Finding a private Czech tutor is probably the only way to really learn to speak Czech.
And of course, you have to find a good one!
Most of the students who come to us to learn Czech have Czech partners. Some of them initially tried to exploit their partners, hoping to have some free Czech lessons at home, which, perhaps, one day, might lead to a fluent conversation in Czech.
But after a few frustrating attempts, they come to us, asking for a Czech tutor who could help.
Why is it we can’t learn Czech from our partners?
The answer is simple. You can’t learn from someone who can’t teach. And it isn’t enough just to be Czech to be able to teach Czech.
It takes many skills to teach the Czech language. We are talking about an east eauropean language which is very complex in its essence and grammatically incomparable to English. Therefore, understandably, it is impossible to explain how and why we say certain things unless you are talking to a linguist or a Czech teacher, or someone who really understands Czech.
Learning Czech from your partner is often limited to vocabulary, simple phrases and expressions, and maybe some basic grammar patterns, acquired mostly by repetition rather than understanding.
Joining a Czech class is another option but the results seem to be poor mostly because students in a typical classroom have very little opportunity to speak Czech and practice what they have just learned. It is really important to have as much Czech conversation as possible within your lessons, so that you can put in practice what you just learned and to consolidate often rather complicated grammatical rules.
We run many one to one Czech lessons in London and teach students who are genuinely determined to conquer the language. It is a real pleasure to see their progress and excitement replacing the frustration and apprehension they felt initially, before coming to us to try private classes.
In fact, I spoke to one of our students recently who has been learning Czech for just over a year, starting from scratch, and his resilience and hard work as well as a great relationship with his dedicated tutor has resulted in incredible progress; indeed I recently learned that he felt so confident he was able to have an argument in Czech, over the phone, with his new mother in law!
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