Czech Lessons

Have you ever sat in a classroom and felt as if the teacher were speaking in another language? That maybe you had accidentally walked into the wrong room, were having a mild nightmare, or were possibly the victim of some elaborate practical joke? If you have, than you know exactly how I felt on my first day of Czech lessons at Charles University...except I guess in my case, the teacher was actually speaking in an entirely different language: Czech. When I sat down in class last Monday, I expected the four and a half hours of class to consist of a Czech teacher who spoke in English giving my classmates and I an overview of the Czech alphabet, maybe some vowel and consonant pronunciations, and perhaps, if we were all doing well, some simple vocabulary words. It was a beginner course for English speakers, how bad could it be? I was mistaken, it turns out it could be pretty bad. Shortly after I set my pen on the desk, the teacher, Hanzo, began speaking Czech. No English, just Czech. He spoke at least as fast as an auctioneer and sounded about twice as foreign as a Japanese game show. I sat and stared at him like I would a Spanish soap opera, it sounded nice but I didn't understand a word. Pretty soon the words that were streaming from his mouth started to sound like questions, and worse yet he was looking at me. I knew that I wouldn't be able to give him the answer that he wanted to hear, but I had to say something in Czech to maintain any shred of credibility I had with my new students and teacher. I reached into my limited Czech vocabulary and chose the word "prominte" (excuse me) hoping that that could buy me some time. The teacher repeated what he had said earlier, only slower and with greater diction, I had to think fast. This time, after several minutes of flipping through my five dollar english-czech two-way dictionary, I answered with "nerozumím, jsem z Americky" (I don't understand, I'm from America). The teacher then rolled his eyes and skipped me, (a reaction I've grown familiar with in my years of schooling). It ended up being the most difficult first day of any class I've taken in my life, the teacher didn't even speak English for the first forty-five minutes. Since that first day, I've slowly begun to pick up words here and there and have spent quite a bit of time studying on my own. So I'm learning, just very slowly. And although the classes aren't any less difficult, they've become more manageable. It's very much an international classroom (1 from Israel, 3 from the U.S., 1 from Japan, 1 from Taiwan, 1 from Italy, 1 from France, and 2 from Greece), and all of my classmates are pretty sharp. I'm definitely the dunce in my class but a dunce in a room full of egg-heads is still pretty bright, (or at least that's what I keep telling myself).

The pictures with this post were all taken right outside the place where I go to school, with the second to last being my actual school building. It get's pretty easy in the third hour of class to stop paying attention and stare out the window at Prague.

Once again, thank you for all the comments.