Wednesday September 14, 4:35pm, Mluvíte česky?

I grew up speaking both Spanish and English. I took Spanish classes whenever a language was required in school, and speak it with my Mexican family members in Los Angeles. My knowledge of Spanish has allowed me to understand Italian when the opportunity arose, and helped in understanding French when I lived in Paris this past summer. When I was considering where to study abroad this semester, most of my friends and family suggested Spain, the obvious choice.

“Then you won’t have the language barrier,” they would reason.

So I did the most “me” thing and chose somewhere completely left-field: the Czech Republic. Before arriving in Prague, I had never even heard a word of Czech. It didn’t exactly look promising when the first word I learned was pivo. It means beer.

I always thought of Czech as similar to Russian: severe, full of consonants and harsh sounds. But I quickly realized that the Czech language is very much its own entity. Although similar to other Slavic languages, it has a graceful, fluid quality to it. At times it even reminds me of Italian or French.

During Welcome Week here in Prague, everyone was required to take a three day Introductory Intensive Czech course. We learned the basics: the alphabet, numbers, how to order food and drink, and how to ask where the bathroom is. I found that it came very natural to me – once I learned the special letters of the Czech alphabet, the pronunciations was very easy, as it used all the same tongue formations as Spanish. My professor even told me on several occasions that I should sign up for the semester-long course; he thought I’d be very good at it.

I took his advice and enrolled, and have been learning Czech at a steady pace. I can order at a restaurant or bar fully in Czech, know several adjectives and vocabulary words, and can form basic sentences. I don’t look ethnically Czech, so most people see me and automatically speak to me in whatever English they do know (which is usually a lot, embarrassingly for me). But as my pronunciation and understanding have improved, I’ve noticed that more people have been responding to me in Czech. Each time that happens it’s like a gold star from the Language Gods.

When I first began to practice my Czech outside of the classroom, I didn’t have much success. I went up to the touristy food vendors in Old Town Square and ordered the Old Prague Ham in what I thought was correct speech. The man working there smiled smugly and put in my order mockingly, repeating it exactly how I had said it, even elevating his voice to sound female. Apparently it was not correct.

Yesterday I was on a field trip for my Architecture class. We stopped in a bakery for a snack. I ordered two cookies, with confidence and perfect grammar.

“Dam si dvě čocoládový sušenky, prosím.”

“Dvě?”

“Ano. Všechno.”

My classmates observed the exchange in awe, which sent me beaming over to the counter to pay. But my Czech-high came to an end when he told me the total in English.

“One-hundred twenty-five, please.” My face must have fallen because he said again,

“Oh, promiňte. Sto devět pět, prosím.” I smiled and handed him the money, and told him děkuji before walking out. It seems I’m making progress.