Phonetic adventures in Prague 

As an Indonesian, I have a soft spot for Czech spelling because at one time in the late 1950s our government actually considered following what was known as the Czechoslovakian orthography as suggested by the late Professor Zorica Dubovska. The current spelling that we have now in Indonesia is highly phonetic, but it could’ve gone even further with the addition of special characters à la Czechoslovakia to indicate digraphs etc had the plan went through. Rest in peace, Prof Dubovska! Thank you for your contribution to Bahasa Indonesia!

At 1:53, you show the Vyšehrad metro station while playing the exact moment in Smetana's Moldau where the leitmotiv for Vyšehrad castle is heard. I see what you did there, Dr. Lindsey! 😊

As a Czech immigrant in the UK who watches your videos to improve his English accent, I enjoyed watching you pronouncing words in my own language! You did a pretty good job, I can't even get most British people to pronounce my first name correctly (it's Karel)

As an Czech, I can confirm that your czech pronounciation is at a great level! 😉

1:50 Kudos for playing Vysehrad's part of Vltava on the Vysehrad subway stop!

Im Czech, got this randomly recommended to me, you nailed the pronunciations! You elongate some letters too much but the hard attacks on everything were super clear, barely even a trace of the usual muddiness english speaking people often pronounce czech in.

As a German, Czech is one of my favourite languages. In our choir we often sing Czech songs by Antonin Dvořák!

As a czech person I have to say that I am impressed by the accuracy of the information in this video, everything is spot on

For me the most fascinating thing about this video was learning that there is such a thing as the International Congress of Phonetic Sciences.

Loved this! A Czech friend taught me how to say the r-haček sound when I was a child. He told me that when he was a child, he couldn't say that sound, so his mother took him to a speech therapist to learn how.

Of course you needed a reference to windows in Prague.

Dr. Geoff is the picture of a true scholar. Always curious, always observing

Glad you liked our country! 0:27 One downside of reducing double consonants is that it makes certain words look more similar than they should be, like "asociální" (asocial) vs "asociace" (association) 4:23 The L and R in "Vltava" and "Brno" normally have the same length as short vowels (I feel like you pronounced them slightly longer). The differece doesn't matter though, since long syllabic consonants don't exist in Czech (but they do in Slovak)

I'm Czech and I've spent years studying English phonetics. It is so interesting to see an English person explaining Czech phonetics and making me think about my language in a different angle. Thank you.

My good sir, I am blown away by the fact that this exists. I have been obsessed with phonetics, all of my life (prospectively being Hyperlexic, it is my life's "fulfillment" to love this). That said, I wish I had been there. Earlier today, at my guard job, I pronounced a man's last name (Ehioze) correctly, and he went on about it for 2-3 minutes. His middle name was a fair amount more Nigerian, but it did not throw me. Making another person smile in that way is my absolute favorite thing to do.

My best friend works in the CUBE! I'm a Brit who has been living in Czechia for 14 years and I'm proud to say I've mastered the Ř sound 😁

"Out of the window" is an important phrase in Pragie

I'm Polish and I really like the Czech way of writing /ʃ/, /t͡ʃ/ and /ʒ/ as , and instead of ours , and . I think it would work really well with /ɕ/, /t͡ɕ/ and /ʑ/ written , and . Also, we have remnants of /r̝/ (), which is pronounced as /ʒ/ or /ʃ/, but it turns into in declination.

Another gem, Geoff! Navigating a crowd while recording a video, showing beautiful views of the city, AND chatting about phonetic deep stuff... Mind-blowing! The last bit is just awesome, I laughed my head off 😂

As our language is spoken by some +-10 millions of people world-wide and is one of more difficult ones, I always value the effort if someone tries to speak it. Thanks for nice video from our capitol.

I risk myself taking the slide about "native speaker" at 7:21 very far out of context, but I really want to bring forward my uncommon experience on this matter. I am born and raised Australian, but both my parents are Chinese immigrants. Despite having lived in Australia for a decade, both their English abilities are extremely limited - thus during my infancy I spoke (Mandarin) Chinese and only Chinese at home. Of course with Australia being an English speaking country, whenever I am not at home I would speak exclusively English. As a result my English ability quickly overtook my Chinese ability. I (like to believe I) am fluent in speaking, presenting, and writing in English at an academic level; meanwhile my Chinese is limited to "house language" like "Mum I'm going out" or "Dad you forgot to take out the trash". My brain is wired to think entirely in English, so despite Chinese being the first language I learnt I consider English to be my native language. That's why I must speak out against the slide at 7:21 - For me, it would not feel correct to equate first language to native language. To say I am an "English first language speaker" would... be a lie, whilst any claims of being a "native Chinese speaker" would be instantly disassembled if you plopped me into a real conversation between native Chinese. Even the accent thing is extremely awkward. Having grown up with both English and Chinese I actually developed some habits that made learning both languages at the same time easier. This resulted in my Australian English having the tiniest tiniest tinge of Chinese habits - which is undetectable to other English speakers but extremely apparent to Australians. When I speak to those outside of Australia, the average person will only ever hear my Australian accent and would almost always express shock or surprise after I tell them I'm of Chinese heritage(if they haven't seen my face). Meanwhile, any native Australian would be able to instantly identify that at least my parents aren't Australian. To foreigners, my accent is Australian. To Australians, my accent is "Asian". In my case, which would be my "foreign accent" or "second language accent"? I am again fully aware that I may be completely off the mark in interpreting the slide since I have absolutely none of the context that would have been made through the rest of the presentation... but I couldn't help but add my two cents. Is 'native speaker' the new N-word? To me, and I imagine many others like me, I would feel grossed out by any replacements. In an effort to tip-toe around categorising something to avoid being hurtful, something else just as potentially incorrect is born.

I haven't contributed anything to your experience in Czech Republic but I admire you and your work and I am tremendously proud that you have visited our country, did our pronunciation justice and enjoyed the sights. Thank you Geoff!

Literal decoding: kavarna -> kava + rna, meaning coffee + activity place. Z okna, decoding "from inside" + okno+modification, partial situation marker "a", the literal translation is "from inside of the window".

Love this video. Who knew casual tourism + phonetics would work so well.

I love that word for window... okna! Fantastic.

"Severe overbite/underbite affects 's' and 'sh', but patients can compensate with lip-rounding in 'sh'.": In high school I was in a radio class, and the teacher had me see a school speech pathologist about my pronunciation of 'sh'. I had an overbite, and was about to get jaw surgery to lengthen my lower jaw. That wasn't for pronunciation; it was to protect my teeth. After the surgery, my teacher said the nonstandard 'sh' pronunciation had gone away.

Seeing you in Prague, even interviewing one of my uni professors, that's just brilliant. 😄 Very glad u liked the stay and tried your tongue at Czech! Not the easiest language there is to learn, though beautifully florid.

I can only dream of getting to go to Prague for a work-related trip... I'm American and we always just get shipped somewhere in our vast country. I was in Prague years ago and met a sweet lady I knew from an online forum. She took me to one of those lovely old cafés. Also, she happened to be from Brno so I learned how to pronounce it correctly. Our tour guide said that Czech is an extremely complicated language and its grammar takes up volumes.

Very cool to see your linguist brain walk through the world and see/hear all kinds of interesting things! I'm not officially a linguist myself, but find myself drawn to many of the things you are.

This was awesome Geoff! In Czech language we have even much longer consonant clusters. I remember challenging our Scottish tutor back in the day by forcing him to say words like 'zmrzlina' (ice cream) :-) I like your channel very much and appreciate your work!

That's the way to experience my country! Love it

The final musical/bit made me giggle. And even though you are obviously very talented linguist and speaker, your pronounciation of "kavárna" blew my mind. It was flawless.

this man could go anywhere in the world and make an interesting video out of it. a true scholar

Oh dear, as a Czech, I have the hardest of times not to stress the first syllables in English and sometimes, it is a very conscious effort. As an English major, I have studied phonetics many years ago and Radek Skartnizl was my course instructor, it is nice to see that he is still alive and kicking it for team Academia 15 years later.

Quite unexpected surprise hearing about my own city and language in my favorite English practice channel. I hope you enjoyed your stay in Prague and thanks for your inspiring work 👍

Syllabic R in Croatian can be found in words such as crv, krv, trn, prst, krt, hrt... (worm, blood, thorn, finger, brittle, greyhound) and I remember when we learnt about it in school it was such a shocking revelation to me that a consonant can assume a role of a vowel, so to say. :)

As a swede, and therefore interested in hockey, i was always fascinated by the name Petr Vlk... :)

Lovely to see Prague! I lived there for years and think of it often and fondly.

The editing with the little dance at the end was brilliant 😂🤍

Roztomilé ❤

Hi there! About the "Vltava", "Brno" and possibly "hřbitov" too (means cemetery): the main information is, that these consonants (r and l) are not always considered consonants in Slavic languages (it is the same with Slovak language and I was taught this in school so it has to be true 😅). Sometimes they are considered vowels. This is why we have so many words with consonants clustered together, even same words consisting only of consonants. Examples: krk (throat), plť (raft (Slovak)), skrz (through, it is "skrze" or "přes" in Czech), sklz (backlog, the Czechs use the word "skluz"), prvok (Slovak) / prvek (Czech) for element, brzo (early in Czech, in Slovakia we use the word "skoro"), vlna (wave and also wool in both) etc. I suppose it is the same with the "ř" in Czech language - it is just treated like a vowel. Did you know that the Polish also have an equivalent of "ř"? It is "rz". The pronunciation is just a little bit different from "ř". Thank you for this interesting video! I enjoyed it very much!

My hometown, my native tongue and Radek Skarnitzl was my German phonetics tutor at uni years ago! Yay, a great video!

What a beautiful city! I'm glad you had fun.

I love a good vlog from someone I least expect one! :D

There was so much in this video for me! I was a music major in university, and I love both the Moldau/Vltava and the ř sound! I sang in the chamber choir and we once did an arrangement of various Czech children's songs called Řikadla. Finally, I got to learn that as a Canadian I apparently have some of the R-fullest R's.

0:31 Oh my, I'm from Prague, I won't be able to unsee it now :D

dobrý vysvětlení, zábavně podáno. :-)

The reminder that most Czech words are stressed on first syllable reminded me of how my literature teacher told us that it makes it difficult writing poetry in a certain style (iamb?) because each verse is meant to end with a stressed syllable, so when one of our country's poets was writing in this style, he often ended verses with words that had just one syllable. That was interesting to me back then, and this video made me recall it.

Polish, unlike Czech, got rid of Ř (rz) several centuries ago, replacing it by Ž or Š. However, these sounds still behave differently from ordinary Ž (ż) and Š (sz).

4:53 brought me to tears. Smetana's music and Praha's Vltava scenery so naturally combine into magnificience. Warm greetings from Slovakia, especially to our dear former countrymen behind Morava.

I laughed as you bravely avoided Smetana's first name, briliant comedy, as always. By the way, congratulations on you czech pronounciation! Oh, and thank you for: příjemné představení řady přednášek o řeči!

This video is delightful! Thanks for bringing me along to your conference in Prague!

Fun video! I was there in 2006 and walked across the same bridge with the other half of the word’s population. I now have a Czech colleague, so I appreciate the helpful, if brief, insights into the language.😊

absolutely adore this vlog style look into your trip!! i hope you had a fantastic time at the conference

Awww. I hope to see more of your adventures around europe.

You, sir, are making vlogging cool again! I always pay attention to small language-related things like signage whenever I travel. Enjoyed your doing the same.

Fun fact: "Die Moldau" by Smetana is the same melody as "Alle meine Entchen", but in ¾ instead of 4/4 😅

As a Czech myself, I have to confess that I absolutelly love Ř sound. It's my favourite thing in the entire Czech language because I have actually a very nice pronunciation of Ř (not like my R that makes people think I'm a native English-speaker T-T). This was very fun to watch and I absolutely envy you that R, hopefully, one day I'll get there and will finally sound Czech! Also the editing! I was dying of laughter!!!

My favourite linguist in my home country, what a delightful surprise!

I just love this channel!

Love your work sir! Never thought that phonetics could be so fascinating. Look forward to your posts.

The double M of immigration comes from Latin 'in migrāre' = immigrāre (to transport in/into). Double M in words that come from Latin often indicates an N+M merger - but you already knew that, of course!! Thank you for showing us some of the beautiful city of Prague!

Love the snippets from The Moldau (or The Vltava as the case may be), I have been in love with this piece ever since I first played it with my orchestra. I really love your videos on Slavic language as a Slovenian American myself!

Brilliant! Thanks for the show!

Great video! As a native speaker, I can add an interesting fact about stress in Czech - the first syllable is always stressed except for the Ostravian accent which stresses the penultimate syllable.

Hope you enjoyed Prague Dr Geoff!

Skarnitzl was my teacher, he's super cool :D I'm glad you liked it here!

Absolutely amazing video! really appreciated the inside look of linguistics conventions and the interesting tidbits were really insightful

A Russian scientist and a Czechoslovakian scientist had spent their lives studying the grizzly bear. Each year they petitioned their respective governments to allow them to go to Yellowstone to study the bears. Finally their request was granted, and they immediately flew to Yellowstone. They reported to the ranger station and were told that it was the grizzly mating season and it was too dangerous to go out and study the animals. They pleaded that this was their only chance, and finally the ranger relented. The Russian and the Czech were given portable phones and told to report in every day. For several days they called in, and then nothing was heard from the two scientists. The rangers mounted a search party and found the camp completely ravaged, with no sign of the missing men. Following the trails of a male and a female bear, they finally caught up with the female. Fearing an international incident, they decided they must kill the animal to find out if she had eaten the scientist. They killed the female and opened the stomach to find the remains of the Russian. One ranger turned to the other and said, " You know what this means, don't you?" The other ranger responded.. "I guess it means the Czech's in the male."

Thanks you for the video, it is interesting to see a linguist tackle a minority and "difficult" language and you did a good job. Regarding first-syllable stress in Czech: slavic languages share a lot of vocabulary and the stress-at-the-beginning rule is the big thing that differentiates a Czech word from, say, a Russian word. The difference is so big to a Czech, that I am frequently told off for "sounding like a Russian" or "not using a Czech word". Tak je dobre.

I can watch light hearted, but informative, videos like this all day. Love the random quips about grammar in signage, etc. Thank you!

Love it! Can't wait to visit and thank you for your thoughts.

Czech vs Polish (English) Č = CZ (ch) Š = SZ (sh) Ž = Ż (zh) Ř = RZ* (don't know if English has an equivalent) *RZ would be etymologically pronounced like Czech Ř but now it's pronounced like Ž/Ż/ZH.

One point about ř - some Czechs can't pronounce it correctly, and they pronounce it as a guttural r. I know a couple people who do this.

What a fun trip to a very beautiful city, thank you for giving us this video ❤

I would really love to see you make more of these types of videos as well as your regular ones, this was really fun and I really enjoyed all the little tidbits of information

What a treat! You seem to have enjoyed your trip to Prague. I live in Prague and you're right, Karlův most / Charles Bridge is very crowded. I was there with a friend from China the other day and a Czech woman was crossing this tourist-y bridge and shouting in Czech: "Are there any fucking Czech people here?!" So I told her that I was a fucking Czech person. Seriosly, if she hates tourists so much, she could've picked any other bridge. You did a good job with the Czech pronunciations. I'd never noticed that the stressed syllabic L and R are interesting. Brno is not only interesting to pronounce, but also to visit. They have a big, slightly phallic clock that gives out a free glass ball at 11 a.m. every day. But you must pick one of the 4 holes in the clock at 10.15 and wait there for 45 minutes, or the "glass ball mafia" will take up all four holes and you'll lose your 25% chance of catching the ball. I've caught 2 in my life.

0:28 “It’s a pain to remember two _m’s_ in “immigration” when we only say one.” That’s actually one thing I like about Korean: in a word like 만나다 “to meet” there are two “n”s [ㄴ] in the word and _both_ are actually pronounced [mannada].

What a nice video. Thank you!

You gave my language more thought than I ever did. Had no clue there are such things as "phonetics congresses".

It has always been surprising to me how many layers the czech language has. It has the formal, informal, slang, argot, etc... layers with its own pronunciations, accents, even specific words and phrases. It is so difficult I am, as a native czech, actually surprised it is being used by only a tiny fraction of the world population. You'd expect this developed and complex language to be used by the Chinese or Indians (and I assume they have their own "czech" language for sure), it's just mind boggling. Why do we have such a complex and complicated language, especially its grammar, that is only used by a couple million people in the world, and by even fewer actually spoken (there is silecia and moravia and other regions with their own accents and almost their own variation of the czech language).

1:00 Likewise, Janáček is stressed on the first syllable even though the accent goes on the second a.

Imagine - I live in Prague, and I can soak up the magical atmosphere every day!

As an university student of tecahing ESL, I am thrilled that I found your channel! And what's best. at 8:12 I can see my phonetics teacher enjoying the presentation too. :)

7:22 You can't substitute "nonnative speaker" with "second-language speaker" in my opinion. As a nonnative speaker, "second-language speaker" to me implies that the speaker is so good that it is hardly distinguishable and the speaker likely uses the language every day (C2 level), while "nonnative speaker" implies an ability to speak well but it is clear that the speaker does not use the language too often (A1-C1 level). It is not the same term.

Did you know the large bronze statue you're showing in Old Town square depicts Jan Hus, who introduced diactirical marks to the Czech language?

velmi poučné a zábavné video!❤ thanks!😃

what a delightful video!

Seems like an interesting trip! In Ukraine we have what I call "the normal Rrrr" -- I apologize! =) But In Czech they take it to another level. Still, I can pronounce it, haha

As a Russian, Czech is one of my favourite languages to hear! It creates such an interesting effect in my brain. I simultaneously understand and don't understand what's being said 😀It's so familiar yet foreign at the same time.

Thank you for letting us see, hear and appreciate these small parts of your whirlwind day.

Not every time you get someone with such passion for their line of work that a work conference makes for an interesting watch! Great work as always, Dr Lindsey.

Geoff, you're probably the creator on RU-vid with the highest ratio of engagement with your comments compared to the sheer number of them. And most successful RU-vidrs don't have "real" jobs as well 😂 Do you find you're more easily recognized at conferences like this due to your RU-vid presence? Or even outside linguistics circles (e.g. in everyday life)?

Actually, in czech we sometimes write two "n"s although we only ever pronounce one. It happens in adjectives derived from root words ending in "n" by adding the "-ní" suffix. That's how we get words such as "cenný" = "precious". (derived from "cena" = "price") However! There is a fun exception, and that is the words representing animals: "jelen" = "deer". "jelení paroh" = "deer horn". Anyways, great video, I love your humour and I hope you enjoyed your stay "v Praze". :)

When I read the title of the link what passed thru my mind was the you presented a Cockney girl whom you had taught perfect Received Pronunciation.

I really love all these old instruments, fascinating! Thank you for sharing. I'm glad that you like it here, cheers from Brno!

I have to ask. Is the reason that you featured "out the window" had something to do with Prague's fascinating history of defenestration?

It's interesting that the very first word that alerted me to different languages was "Czech". When as a boy I saw that on a tourism brochure, I had to ask my father if that was a mistake.

This was very entertaining, thank you!

I cannot express how happy I am that you were in Prague. I love watching your channel because I always had interest in languages and to find out you visited the city that I lived in most of my life is amazing. The congress looks super interesting and I am so glad so many people with such passion for language and phonetics can meet together to discuss and learn new things.