Winter Happiness

I love winter, you know. I know that I constantly complain about my ass freezing but still it's better than sweating. Aaanyway, I made use of this shitty weather and did what I haven't done in years. When I was sick at home as a child, I would climb to my roof window and build a small snowman like this one:

I fervently hope none of our neighbours saw me doing this.

I don't know whether my fever caused this or it actually happened but this is what I then saw: 

Look at it! It's so sad! Of course I didn't do that, though.

Now excuse me, I have to clean up a lake that has suddenly appeared in the middle of my bedroom.

love & peace

Ciray

You Gotta Love Ballet ♥

I Think I Am Sick Again

Why not get ill when we have our midterm holiday.

This is pretty much how I spend every holiday– except for summer holidays when I don’t get sick… Usually.  Anyway, this doesn’t hurt my psyche so much as our midterm holiday is shorter than a weekend. Yes, it’s one day off school and it’s raining and snowing at the same time. Additionally, I can’t just stay in my bedroom without washing my hair and doing my makeup. No. My friends think that I have nothing to do so whenever they text me I’ll be ready to get to the bus station and go and meet them. Is it so obvious that my life is just a whirl of emptiness and oblivion?

I have things to do! I’m ill for Christ’s sake! Well that’s not a thing to do. Damn, I should do something about my life. At least, I’m glad I hadn’t set any New Year’s resolutions because I would be even more disappointed now.

Well I’ve been thinking about making a new lesson but somehow couldn’t figure out what it should be about. And, so that it’s not such a pointless post I’m adding a poem I wrote yesterday. This is what happens when you have fever and get creative:

No matter how much I strive for rest,

Rest in my head, an end to commotion;

This inner hurdle, unfinishable quest

Nobody sees in my face of no motion.

Calm on the outside, in me just panic,

Trying to sort out my thoughts,

Feeling like a schizophrenic;

Order is what I head towards.

love & peace
Ciray

Studying Abroad? Why not?

      Every time I mention I’d like to study abroad people have plenty of objections and comments on that topic. I picked a few of the main problems and complications and if you will still have any questions after reading this, feel free to use Google. Seriously, I don’t know everything.

You don’t speak the language of the country

      I’m not completely sure whether these people know that you can choose a course led in English. This possibility even exists in the Czech Republic. As a Czech student, I can enrol in a course in English in the Czech Republic (however, they are charged with a fee, I reckon). Not every university or college offers them, though. You will only need the country’s language when doing the shopping, that’s it.
      But if you’re a language geek like me, you can go for a course in Swedish, Dutch, German, Italian, and so on. However, you have to make sure you’ve mastered the language or else you’d get into trouble!

It’s only for smart students

      Living with this attitude, I wouldn’t be able to study any university. It’s utterly wrong. According to me, studying abroad is for the bravest students. Sure, if you apply for a course in a well-known university like Cambridge, Yale, etc., you can expect only the best students to be there. But if you choose a university for mere mortals, it will be tough (because every uni is hard to study at) yet manageable. (This may help you to choose: http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/world-university-rankings/2014-15/world-ranking)

It costs a lot

      Yes, if you want to study in the US or somewhere where education is not free. Some of you are experiencing a huge shock and, before you pinch yourself – of course, in many countries, education is free. Nevertheless, before you apply, you have to realize it’s for their citizens (they usually pay high taxes), not everybody. This doesn’t mean that it’s going to cost a foreign student an arm and a leg; you will probably have to pay some fees. If you choose to study in the language of the country, you probably won’t be paying any fees whatsoever. (Again, check this out: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_education). People who live in the European Union have it even easier. In some countries of the European Union they don’t have to pay for anything (as we can also travel without visa).

      One day, I’ll write an article on pros and cons of studying abroad. One day…

      I hope I helped at least a bit and encouraged you.

Love & peace
Ciray

Lesson 21– Telling The Time & Date, Ordinal Numbers

Happy new year, everyone!
        I'm really sorry for that I haven't posted anything for almost dva měsíce! (=two months) My new year's resolution isn't to post every week (as many of you probably expected) because it would be too difficult to manage school and the blog + I'm going to make another one on French soon and my personal blog. Yes, the lattermost two are my new year's resolutions so I have this whole year to achieve my goals.
         Anyway, I know that this (along with animals, colours, numbers, body parts, etc. vocabulary) is the most boring thing to learn in a new language. This is why I've waited so long to teach you this (and also the fact that I forgot I should make a lesson on this topic O:-).
Let's get started!

Days of the Week (Dny v týdnu)

pondělí (Monday) - v pondělí
úterý (Tuesday) - v úterý
středa (Wednesday) - ve středu
čtvrtek (Thursday) - ve čtvrtek
pátek (Friday) - v pátek
sobota (Saturday) - v sobotu
neděle (Sunday) - v neděli

         There's nothing to explain about days of the week. Yet there's one thing you have to memorize: The first letters of the days of the week in Czech are not capitalized!

Months of the Year (Měsíce v roce)

leden (January) - v lednu

únor (February) - v únoru

březen (March) - v březnu

duben (April) - v dubnu

květen (May) - v lednu

červen (June) - v červnu

červenec (July) - v červenci

srpen (August) - v srpnu

září (September) - v září

říjen (October) - v říjnu

listopad (November) - v listopadu

prosinec (December) - v prosinci

         Again, do not capitalize the first letters! The months are masculine except for one– září which is neuter.

Seasons of the Year (Roční období [v roce])

jaro (spring) - na jaře

léto (summer) - v létě

podzim (fall/ autumn) - na podzim

zima (winter) - v zimě

       Like in English, no capitalizing, please! 

Parts of the Day (Části dne)

ráno (morning)

poledne (noon) (v poledne [=at noon])

odpoledne (afternoon)

večer (evening)

noc (night) (v noci [=at night])

půlnoc (midnight) (o půlnoci [=at midnight])

       Ráno, odpoledne, večer are the basic words you definitely need to know. They are adverbs, therefore you don't need any prepositions to use them. For the rest, I added the prepositions right into the list. 

Telling the Time (Určování času)

        Kolik je hodin? Well, this sentence makes no sense at all, yet it's perfectly correct and it's the only way to say 'What's the time?' Sometimes Czechs shorten it to 'Kolik je?' (do not mistake for 'Kolik ti je' [=How old are you])
        Let's learn how to answer this question. (Yes, showing the screen of your cell phone is easier but stillllll...) 

        The answer is similar to the English one: 'Je...' (=It's...). 

        Now you can choose: 

Půl (half) +second case of an ordinal number 

Usage: Půl páté (=a half of fifth) 4:30 

Čtvrt (quarter) +na +fourth case of a number

Usage: Čtvrt na dvě (=a quarter on two) 1:15

Třičtvrtě (three quarters) +na +fourth case of a number

Usage: Třičtvrtě na osm (three quarters on eight) 7:45

       You can only use these using numbers 1-12 even though you mean in the afternoon. 


       Remember, there's still the option of saying: 14:25 ('čtrnáct dvacet pět') or 'dvě hodiny a dvacet pět minut'.

Telling the Date (Určování data)

        'Jaké je [dnes] datum?' (=What's the date [today]?) 

        'Kolikátého je?' (=What number (of the day) is it?) This one makes much less sense than the previous one but they both are used equally often. Advanced learners may know that the word 'kolikátého' indicates an ordinal number. Yes, we'll be answering this question with an ordinal number. Example: 'Šestnáctého března.' (=16th March). Also note that the number and the month are in the second case. As regards the number, you basically just take the neuter form, e. g. 'šesté', and add '-ho'.

Ordinal Numbers (Řadové číslovky)

první

druhý/á/é

třetí

čtvrtý/á/é

pátý/á/é

šestý/á/é

sedmý/á/é

osmý/á/é

devátý/á/é

desátý/á/é

jedenáctý/á/é

dvanáctý/á/é

třináctý/á/é

čtrnáctý/á/é

patnáctý/á/é

šestnáctý/á/é

sedmnáctý/á/é

osmnáctý/á/é

devatenáctý/á/é

dvacátý/á/é

dvacátý/á/é první

dvacátý/á/é druhý/á/é

dvacátý/á/é třetí

***

třicátý/á/é

čtyřicátý/á/é

padesátý/á/é

Prepositions (Předložky)

        Prepositions ar really simple. In English, you have at for hours, on for days, in for months, centuries, years and seasons of the year. In Czech, you can pretty much get on with only one preposition. It's the magic word 'v' (or ve) (=in). This preposition connects with the third case, therefore the word it precedes will be in the third case. However, 'jaro' and 'podzim' are used with the preposition 'na' only (+ sixth case). Another exceptions are festivals when you have to use 'na' + fourth case (na Vánoce, na Velikonoce, na Nový rok, na Dušičky...).
        Remember that you can't say 'v 2000'; you have to add 'roce' (the third case form of 'rok'). V roce dva tisíce šest (=in 2006).

         And, finally, a phrase that means anything from just one minute to years: 'za chvíli' (=in a moment).

love & peace
Ciray

How To Fight Damaged, Fragile Hair And Split Ends

Wash Your Hair In Lukewarm Water– Not Too Hot, Not Too Cold

I know, everyone likes to shower in hot water but your hair doesn't. Never use hot water on your hair. However, warm water helps open the cuticle of a hair; therefore you should use it before applying moisturising and other products. Allegedly, the cuticle opens (or rises) when it comes to contact with water itself so there's no heat needed (i. e. stop wasting electricity by using a hair dryer to warm your hair). Nevertheless, when washing the products off, use cold water to close the cuticle again because it protects the hair's cortex.

Hair Dryers Usually Have This Magic Button

So use it. (There's a snowflake on it.)

Use Conditioners For Easier Combing

It is said that you shouldn't comb your hair when it's wet. It gets stretched and fragile. I tried and failed, because I need to straighten it before it gets dry. If you tug your hair when combing and stubbornly claim that nothing helps it, you're wrong (unless you're hiding chewing gums in there).

Don't Use Heat 

If you want sexy waves, leave curlers on your hair overnight. I know, it's not comfortable but it's better for your hair. If you need to straighten your hair, use a hair dryer and a comb when it's wet.

Don't Rub Your Hair With A Towel

Just don't. Period.

Make A Ponytail When Going To Sleep

And don't wallow on your hair all night long. But don't make it too tight!

Split Ends Need Cutting

Nothing else. People don't want to hear this but it's the only solution– the fastest, most effective and helpful.

Buy Some Hair Growth Supplements... And Eat/ Apply Them

This is better than eating chocolate and mourning your decision to cut the split ends. You can also search for some articles on which vitamins, minerals, etc. help. They are all over the internet, waiting for you to read them.

Use Natural Oils

They are super helpful, full of vitamins, proteins, and so on. Apply them after washing your hair, before straightening; use them as a hair mask (even overnight). They are not cheap but they last for ages. I've had mine for four months. The cheapest, yet of high quality is coconut oil (depending on the brand, of course). I personally prefer argan oil and some people extol avocado oil. They even smell wonderfully!

Purchase some, I've been using this one for four months and it's still almost full.

Lesson 20– Noun-adjective Agreement, Vocabulary (body parts & colours)

Hello, kids, I'm back with another lesson.
This time we have an excerpt from Starlight's story as an example text. I chose this one because there are two topics I would like to talk about today: Noun-adjective agreement and vocabulary (colours and body parts). Let's get started!

'Měla dlouhé vlasy, jejich barva byla mezi blond a světlou hnědou. A oči byly hnědé, nebo aspoň tak z dálky vypadaly. Roztomilý nos, plné rty, jemně růžová líčka...'
(From the Chapter 1 of 1989, edited)

We already have past tense here. That is why I dedicated my last lesson to it. If you haven't read it yet, please, check it out, it will help you to understand better.
'Měla' is the past tense form of the verb 'mít' which means 'to have' (full conjugation table is found here). 'Byla' and 'byly' are past forms of 'být' (to be). 'Vypadaly' comes from 'vypadat'.
'Jejich' is a possessive pronoun; I mentioned them in Lesson 13. It is the subject of the sentence, therefore it is not inflected. Now let's find out the meaning of all of the other words.

Vocabulary

barva, f. (barvy; prdg. žena) ['bur-vah] colour; noun
dálka, f. (dálky, exception: 3rd case: dálce; prdg. škola) ['du:ll-cah] distance; noun
dlouhý/á/é ['dlow-hee:] long; adj.
hnědý/á/é ['hnye-dee:] brown; adj.
jemně ['ye-mnye] slightly, softly; adv.
líčko, n. (líčka; prdg. město) ['leech-coh] cheek; noun
mezi ['meh-zee] between, among; prep.
nos, m. (nosu; prdg. hrad)['nos] nose; noun
oči (sing.: oko), f. (očí; prdg. kost) ['o-tchi] eyes; noun – quite complicated, I'm going to talk about it later
plný/á/é ['pl-nee:] full; adj. 
ret, m. (rtu; prdg. hrad) ['ret] lip; noun
růžový/á/é ['roo:-zyo-vee:] pink; adj.
tak ['tuck] like that, that way, so; adv.

The rest of the words has already been mentioned in some lessons before, so they can be found in my Czech-English dictionary.
Knowing these words, you should now be able to translate the sentences. Yet, to make sure you fully understand them, I'll go through them with you.

'Měla dlouhé vlasy...' I think this is clear. Note that the adjective and the noun have to 'agree'. I talked about this in Lesson 8 and I'm going to talk about it more in this lesson. One important thing is that we talk about hair in plural (like in French – les cheveux), not like in English. 'Vlasy jsou...' not 'Vlasy je...' but you can say 'Vlas je...' if you're talking about one hair. Translation: She had long hair...

'...jejich barva byla mezi blond a světlou hnědou.' When talking about something's colour, you have to use the colour's name as a noun. 'Barva mých očí je hnědá.'  (=My eyes' colour is brown.) BUT 'Mé oči jsou hnědé.' (=My eyes are brown.) Translation: '...its colour was between blonde and light brown.'

'A oči byly hnědé, nebo aspoň tak z dálky vypadaly.' I see there could be a problem with the word 'tak'. Aside from its being used as a 'filler' (it's basically the Czech equivalent of 'well' or 'so') it is also used as an adverb. As a translation, I used 'like that'. Let's take a look at the verb 'vypadat'. We talked about this verb in Lesson 18 and you already know that we usually use it with 'jako' or 'jak' (no difference in this case). Together it means 'to look like'. And if you don't want to repeat 'they looked like they were brown', you can just say 'they looked like that'. The same can be done in Czech– 'vypadaly jako hnědé' => 'vypadaly tak' (you have to omit 'jako', 'tak' itself means 'like that'). Translation: And [her] eyes were brown, or at least they looked like that from a distance.

The last sentence will be explained in the following part.

Noun-adjective agreement

I'm not sure whether this is the official name for it. Ergh. Well, this is pretty much about the gender, case and number of the noun. I have already mentioned that we decline the adjectives too and I've also told you the two patterns which are jarní and mladý. According to these two, you are able to decline any adjective. Let's divide all of the adjectives we know into these two groups:
Jarní- další, menší, nervózní, světlejší, vlastní, zálkadní
Mladý- černý/á/é, dlouhý/á/é, dobrý/á/é, hubený/á/é, chladný/á/é, chutný/á/é, jistý/á/é, ledový/á/é, malý/á/é, náctiletý/á/é, naštvaný/á/é, nějaký/á/é, některý/á/é, nemocný/á/é, plný/á/é, podobný/á/é, překvapený/á/é, připravený/á/é, roztomilý/á/é, slaný/á/é, slovanský/á/é, smutný/á/é, světlý/á/é, šťastný/á/é, štíhlý/á/é, růžový/á/é, unavený/á/é, vysoký/á/é, zeleninový/á/é, zklamaný/á/é, zmatený/á/é
As you can see, the pattern 'jarní' has only one form for the first case of singular and plural.
See these examples:
bratr, m.      další bratr        další bratři
sestra, f.       další sestra       další sestry
číslo, n.        další číslo         další čísla
The pattern 'mladý' has much more complicated declension and is commoner than 'jarní'. However, there are two comparative forms of adjectives– menší and světlejší. These are, as you know, derived from malý and světlý. Based on this, you can easily deduce that comparatives are always declined according to 'jarní'.
Examples:
bratr, m.     malý bratr          malí bratři
sestra, f.      malá sestra        malé sestry
číslo, n.       malé číslo          malá čísla
The full declension tables are in Czech Language Course section.

Vocabulary

Body Parts

I'm actually planning to make a video on body parts because hearing the pronunciation from a native speaker is probably better than a dictionary's 'pronunciation brackets'. When it's done, I'll post a link. This doesn't need any commenting so. I'm presenting a 'Body parts' wordlist!

We already know these:
líčko, n. (líčka; prdg. město) ['lee:tch-coh] cheek; noun
nos, m. (nosu; prdg. hrad)['nos] nose; noun
oči (sing.: oko), f. pl. (očí; prdg. kost) ['o-tchi] eyes; noun
ret, m. (rtu; prdg. hrad) ['ret] lip; noun

Let's add another facial parts:
brada, f. (brady; prdg. žena) ['brah-dah] chin; noun
čelo, n. (čela; prdg. město) ['tche-loh] forehead; noun
oko, n. (oka; prdg. město) ['oa-coh] eye; noun
pusa, f. (pusy; prdg. škola) ['poo-sah] mouth, kiss; noun
ucho, n. (ucha; prdg. město)  ['oo:-cho] ear; noun
ústa, f. pl. (úst; prdg. města-pl.) ['oo.s-tah] mouth; noun
uši (sing. ucho), f. pl. (uší; prdg. kost) ['oo-shi] ears; noun

And some basic words to be able to name what we've broken:
noha, f. (nohy; prdg. škola; 3rd case, sing.-noze) ['no-hah] leg; noun
paže, f. (paže; prdg. růže) ['pah-zye] arm; noun
prst, m. (prstu; prdg. hrad) ['prst] finger, toe; noun
ruka, f. (ruky; prdg. škola; 3rd case, sing.-ruce; pl. ruce) ['roo-cah] hand; noun

Colours

Basic colours always end in -á (except for special ones, e. g. fuchsia, etc.), it is so probably because we used to say 'černá barva' or 'šedá barva' so it was shortened to 'černá' and 'šedá'. This is why they are declined like adjectives (according to the pattern mladý).

We already know these:

černá, f. ['tcher-na:h] black; noun
hnědá, f. ['hnye-da:h] brown; noun

růžová, f. ['roo:-zyo-va::] pink; noun

Let's add some:

bílá, f. ['bee:-la:h] white; noun

červená, f. ['tcher-ve-na:h] red; noun

fialová, f. ['fee-ah-loa-va:h] purple; noun

modrá, f. ['mod-ra:h] blue; noun

oranžová, f. ['oa-ran-zyo-va:h] orange; noun

šedá, f. ['sheh-da:h] grey; noun

zelená, f. ['ze-leh-na:h] green; noun

žlutá, f. ['zyloo-ta:h] yellow; noun

What is your favourite colour? Jaká je tvá (vaše) oblíbená barva?
My favourite colour is ... Má oblíbená barva je...

love & peace
Ciray