Dialogue

Vocabulary

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Lesson Transcript

INTRODUCTION
Usually Czechs make an effort to speak English with foreigners. Even so, for different reasons, there may be many times when you will not catch all or any of their words. Either their English is not good enough, or if Czech is the language they use, their native speed might be a problem for you. When this happens, asking the speaker to say it again can make the difference between understanding a crucial piece of information and spending the rest of the day trying to figure out what it was. The following phrase will not only give you a better sense of the language, but will also help you tune your ear!
GRAMMAR POINT
In Czech, "Repeat it, please!" is
Zopakujte to, prosím.
Let’s break it down:
(slow) Zo-pa-kuj-te to, pro-sím.
Once more:
Zopakujte to, prosím.
The first word, zopakujte, is translated as “repeat.”
(slow) Zo-pa-kuj-te.
zopakujte
The second word to means “it”.
(slow) To.
To.
After this comes an expression that we’ve mentioned before, it means “please.”
(slow) Pro-sím.
Prosím.
All together, that’s
(slow) Zo-pa-kuj-te to, pro-sím.
Zopakujte to, prosím.
If you want to address someone informally, just change the last syllable of the verb zopakovat and omit te.
Now the phrase becomes Zopakuj to, prosím.
Let’s break it down:
(slow) Zo-pa-kuj to, pro-sím!
Zopakuj to, prosím!
You can also say “Once more, please.”:
Ještě jednou, prosím.
Let’s break it down:
(slow) Ješ-tě jed-nou, pro-sím.
Once more:
Ještě jednou, prosím.
The first word, ještě, can be translated as “yet”or “still.”
Next we have jednou, which means “once”. Together these two words ještě jednou can be translated as “once more”.
(slow) Ješ-tě jed-nou.
Ještě jednou.
And last we have the expression prosím meaning “please”.
The whole sentence is
(slow) Ješ-tě jed-nou, pro-sím.
Ještě jednou, prosím.
When the reason for not understanding is the speed, you may want to say “Slow down your speech, please”. In Czech:
Mluvte pomaleji, prosím.
(slow) Mluv-te po-ma-le-ji, pro-sím.
Mluvte pomaleji, prosím.
The first word, mluvte, is a form of the verb that means “to talk.”
(slow) mluvte
mluvte
Next we have pomaleji which means “more slowly”. It comes from the word pomalu which is translated as “slowly”.
(slow) Po-ma-le-ji.
Pomaleji.
Finally we have prosím.
Let’s hear the whole phrase one more time:
Mluvte pomaleji, prosím.
Now let’s make it informal by omitting te in the word mluvte. Then we get this version:
Mluv pomaleji, prosím.
(slow) Mluv po-ma-le-ji, pro-sím.
Mluv pomaleji, prosím.

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