Collins Gem Czech Phrasebook and Dictionary. Collins Dictionaries

       Theatre/opera

       Television

       Sport

       Skiing

       Walking

      Communications

       Telephone and mobile

       Text messaging

       E-mail

       Internet

       Fax

      Practicalities

       Money

       Paying

       Luggage

       Repairs

       Laundry

       Complaints

       Problems

       Emergencies

      Health

       Pharmacy

       Doctor

       Dentist

      Different types of travellers

       Disabled travellers

       With kids

      Reference

       Alphabet

       Measurements and quantities

       Numbers

       Days and months

       Time

       Time phrases

      Eating out

       Eating places

       In a bar/café

       In a restaurant

       Vegetarian

       Beers, wines and spirits

      Menu reader

      Grammar

      Public holidays

       Dictionary

       English-Czech

       Czech-English

       About the Publisher

       Pronouncing Czech

      Czech contains some unfamiliar letters and a few difficult sounds for English speakers. The letters b d f g h k l m n p s t v x and z sound the same as in English. Note that g is always hard as in ‘lag’, never soft as in ‘large’, and s is always hissed as in ‘less’, never like z as in ‘Les’. The stress is always on the first syllable of the word. The pronunciation guide in this book uses hyphens to separate the syllables. The letters l and r can be a syllable in their own right, e.g. Vltava (vl-ta-va), sprcha (sprr-kha), and h is always pronounced, even at the end of a word, e.g. pstruh (pstroo-h). See ALPHABET for a full list of the pronunciation symbols we use.

Consonants
c	is pronounced like ‘ts’ in ‘bits‘, not like ‘k’ or ‘s’
č	is pronounced like ‘ch’ in ‘church’
ch	(considered a separate letter) is pronounced like the rasping ‘ch’ in the Scottish word ‘loch’, not like ‘ch’ in ‘church’
š	is pronounced like ‘sh’ in ‘shut’
j	is pronounced like ‘y’ in ‘yes’
d’	is something like the sound in ‘led you’; we show this in the pronuciation guide with a small raised y, e.g. ted’ (ted^y)
t’	is something like the sound in ‘let you’, e.g. let’ (let^y)
ň	is pronounced like ‘ni’ in ‘onion’, e.g. Plzeň pl-zen^y
ř	is an unusual sound combining rolled ‘r’ and ‘zh’, e.g. Dvořák