Language problems in Prague
 

We will be visiting Prague in Sept. Are there a lot of language problems there? I was in Tanzania and Italy recently and most people spoke English. I am reading the tour books and it is difficult to really understand some of them??????????

Txs.

In the areas that you are likely to visit you will find that you can do OK with English.

We had no problems in Prague. We enjoyed our visit and would recommend it. Be sure and walk the Charles Bridge late at night(late these days is around 11pm for us)

Just be careful not to speak your Esperanto to anyone over 40.

You might consider buying tour books printed in English; Czech is SO difficult.

<< Czech is SO difficult >>

Really? Almost everyone in Prague speaks it, and pretty much effortlessly, as far as I can tell.

:)

<< Really? Almost everyone in Prague speaks it, and pretty much effortlessly, as far as I can tell. >>

Many in Prague also seem to learn numerous other languages effortlessly. I was amazed by all the multilingual salesclerks who spoke fluent English to me and then turned around and spoke to the next customer in fluent German or French.

I was there for 3 days and has no problem. Unlike western Europe there language is so different. Communication was not a problem. If we got lost we would go into a hotel if possible where english is always spoken.

Two years ago I toured many of the former Communist countries which have recently joined the eu (Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic in particular)...here is what I noticed...

English has become almost the 2nd language. Of course for years, for obvious reasons, the second language was Russian (and in smoe respects, except for Hungary, Polish and Czech are slavic languages more closely related to Russian than English yet written with roman letters, Hungarian is a language all unto itself).....

In many of the museums, especially in Poland (Krakow and Warsaw), signs of attractions in the museum were in the local language and in English (not everywhere but many of the places).

German used to be a strog language among parts of the population given the location of these countries more or less bordering on Germany but also for obvious reasons, the younger generation has sort of moved German down in the order of importance of study of languages (not that many don't speak 3 or more languages)...I asked my Czech guide about this and he said almost all young people as their choice of first language to study in school now choose English.

All very surprising but of course don't count on anybody speaking English as you walk down the street in Pozan Poland (but then again, I had lost a screw in the frame of my eye glasses and walked into an optical shot and explain the problem in English and had no trouble whatsoever in Pozan and was really pleasantly surprised. So don't worry about it.

At least basic english is widely spoken in Prague - esp by anyone in the tourist/hospitality industry. I've been 3 times - and even the first time - only about a year after the Russians left - we had no problems at all.

(Although then there were signs everywhere in the street in which people offered private english lessons. On my most recent trip - 2 years ago - the signs had disappeared - so I guess english has reached saturation point.)

>walk down the street in Pozan Poland
Up to now, I havn`t found anyone in Krynica / Poland who speaks anything but Polish. Nevertheless not a problem at all. All you need to know iswritten in English and German, except for the menues that are hard to decypher.You won´t have a problem. Talking is overrated anyway ;-) .

I was just in Prague for a month and had no problem. I learned a few basic words like hello, bye, thanks...

Almost everyone spoke some English.

At a park one day I met an older Czech man who talked to me for over an hour to "practice" his English. I am guessing he was in his mid to late 70's and a bit lonely. Anyway he said that he was part of a group who met weekly to practice English together and that he watched CNN 4 hours a day so that he could learn to speak without an accent so that he could be the best in his group.

Europeans put us to shame, on a tour of a perfume factory the guide apologised for "only" speaking french, german, italian and spanish but she said her english was not good. She sounded just fine to me !