slovakia and over the four to five years I lived there, many times Slovaks would insist that Czech is so similar to Slovak, that once you knew one language, you’d have little difficulty understanding the other. Well, I thought, that sure would be cool. I’d learn Slovak and then I’d be able to automatically understand Czech.
Hmm. A year went by and then two, all the while I’d be watching Slovak TV and see a Czech movie or Czech TV show and realize that though I could understand some Slovak, I couldn’t understand a single thing in Czech. Hmmm. More time goes by and still, really nothing. What was all that talk I heard about the languages being similar? Why couldn’t I understand any Czech?
Slovaks grew up being exposed to the Czech language. Children watched Czech language cartoons. TV shows and films in Czech are widely seen. At university students sometimes study from Czech text books. Of course this was really advanced while the two countries were united under Czechoslovakia. In present day the exchange is less so but still exists. With all of that exposure it’s no wonder that Slovaks understand the Czech language almost as native speakers.
After my husband and I moved to California, we lived with a roommate who was from Prague. My Slovak husband and our Czech roommate communicated by each speaking their own language. It was only after living for one year listening to Czech that I finally began to understand something. Now I can hear some similarities but I wouldn’t go so far as to say if you understand one language you will understand the other.
The Slovak language and the Czech language belong to the group of “western-Slavic” languages. Polish is the other member of this group. I’m certain that if Slovaks and Poles would have been exposed to each other’s language as much as Czech and Slovak are, then people would be saying that Polish and Slovak are so similar that if you speak one you certainly can understand the other.
9 Comments on “Czech and Slovak - Are they Mutually Intelligible Languages?”
Like anything, it takes practice before you can acquire "an ear" for another language. And for some it's easier than others. I was always so jealous of some people's abilities to pick up a language after a short time, where as I never could learn fast enough.
March 15th, 2010 at 05:41 AM
My friend Tana says that she understands much more Czech than her brother (5 years younger), because there was more Czech programming on TV when she was a kid compared to when him.
March 16th, 2010 at 03:55 PM
I wouldn't say if you speak Slovak you automatically can speak Czech, but it's very easy to learn. As Barbora said above, it's about the talent. I live with a girl who learned Slovak in impressive 4 months and can understand Czech almost as much as Slovak. Every now and then she asks about a particular word, but in general she understands everything. She just has a brain for it… based on what words she understands in Slovak she can imagine what the Czech word could mean without giving it a serious thought. There was a study that people which were exposed to more languages as children, their brain catches up more quickly. Regarding the Polish vs. Czech… I guess it’s not only about what people think, but there is a whole language science behind it. Czechs and Slovaks have simply much more common words than Polish and Slovak. Btw. part of the textarea of the comment form is hidden behind the „Tags“ in the right sidebar, so I cannot see some words I have written.
March 20th, 2010 at 11:29 AM
Personally, I think it also depends whether you are talking about the "official" Czech language or the rather slang Czech that is used in the western part of the Czech Republic. I studied 'spisovna cestina' (standard Czech) for many years and also lived in the Czech Republic. Native speakers were impressed that I knew the "correct" endings and used them when speaking while they used the colloquial versions. While I could understand the official language spoken on television, I sometimes had difficulty understanding common speech. I think if you compare 'standard Czech' with 'standard Slovak' they will be more similar than the slang versions of both. Most people, however, don't speak 'spisovna cestina' with the exception of some parts of Moravia.
April 14th, 2010 at 07:24 PM
Hmmm. Very interesting, Rob. I'm going to ask my Czech friend about this. It sounds like you are on to something here... .
April 15th, 2010 at 08:21 PM
Hi so here some inside from a Slovak. I live in east part of Slovakia. The official Slovak language is historically taken from Detva region so - middle of Slovakia, but each part of Slovakia has an special dialect better or less equipped to understand Czech or Polish or Russian.To tell you there are people in Bratislava that wouldn’t understand a thing my granny is saying. :-) And all the comments I read were right. the understanding depends on ability to learn languages or/and on the quality time spend listening to the other language. I am in my 30 so I remember the time as a child in Czechoslovakia - there were all the best stories and films in Czech only. And then as a student some books were only available on Czech too. But when I went for a holidays to Serbia or Croatia after a few days I could understand the language. So there its something into the Slavonic language group understanding mutually. And I would like to thank you that even abroad you still have love to beautiful Slovakia (land and language) in your hearts.
June 1st, 2010 at 07:43 PM
Hi todays Slovakian Language is historically taken from Martin region.... Territory called Great Moravia witch was Slovanian territory approx. in 9th century. Todays Slovakia was basically in the middle and Language with several modifications over the centuries and with influence from other languages such as Latin and German, rapidly changed , but base of languages in this territory is still same...Czech, Slovakian,Polish,Croatian,Slovenian.For example word ,,BREAD,, (Chleba) If you ask in shops from Baltic sea to Mediterranean south of Croatia everywhere you will get a bread. Its loooong time since 9th century but base of all this languages is coming from Great Moravia.Enough from history...
July 8th, 2010 at 05:18 AM
To Margarete and all the others who want to master Czech out of Slovak. First of all, Czech is far more complicated then Slovak. I'm quite sure many would disagree, but even if you ask Slovak to speak Czech, they will speak very poorly (they will have bad endings of words). Secondly, Czechs are screwing up their own language by not speaking written Czech (even in TV News, which is awful). This is so much better in Slovakia. Also, there is slight difference in pronunciation that very few actually understand. In Slovak, we emphasize first syllable, while in Czech it's the second. But, what is more important. Once I quite mastered English (I am freelance translator, translate into Slovak), I found out that German and French are really similar to English. (Frankly speaking, it's the other way around, current English evolved from French/German) And in fact, it should be. So, if you want to learn Czech, take a step back, and try to find out meanings of French/German words, if you see them written (or when you hear them). Free your imagination! When you master this, you will automatically find similarities between Slovak and Czech (and other Slavic languages). You will find out, that where in Czech there is "ř" (r with hook on top), in Slovak is "r", where in Czech is "ě" (e with hook on top), in Slovak is "e" or "ie". If Czech uses that funny "u" with circle on top ("ů"), in Slovak is "ô" (o with "roof" on top), if it's in the middle of the word, or often "ov", if it's in the end of word, sometimes it's just "u" in Slovak. I may continue, but for making a picture, this might be good enough. Little Slovak kids don't understand Czech. One kid I know said that my wife (who is Czech) speaks weirdly, another even said she speaks German (second kid had only 5 years). And to give you even broader picture, there are Slovak words that Czech will not understand, as there are Czech words that Slovak will not understand. The biggest differences are in botany (names of species, plants, example - Slovak "uškatec" is "lachtan" in Czech), anatomy (e.g. human anatomy). If you say many words from these fields in Slovak, most Czech will not know that term and meaning and vice versa. Be careful with "nasty words". E.g. in Czech republic, one of the biggest offences is "čurák" or "zmrd". While to Slovak, these might sound as mild insults. On the other hand, in Czech republic, words like "kokot", "piča" are consider mild, while in Slovak, those are serious insults. So, to sum it all up. Firstly, free your imagination by guessing the meanings of French/German words (later you may guess Italian/Spanish/Portuguese words). Thanks to this lecture, you teach your brain to find similarities. After that you will find many similarities between Slovak/Czech (and of course French/English and other mentioned languages). After that you start to understand many languages :-)
August 7th, 2010 at 11:17 PM
Hello author:) First of all I would say that you probably have to learn more Slovak (enough to be close to a native-speaker) to understand other similar languages. I am Polish and English is my secong language. After over 15 years of using English, it is quite easy to understand some bits of other Germanic languages that are similar to it - like Dutch (some knowledge of German helps here too). And Czech and Slovak are much more similar to one another than English and Dutch. Two years of learning English wouldn't be enough to understand accents of English: Scottish, Irish, or someone using a heavy working class accent from anywhere in the UK. As I said I am a native speaker of Polish, and although Slovak is a completely different language, it is quite easy to undersytand most everyday things, and more. It's quite common to have a Polish-Slovak chat with both persons speaking their respective languages - and still able to understand one another quite easily (although sometimes similar words can mean very different things). Polish, Czech and Slovak are all West Slavonic languages and have many similarities. These languages have some common past, and for a Polish ear many words and structure seem a bit like old archaic Polish words. Slovak and Polish have however evolved in different directions. There are also some systemic differences that are easy to grasp - like the H-G shift. Slovak and Czech are quite similar to one another, and its easy to see this even looking at product labels - as usually there's Polish, Czech, Slovak and other languages at the back. So judging by how similar Slovak is for a Polish speaker, I would say Czech should be three times as similar for someone speaking Slovak. I would bet that after 10 years of speaking Slovak you will have no problems with Czech:)
August 30th, 2010 at 09:59 PM