Question by : How mutually intelligible are the Czech and Slovak languages?
How mutually intelligible are the Czech and Slovak languages, especially among the younger generation? Could a person who speaks fluent Slovak live and work comfortably in Prague?
Best answer:
Answer by Erik Van Thienen
“Czech is similar to and mutually intelligible with Slovak.”
“Speakers of Czech and Slovak usually understand both languages in their written and spoken form, thus constituting a language diasystem, though some dialects or heavily accented speech in either language might present difficulties to speakers of the other (in particular, Czech speakers may find Eastern Slovak dialects difficult to comprehend). Younger generations of Czechs living after the dissolution of Czechoslovakia in 1993 (therefore generally less familiar with Slovak) might also have some problems with a certain number of words and expressions which differ considerably in the two languages, and with false friends. Nevertheless, these differences do not impede mutual intelligibility significantly.”
“Czech and Slovak have a long history of interaction and mutual influence well before the creation of Czechoslovakia in 1918. Literary Slovak shares significant orthographic features with Czech, as well as technical and professional terminology dating from the Czechoslovak period, but there are phonetic, grammatical and vocabulary differences.”
For the details, see : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Differences_between_Slovak_and_Czech_languages
Give your answer to this question below!
Yup, totally. I as a Slovak understand everything spoken in Czech, and vice-versa.
I’ve heard small children in Czech republic don’t really understand Slovak anymore, but I’ve never experienced it in person.
But I was in Prague a while ago and I had absolutely no problems with communicating.