Czech Update
The latest updates from news and events for all interested in Czech language and culture.
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Learn multiple Slavic languages at once with NiceTranslator
Author: Dominik Lukeš Posted: December 13th, 2008
Nicetranslator.com uses the Google Translate service to give instant response as you type and you can even choose multiple languages at once including Slovak, Polish, Russian, Slovenian, or Croatian. This could be useful for students of Slavonic languages in general but it also shows bits of sentences as you type them in. read more »
Google Czech live long, Google Prague, get rich
Author: Dominik Lukeš Posted: November 27th, 2008
Resuming Czblogging after a hiatus with the amazing news that simply Googling Czech can have beneficial consequences. A new Google mashup StateStats shows correlations between US states' socioeconomic characteristics and the frequency of particular search terms originating from those terms. read more »
Spread Bohemica.com with new widget!
Author: Dominik Lukeš Posted: June 24th, 2008
You can now help spread Bohemica.com by sharing this widget on your site or on Facebook.
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People speaking Czech on YouTube 1: 10 Survival Phrases
Author: Dominik Lukeš Posted: June 9th, 2008
Sometime ago I started a theme of Czech music on YouTube but never followed up on it. Here's an extension of it: People speaking Czech on YouTube. There are lots of people speaking Czech on YouYube, sometimes the clips are funny, sometimes interesting and informative, and sometimes obscene. The first example is a run down of top 10 phrases from travellinguist.
Record car pile up on Czech motorway
Author: Dominik Lukeš Posted: March 22nd, 2008
Categories: Environment
• Curiosities
The main Czech motorway (dálnice) witnessed a record car pile up when 116 cars ran into each other (reminiscent of Blues Brothers) with no fatalities. This was due to unseasonably late snow storm.
30 people injured in 116-car collision in Czech_English_Xinhua read more »
EU causes Czech pig crisis
Author: Dominik Lukeš Posted: October 8th, 2007
Categories: Culture
• Food and drink
• Habits and customs
• Numbers, statistics, surveys and polls
• Curiosities
I don't know what's more interesting about the story: that there is a crisis in pork production in the CR or that there is a publication called PigProgress.net? read more »
The look of post-communism: New ČSA logo
Author: Dominik Lukeš Posted: September 14th, 2007
Categories: History
• International perspectives: Czechs and the world
• National identity
• Tourism
• Curiosities
It appears the Czech Airlines are changing their look to look less Eastern European, lower quality and post-communist. See them below side by side and judge for yourself if you can tell the new from the old: read more »
Burčák came early this year
Author: Dominik Lukeš Posted: September 7th, 2007
Categories: About Czechs and Czech Republic
• Culture
• Food and drink
• Language
• Prague
• Regional Differences
• Vocabulary
• Curiosities
• Eating Habits
• Nouns
Burčák the young wine (stum) popular in the Czech lands in the early autumn came earlier this year appearing in early August. Burčák sales in Prague kiosks around September and October is one of the joys of the Czech 'babí léto' and reminds Bohemians to remember how good it is to have Moravians part of the nation.
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The simple pleasures of non-Prague
Author: Dominik Lukeš Posted: August 25th, 2007
Categories: About Czechs and Czech Republic
• History
• International perspectives: Czechs and the world
• Regional Differences
• Tourism
• Vocabulary
• Curiosities
A visit to Třeboň, a small picturesque town (malebné městečko) in Southern Bohemia elicited justified outbursts of lyricism from a Seattle columnists. And he's right. The individual personality of small Czech towns is something to be experienced through a leisurely journey rather than a hectic 'been there, done that' trip. read more »
All Czechs to receive government-issued email address
Author: Dominik Lukeš Posted: August 19th, 2007
According to a new draft law, lower-court summons should be delivered via email. To that end all Czech citizens would receive a government-issued email address. This is to avoid problems with people not picking up their summons from the post office and thus delaying the proceedings. It will be possible to opt-out but then summons not collected withing 10 days will be considered delivered. read more »
Czechs are from Mars
Author: Dominik Lukeš Posted: July 31st, 2007
Categories: History
• Curiosities
Well, it seems that the world has more than just the death of Dinosaurs to be thankful to a meteorite for. It is possible, it seems, that the Czech basin or "Česká kotlina" as it is known, is also a result of a giant rock smashing into the Earth. We owe the nice pancake shape of the country to that catastrophic event of 100 million years ago.
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Czech university students use sex as a source of income
Author: Dominik Lukeš Posted: February 17th, 2007
Categories: Economy
• Education
• Gender relations
• Numbers, statistics, surveys and polls
• Sexuality
• Curiosities
Sex jako výnosnější brigáda - www.lidovky.cz PRAHA 17. února 2007 | 10:59 Až čtvrtina studentek vysokých škol si podle odhadů minimálně jednou během studia vydělá komerčním sexem a točením či focením porna.read more »
Prague has two hotels World Top 10
Author: Dominik Lukeš Posted: February 16th, 2007
Categories: Economy
• International perspectives: Czechs and the world
• Numbers, statistics, surveys and polls
• Prague
• Tourism
• Curiosities
MF DNES Praha - Pražský hotel Riverside je osmý nejluxusnější na celém světě. Na osmé místo se dostal v prestižní anketě portálu Tripadvisor, který každý rok oceňuje nejlepší hotely z celého světa.Two hotels in Prague made it to the top 10 in a survey of hotel visitors from around the world conducted by Tripadvisor. Riverside is 8th (4th in Europe) and Le Palais 10th. It should be of note that neither of these hotels has a Czech or even Czech sounding name and that one read more »
Czech crooners (dead and alive) on YouTube
Author: Dominik Lukeš Posted: July 7th, 2008
Karel Hála, a star of Czech big band pop music since the 1950s just died as reported by Lidové Noviny. Here's a cliop of him and another stallwart of Czech pop Karel Gott.
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Masaryk's name not for sale
Author: Dominik Lukeš Posted: June 20th, 2008
Here's an interesting example of how history can be important to the present.
To have a glass of Masaryk? In ČR not possible - Czechnews - Aktuálně.cz Czechs are so proud of their first democratic president Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk that they will not let anyone use his surname as a trade mark.
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Strčprstskrzkrk.com launches
Author: Dominik Lukeš Posted: June 8th, 2008
I've owned the StrčPrstSkrzKrk.com domain for a year but only now did I find a few minutes to make it live. All it contains is a video of me pronouncing the phrase. But with any luck, I will be adding more Czech tongue-twisters there, as time goes on. read more »
Czech inventor of the 'drunk tank' dies aged 91
Author: Dominik Lukeš Posted: November 27th, 2007
Categories: About Czechs and Czech Republic
• History
• International perspectives: Czechs and the world
• Language
• Numbers, statistics, surveys and polls
• Vocabulary
• Curiosities
Záchytka is a wonderful Czech word that stands for the institution for the collection of drunken (and possibly disorderly) individual wondering city streets occasionally referred to in English as 'drunk tank' or ' read more »
Bramboráky a houby in Chicago
Author: Dominik Lukeš Posted: October 4th, 2007
Categories: About Czechs and Czech Republic
• Culture
• Food and drink
• Habits and customs
• International perspectives: Czechs and the world
• Curiosities
What could be more fitting to celebrate Czech traditions than Houby Day on Čermák Road. This is the season of mushroom picking in the Czech Republic and many of the mushrooms (houby) will end up in pancakes (bramboráky), even though even more will be made into a meal with scrambled eggs (smaženice). read more »
Go see the Czech Dream but don't trust it
Author: Dominik Lukeš Posted: September 7th, 2007
Categories: Film
• International perspectives: Czechs and the world
• National identity
• Curiosities
Czech Dream (Český sen) is a semi-documentary film about a hoax advertising campaign for a hypermarket of the same name that fooled thousands of people and tried to expose the 'lies' in advertising. read more »
Czech is ...
Author: Dominik Lukeš Posted: September 1st, 2007
If you want to know what Czech and other languages are like, read some of the humorous entries on the Essentialist Explanations page. They may not all be accurate but they are mostly funny. read more »
100 Years of Czech Teaching in Nebraska
Author: Dominik Lukeš Posted: August 21st, 2007
Here's a nice bit of news. Apparently people were learning Czech as long ago as 1907.
U.S. University of Nebraska celebrates 100 years of Czech lessons - Czech republic read more »
Czech court says no to ex-spouse's snooping
Author: Dominik Lukeš Posted: August 11th, 2007
Just a little curiosity but also an example of privacy becoming a greater concern than it has traditionally been in the Czech culture.
Czech man gets suspended sentence for reading his ex's SMS - Europe read more »
The 10 best Czech breweries - And travelling outside Prague
Author: Dominik Lukeš Posted: June 21st, 2007
Categories: About Czechs and Czech Republic
• Food and drink
• Numbers, statistics, surveys and polls
• Tourism
• Curiosities
The 10 best Czech breweries -Life & Style - Travel - Destinations - Europe - TimesOnline Prague's status as a destination for beer lovers is undisputed: the Czech Republic is home to the original Pilsner, the original Budweiser and boasts the world's highest beer consumption, 160 litres per person each year. In Prague, great pubs are found on every corner, and it is not uncommon to see people drinking one or more of the country's outstanding lagers with breakfast. Ounce for ounce, beer is cheaper than water here, and often appears to be consumed more widely. However, if you really want to sample Czech brewing, you need to leave the capital. This is far easier and less expensive than in many neighbouring countries, with excellent public transportation to nearly every Czech brewpub and regional brewery within a few hours.
Two wonderful pieces of advice. How to get to some great lesser known beers (remember you each pub only has one or at most two brands of beer) and how to travel outside of Prague to get more enjoyment out of Czech lands. read more »
Prague ham to return to Prague
Author: Dominik Lukeš Posted: February 17th, 2007
Categories: Food and drink
• International perspectives: Czechs and the world
• Language
• Prague
• Curiosities
Pražská šunka se vrací - iDNES.cz Kdo neví, jak chutná tradiční Pražská šunka od kosti, ať si koupí letenku. Ochutnat ji může v italském Terstu, v Berlíně, ve Spojených státech nebo i v Austrálii. V Česku zatím ne.read more »
Shopping center to become a historic monument
Author: Dominik Lukeš Posted: February 15th, 2007
Stane se Kotva památkou? - www.lidovky.cz Obchodní dům Kotva na náměstí Republiky bude možná následovat Máj na seznam kulturních památek.Two Prague department stores (1970s shopping malls) Kotva a Máj (which is now owned by TESCO) are about to become listed as historic buildings. They are certainly part of history and the public consciousness. Supposedly, they are also quite important achievements Czech architectural design of the period. Judge for yourself: read more »
