I always knew that body language made up a huge part of communication. So today I tried a little experiment to see how important it is when speaking in a language you only know a little about.

At my hotel in Boskovice, I had a great, but short, conversation with the receptionist. It was partly in Czech and partly in English but I forced myself to use as much Czech as possible. We spoke about music and I learnt that she was studying multi-media at university and had a 5 year old daughter named Ann. On saying goodbye (once my lift arrived) Lucie lamented that the conversation was too short.

Church in Boskovice

So, here began my experiment. This morning I decided to call the hotel on the phone with the pretence that I was thinking of visiting again in a week. I figured since I knew we could have a conversation in person, having one over the phone would remove the visual aspects and truly test my language skills.

This phone conversation was close to a disaster. It was full of “sorrys” and much nervous laughter from both sides. At one point I was speaking broken English, as if that would help. To at least rescue the situation and finish things up nicely I resorted to using Google translator.

One nights sleep and a successful conversation turns into mud.

The inability to use facial expressions and hand gestures really did make things very difficult. Whilst not a true scientific experiment, I realise now first hand that whilst learning more vocabulary might be good, it isn’t the complete picture. You can fill many gaps in your limited language knowledge by being confident, animated and by using hand gestures.

Luckily for me I’m Italian so this comes naturally!

The YearlyGlot (who’s goal is to learn a new language each year) has a list of the “10 most important things to know, to get by in any language“. With 2.5 weeks to go before my real life run of Czech, I thought it would be useful to take stock of what I have learnt and what I should focus on in the next 2 weeks.

Being of the “Google generation” my natural inclination is that I can always look things up when I need them. I am expecting myself to do a little refresh study before encountering each situation so that should also help with the confidence once I’m in the country. For example, before heading out to eat, I will review my restaurant phrases. Before heading out for a random walk, I will review my directions and asking for help phrases.

As a means of measurement however, looking through the “10 most important things” list, I feel that I have learnt enough of those to get around and ask for help. There are a few areas which I have not yet had any study on and others where I still have some more work to do.
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Asking questions

Many language textbooks I’ve seen recently, including the travellers “common phrases” focus on short, one response question/answer. This is great if you only intend to ask for directions, order a beer and go to the bathroom. Having these types of quick conversations allows you to say “phew, I’m glad that’s over with.”

• How are you? Good thanks, you? Good thanks.
• How much is that? 100CZK. I’ll take one, thanks.
• Where is Wenceslas Square? It’s down that road. Thanks.

Having “conversations” like this might make you feel good about having used the language but they add little to your experience of the people you meet and your experience in actually truly using a new language. These types of questions are limited and do not open up a conversation. They are purely fact finding.

I’m obviously interested in seeing the sights, but I also want to learn about real people. Their life, opinions and feelings. It’s not quite appropriate for me to ask “So, what do you think of being Czech?” Instead I need to have enough language learnt so that I can build a rapport with people and engage in a real conversation.

So, my next language goal is to learn how to ask interesting questions.
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Today I finally finished a two page children’s story in Czech and my head really hurts! The story itself is actually a little lame but I found it unintentionally funny in some parts.

By the time I got to the second page there were significantly less words I needed to translate. Even though, I continued to make serious use of Google Translator. It’s a safety net that I need to get rid of soon if I am to continue learning anything. Here are the results of my “reading” …

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A big part of children learning their language is listening to and reading children’s books. I finally got my hands on some children’s stories online which are entirely in Czech. I haven’t found any which are bi-lingual, yet. Ideally I would love to have these recorded so I can listen as I read, but this will do for now.

I’ve read the first paragraph of “Hansen and Gretel in the city” and marked up all the words I didn’t know. It looks like a mess but I was pleasantly surprised at how many words I did know and how much I could just get the gist of.

Jeníček a Mařenka ve městě

I’ll post back once I’ve finished the entire two pages! If you have any particular children’s stories you think I should read, also let me know.

As part of my language learning, one goal was to record a brief video of myself speaking Czech. Well, here it is … one goal done and dusted. I am reading some written text in this video but it is text which I wrote and is made up from words which I have learnt so far.

There are English subtitles for people who don’t understand Czech. I hope to make a new video each week as I improve. Hopefully in a month I will be confident enough to “freestyle” one without written prompts.

I have a habit of taking on a hobby and diving into it quite deeply. I did this when I was learning swing dancing (lindy hop), am doing it with my woodworking, and am about to start doing it with my Czech learning.

Benny Lewis has published his Language Hacking Guide. I’ll write up a review once I have finished working through it. One chapter has really intrigued me. It is about how to immerse yourself in the language, even when in your own country.

So, firstly, here is my list of where I use the English language in a typical day (weekends are different):

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