Czech: An Essential Grammar (Routledge Essential Grammars)

A lecturer of the University of Oxford, UK, James Naughton has written "Colloquial Czech" and "Colloquial Slovak." I began studying Czech decades ago before the end of communist governments in Central Europe. I own one edition of "Colloquial Czech," and wanted to improve my knowledge of Czech grammar before visiting the Czech Republic in the near future. "Czech: An Essential Grammar" goes into detail about the finer points of the language, beginning with pronunciation and orthography and ending with word formation using prefixes and suffixes. I think it is a very useful book for students of the Czech language.

This Routledge series book helps those who once studied Czech but have forgotten a lot through disuse. Rather than make the reviewer plow again through a traditional grammar book, this series allows instant access to actual advanced sentences in a grammatical context that is both helpful as well as attractive. I think Routledge has a good format in these books.

This is a bit different, in the way grammar is discussed and presented, but fits Czech to do it this way, and I loved it. Could just sit and read it like any book and come away with good understanding. Very useful!

Really! First, use this work. I know it means seemingly meaningless memorization, but then the Short Teach Yourself Czech will make a lot more sense, and you can concentrate on the colloquial expressions and phrases. Then you can polish off your knowledge with Radio Praha (which has the printed Czech of their articles and sound in RealAudio or Windows Media) and the Fronek dictionary. The Fronek IS hideously expensive, but since you're not gonna find "2,000+ Essential Czech Verbs," you'll find all you need on the irregualr conjugations and declensions there.

Very pleased finally to have a Czech grammar, I have not as yet managed to make use of the grammar. Thus I cannot as yet write a proper review. When I have had the opportunity to make use of that grammar, I will then be able to write my evaluation.

Very technical

Once again as with any language material audio should be combined with written text

This is an excellent book on Czech grammar. Unfortunately the Kindle edition is missing many of the diacritic marks. For a language book this is unacceptable. Do NOT buy the kindle edition until the problem is fixed. Check the previews of the Kindle and paper edition previews for the Czech spellings of the word "Czech". The leading "C" should have a diacritic mark. An early instance of the problem occurs in the table of contents. The entry for section 2.4 lacks a diacritic on the leading "E". If you did purchase the Kindle Edition and then discovered this you can return it for a short time.

Esta gramática general es un buen texto para estudiantes de checo. El principal defecto es que está orientada específicamente a angloparlantes, mientras que para un hispanohablante sería mucho más práctico enfocar el aprendizaje del checo desde el castellano, con estructuras y figuras gramaticales más relacionadas con el checo. No me gusta que el autor cambie la organización de los casos y sitúe el 4º caso (acusativo) en segundo lugar para facilitar el aprendizaje: los atajos no funcionan cuando se estudia un idioma para hablarlo y el 2º caso (genitivo) debe ir en segundo lugar, como en cualquier otro texto nativo checo. Pero la ayuda que he recibido del texto ha sido en general muy buena, sobre todo durante el primer año de mi aprendizaje, ayudando a afianzar conceptos y acelerar la comprensión de la gramática.

This book provides a very comprehensive explanation of Czech grammar and reveals many of its mysteries. I would recommend it to anyone who wants to get to grips with the Czech language.

Without any doubt, this is the best one-volume guide to Czech grammar that you will find - and you will certainly +need+ this book (or something very like it) if you plan to go beyond basic phrasebook communication. It covers all the ground that you will need to cope with almost any situation and is clearly and logically laid out with a well-written text. All reasonable questions and areas of uncertainty are anticipated and answered, with helpful tips on informal usages. The only real negative is the price, which is not cheap for a paperback. But then quality rarely comes cheap.

The book has good information. But it is not intendede to practice since it doesn't have any excercise. It only has the Grammar explanation and that is all. If your intetion is to practice, it is not your book. But if will use only as reference, it will really help you.

Excellent