Language in Czechia

English is not widely spoken outside Czechia’s big cities, except by young people. You will see English on signs, in shopping centres, in advertising and in music played in public places. None of this means that people running or working for service businesses or public corporations are going to speak English with you. 

Some hospitality workers aged in their teens, 20s or 30s will use English and many helpful young people are happy to assist if they are standing in a counter queue or nearby.  

Even if Czechs – especially older Czechs – know a little English, they can often be uncomfortable using it and you might have to find other ways to communicate. Especially in southern Moravia, a few words of German can be helpful. 

Some food products in supermarkets can have many English words on the front of the package, but the only preparation instructions are in Czech or Slovak. 

Czech and English are unrelated languages and any penetration of English names might not be recognisable due to the language’s complicated inflected forms. ‘Yes’ is (confusingly for English-speakers) ano and ‘no’ is ne. 

‘Please’ is prosím and ‘thank you’ is děkuji (formal) or děkuju (informal). 

In many cases, you have to fall back on a good language app. These apps can have quirks, mostly based on photographically generated translations. Raven Guides, when shopping for provisions, has experienced translations such as ‘deleted chicken’ and ‘armpits for coleslaw’.

DeepL Translate, Google Translate and Microsoft Translator are available as free mobile apps, offering text, voice or photo text options, solving a lot of practical problems. Other options include Notta.ai, Talking Translator and Instant Voice Translate. 

When English appears in tourism contexts, the meaning might still be hard to decipher. Old town fortifications might be translated as ‘castle’, while either a palace (palác or zámek) or a castle (hrad or zámek) might be called ‘chateau’. ‘Route of the castle’ might signpost a guided castle or palace tour. 

Days of the week and months are not easy to recognise for English speakers. Mostly these names are spelt with lower-case letters. 

Days of the week

Monday – pondělí
Tuesday – úterý
Wednesday – středa
Thursday – čtvrtek
Friday – pátek
Saturday – sobota
Sunday – neděle

Months

January – leden
February – únor
March – březen
April – duben
May – květen
June – červen
July – červenec
August – srpen
September – září
October – říjen
November – listopad
December – prosinec