Essential tips on learning Czech from linguist and his new book on the history of the alphabet

Photo: Blink Publishing

Jakub Ferenčík: I’m here with former colleague Danny Bate to my right, and to my left, my present colleague, Juan Mutoni from the Spanish department [at Radio Prague]. We’re talking about Danny’s new book. So, the question really is: Why does Q need you? That’s the first question.

Danny Bate: “Thanks for having me back, guys. I still feel a little bit like a traitor from Radio Prague, but it’s very nice to be back. It’s very surreal. And as you correctly said, the title of my book, Why Q Needs You, is the reason I had to leave working here. It’s a history of the alphabet and the way we spell in English, which, as people may have noticed, doesn’t have the best reputation. English spelling is pretty weird compared to, say, Slovak or Spanish spelling. So, in the book, I try to answer the question, ‘Why Q needs you?’ Why did we partner up one letter with a ‘useless’ letter, namely Q, and explore many other topics.”

Juan Muttoni: “Does that have anything to do with this, maybe?” [points at drawing]

Jakub: And to our viewers as well…

Danny: “That is a good drawing.”

Juan: “That was by our colleague, Kristína Kellnerová. She’s the artist in the department.”

Danny: “Right, okay. So, listeners will be extremely confused, and viewers too. This is a very good rendition of an ancient Egyptian hieroglyph. That’s not bad. Where did she get this from?”

Juan: “Your book.” [laughs]

Danny: “It’s the head of an ox with horns. One of the first things I explain in the book to really set the scene of where the alphabet comes from is that we have to go back to ancient Egypt. That’s the birthplace of the alphabet, even though its origins are complicated and very old. It’s difficult to piece together the evidence. But in a nutshell, what happens is that you take this ox head and over the centuries it becomes our letter A.”

Juan: “I think the stories in your book are very interesting, not just because of the topic, but also the way you talk about linguistics and history. I just can’t wait to read it.”

Jakub: The final draft. Because Juan actually did read the book. One of the few people on Earth who did.

Danny: “Yes, Juan Mutoni and Stephen Fry read early versions of the book.”

Juan: “But since we’re here in the Czech Republic and you’ve been writing about letters and language, we have to bring up the fact that you were able to learn Czech on your own. Every time I ask you how you did it, you say, ‘Well, I had a lot of free time. I had nothing to do.’ But how did you actually do it? What did you do? What exercises did you use? We really need to understand, for people trying to learn, how someone like you managed to do it.”

Photo: Archive of Danny Bate

Danny: “I stand by what I’ve said before: a lot of time and not many friends. I had good motivations. I had luck and personal motivation. This meant that I had, if not a teacher, then an abundance of motivation to learn the language, namely, my future wife and future mother-in-law, who doesn’t really speak English. That’s two great motivations right there.

“I also have these academic degrees in linguistics, the science of language, and that helps. I often say linguistics is like cheat codes for learning languages. It gives you insight into what’s actually happening. When you understand something, it’s easier to learn. That’s not super helpful if you don’t have time or inclination to study linguistics, and that’s okay.

“But let me offer two practical tips. First, Czechs are a fairly formal society, and interactions often follow a script. If you can learn that script, it gives you a boost. You go into a shop or restaurant and have a Czech conversation, so long as it doesn’t deviate from the script. That feels good. You say things like ‘Dobrý den, Já bych si dal…’ and so on.”

Jakub: I love that you didn’t say ‘Jak se máte?’ 

Danny: “Of course not. Way too personal. Learning that script helped me feel like, ‘Okay, I can manage here.’ ”

“The bigger tip, where linguistics becomes more handy, is that Czech may seem completely different from languages like English or Spanish, but it has been in Europe for a long time. So, it shares similarities with other European languages.

“Czech may seem completely different from languages like English or Spanish, but it has been in Europe for a long time. So, it shares similarities with other European languages.”

Danny Bate

“The phrase I always give people is that if you want to learn a Czech word, tear the Czech words to pieces. Break them down. Often, they’re constructed in ways similar to English, French, or especially German. For example, ‘počítač’ means computer. It’s based on the verb ‘to count,’ same idea as ‘compute.’ French uses ‘ordinateur.’

“Another one: ‘pojištění,’ [which means] insurance. The root is ‘jistý,’ meaning ‘sure.’ It’s the same principle. So, if you tear words apart, the language becomes much more friendly.”

Jakub: “That’s really good advice. You speak French, German [points at Juan].”

Juan: “Well, not German, but I’ve been trying to learn Czech for a while and it’s extremely hard. But just from hearing Danny, it’s clear he knows a lot about linguistics, letters, and he’s a PhD.”

Jakub: Bonus round! This is Juan’s idea. We’re going to do bonus rounds between questions.

Danny: “Oh, with pleasure. I think that’s great. Okay, this says: lowercase h and uppercase. A story about the letter ‘H’. This is a total surprise. I want that on record. I wasn’t expecting this. Let me tell you about Russian and this letter. How does that sound?

“This letter ultimately comes from the Greeks. Thousands of years ago, they used this letter for the ‘h’ sound, like hat or head. But in one particularly prestigious dialect of Ancient Greek, they lost the ‘h’ sound, just like how some Londoners say ed instead of head. So, they had a letter going spare.

“Instead of dropping it, they repurposed it for a vowel—the ‘e’ sound—and called it eta. That’s why in Greek, eta is a vowel, even though it looks like our H.

“That Greek version makes its way into Cyrillic. In Russian, for instance, a letter that looks like a backward ‘N’ stands for the ‘e’ sound, as in prezident. It’s the sister letter of our H.”

Juan: “Don’t you want to read the book now?”

Jakub: That’s the hook. So, speaking of Slavic languages, was there something that motivated you about the Czech language? Because we can see the passion in your eyes when you talk about the letter “h,” its Slavic roots. But, to our previous question before the bonus round, which is coming up again in a short while, did Czech also have that same inspiration or motivation? Was it because you’re a proper Anglophone from Norfolk? So, very rural UK. Or was it the fiancé? 

Danny: “Ditto. Safe to say I met my fiancée, my wife, ten years ago. I vividly remember meeting her and thinking, ‘I know nothing about your country, but you’re really cute and I want to impress you.’ Should I lie? And I went with no. I’ll admit, I knew two things: that the Czech Republic and Prague existed. That’s it. Everything else—dumplings, beer, Charles IV, Charles Bridge, Prague Castle—nothing. I was nineteen, barely knew the world, being born in this, you know, basically the Shire, for Lord of the Rings fans out there, and it’s all thanks to her.”

Juan: “So, in the end, maybe the book is a love story?”

Jakub: Oh, okay. Maybe it’s not a history of our letters at all. 

Danny: “Sure, sure. I mean, it is pretty linguistic.”

Jakub: It’s a different type of love story.

Juan: “Yeah. I wanted to ask you, you mentioned that when you’re studying linguistics, it helps you learn different languages. Does Czech, being such a tough language, help you improve your skills as a linguist?”

“I think one of the main sources of difficulties with the Czech language is that Czechs keep telling people it’s difficult. The barriers go up immediately.”

Danny Bate

Danny: “Yeah, I’d say so. It’s certainly given me confidence. Other languages don’t look too scary now that I know I’ve reached a certain degree of Czech. We should be clear, my Czech is not perfect. No, I want that on record. But it’s given me confidence. And the principle I mentioned earlier about how languages that may look different may have a lot in common once you scratch the surface has been really helpful. You can go more difficult in terms of European languages. Coming from English, you can go more difficult than Czech.”

Jakub: What about Slovak?

Danny: “Yeah, I mean, Slovak is a bit friendlier than Czech, to be honest. There’s no ‘Ř,’ for example. I was thinking Hungarian or Finnish.”

Juan: “Do you know the story of ‘Ř’?”

Danny: “I do. I can tell you about ‘Ř.’ It’s a softening of the letter ‘R.’ Czech had a simpler consonant system back in the day, but certain consonants softened before certain vowels. So, Czech had ‘R,’ and over time it softened into ‘Ř.’ It’s a palatal sound, a kind of combination of ‘R’ and ‘Ř.’ Other Slavic languages probably had it once upon a time. Polish probably had it. It’s now unique to Czech.”

Jakub: We derailed you there. So, let’s bring it back to Hungarian and Czech. 

Danny: “Yeah. I think Hungarian and Finnish are more difficult. They come from completely different origins. Czech and English are distantly related. But Hungarian and Finnish? Not so much. They’re completely unrelated to Czech, so they seem more challenging, especially in terms of vocabulary and structure. Take ‘two’ and ‘three’ in Czech: ‘dva’ and ‘tri.’ In Hungarian and Finnish, they sound completely different. Finnish and Hungarian come from Finno-Ugric roots, which is very far from the Indo-European family, unlike Czech and English.”

Juan: “Of course, there are harder languages to learn as foreign languages. But still, we hear that Czech is among the hardest to learn. Why is that?”

Danny: “Well, a lot depends on where you’re coming from. A Spanish speaker would struggle more than a Slovak speaker, for example. I’m going to go social and psychological. I think one of the main sources of difficulties with the Czech language is that Czechs keep telling people it’s difficult. The barriers go up immediately. The grammar and sounds can be very difficult. English speakers, for example, might have trouble with sounds like the rolled ‘r’ or the hard consonants.

“I do not deny it’s hard. I just want to help people to help themselves.”

Jakub: Just learn German or French, and then it’s easier or get engaged with a Czech lady, and eventually in nine years you’ll learn Czech.

But another thing that Danny Bate or Dr. Danny Bate, as he makes us call him [laughs], does is Word of the Week. And Word of the Week is a hit with our audience; it’s usually a Czech word that has interesting connotations, historical, linguistic, etc. Let’s take bone, ‘kost,’ give us some details about that. 

Danny: “Yes! It’s a fun little video series I do for Radio Prague, where I dive into the history of a Czech word in under a minute and a half. For example, ‘kost’ means bone. Sounds unfamiliar if you’re not from a Slavic background, but we have the Greek ‘osteo,’ as in osteopath, or the Latin ‘costa,’ meaning rib. All these words are connected in a way that makes Czech feel a bit less alien.

“Yes, the next one is ‘neviesta’ which means bride, and it’s a perfect example because it ties back to my own experience. It’s about unpacking these words, making them feel familiar, not so foreign.”

Juan: “And then there’s ‘Kamarad.’ ”

Danny: “Yes! The story behind ‘Kamarad’ is that it originally comes from the French ‘camarade’ (comrade), which in Czech is used to mean friend. It’s fun to trace these roots.”

Jakub: It’s like mental mapping. The more you know, the easier it is to learn languages. 

Danny: “Once you know a language, you can use it to learn another.

“It’s almost exponential. Definitely helps.”