learning the czech language

[drogomir]

I am interested in attending a european med school. So far i have ruled out romania, and considering Charles university/DEBRECEN . I am however worried about having to learn another language. I am from jamaica. I speak fluent english. I understand some french. I am interested in knowing how much emphasis is placed on learning the language for clinical rotations. How diffucult is it to learn the czech or hungarian language. Do you just need to know medical terminology of the language or the language in general. Anyone who is currently enrolled at any of these universities or has any information concerning this topic, you opinion will be well appreciated. Thanx

[diogenes]

Czech is quite tough for most English speakers. It's a Slavonic language, very different from French.
Hungarian is even harder - a notoriously difficult language for most people (it's not even a part of the Indo-European family of languages). But I've no idea how well or badly med. students there have got on with it.
You will miss out on a lot in the clinical years if you can't communicate at all with patients. However, on the Czech courses many people do muddle through with very little language ability. If nothing else, make sure you know the medical terminology and the essential phrases for interviewing patients.

In case that sounds too forbidding, I should add that if you're diligent with your Czech lessons and make some effort to practise with native speakers you will have sufficient language to at least get by. A lot of the problems in CZ med. schools with language arise because many of the english-speaking students resolutely refuse to make any effort at all!

[drogomir]

Thanks for the input.

[peacefuljourney]

Hi,

I'm Canadian with no special gift for languages and I've learned Slovak (Czech) reasonably well over the past few years. I'm in year 5 of a 6 year program. I can say that I've never really put an effort in to learn the language (i.e. I don't study vocab and grammar at night). We took lessons the first 2 years as a regular class and that's it.

My vocab is limited for sure and my grammar sucks, but the key is to lose your shame and just speak. I can always find a way to make myself understood for the most part. But I try and many colleagues don't bother because it's easy for them to get me to do translation or one of the other guys who have learned to speak reasonably well.

The Slavic languages are tricky but phonetic pronunciation and with Roman letters (i.e. it's not mandarin). There are 7 cases (like Latin) and the formal and informal (like French). But over the past 5 years we are seeing more and more English speaking patients...

Hungarian is a really strange language - very foreign. We go there for lunch/shopping etc. and I can't even say hello or thank you (to my shame). It is a unique dialect and I wouldn't want to learn it. But of course, if you put your mind to it anything can be done.

Good luck. S-

[shrey]

i've heard from my friendz (studyin at Charles) that its not that hard to pick up...i mean they dont require you to be fluent by the end of the 1st yr or anything....you've got 3 yrs for that and if you work on your language skills regularly, you shouldnt worry abt it....wat u should worry abt is the other subjects (like anatomy, embryology n stuff...atleast that's wat my friendz said).....i'll be attendin the 1st faculty this october so if your applyin this yr...then i guess i'll c ya there!