ř

that's a letter that most people have never seen before, and it's one that i never really had to pronounce very much until now. the "hooked" r is one of the many nuances of the czech language that makes crossing the border fairly difficult. to pronounce it you need to mix two different bucchal sounds. first you take a rolled r. then, you add the sound made by the s in the word "pleasure." now say those two sounds simultaneously and you will get a hooked r. the declinations here are also a little bit different, so that's been the main thing i've been battling so far. there are so many times when we'll be teaching somebody and i'll want to say something, but then i have to double take because although i know the word in slovak i'm not even sure if the word exists in czech. i have to so that i'm doing pretty well, but there was one day in the week when i just really kept stumbling over my czech words. it went on like that for a few hours until we ran into a few people on the square. we started talking to them. one of the men asked "ako sa vam paci tu v jihlave?" (how do you like it in jihlava). i did a big double take becuase that is most definitely not a czech phrase. i paused for a moment and then asked "are you a slovak?" the man and his friend replied that yes, they were both slovak. one from spisska nova ves and the other from nitra. it was like running into one of your friends or relatives who you had been away from for a long time by chance on the street. i immediately jumped into slovak mode. i'm really enjoying myself in jihlava so far, but not going to lie running into a pair of slovaks was pretty great.

 

ahoj'te

sam