#and you might say 'well johanna the object probably has either accusative or dative case so look for that' | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

ukulelegodparent · 2 years ago

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I think I found out why I struggle so much with Czech when I understand Polish just fine (well not just fine but miles better than Czech with a lot less effort). Basically German marks focus by using stress. Something that Czech very notably does not do and in general I feel like Czech doesn't have a whole lot of stress going on above the level of morphology. And I mean yeah Polish also uses word order to mark focus just like any respectable Slavic language does but also there's a lot more going on there with prosodic stress. And I just need a stress marker to let me know what to part of the sentence I should pay attention to. And like I mean I could probably get by without it if I spoke the language better but guess what?

#and i mean yeah sure french also doesn't do this but a)I speak french a lot better than i do czech #and b) french has a very fixed word order like if I know from context the object is gonna be important I know exactly where to find it #and not first go searching for it bc it got put god knows where #and you might say 'well johanna the object probably has either accusative or dative case so look for that'#to which I can only say 'have you SEEN the czech case system???'#I do love skiing holidays I always make so many fun and interesting conversations #there's a lot of czech and polish people here and you sit around with random people in the ski lifts so perfect opportunities for #listening practice and noticing things #also many italians and Dutch people and germans #and the occasional slovak person and some slovenians #it's so fun to see like all the multilingualism and communication strategies #and out of all those people you know who I understand the worst?#the people from where we're skiing when they talk to each other bc while it's technically German #the dialect from this part of South Tyrol is so strong and weird I'm completely lost

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