Since I absolutely dread speaking "foreign" English, where you just say the words MORE... LOUDLY... AND... SLOWLY... WITH... CLIPPED... ENDS... UND... A... FUNNY... ACZENT... AND... NOT... GRAMMAR... NEIN!... NE!..., I'm having Czech lessons with the delightful and only mildly terrifying Mrs. Jana. Due to her ability to look fierce at 7:30 in the morning, we've already whizzed through the innumerable greetings that pepper the Czech day: Good Very Early Morning, Good Morning, Good Slightly Before Noon, Good Noon, Good Afternoon, Good Evening and Good Night (mercifully all situations can be covered by this idiot foreigner under the umbrella pleasantry, "Dobry Den"). Yay us!
Mrs. Jana has now declared her mission to haul me through the intricacies of verbage and the accusative case (singular) by my quaking earlobes. This means that I can now say many useful things, to wit: "I have a good book, He has a modern car, They have a tall brother." I can also tell time, but only in digital, since apparently the o'clock business is the sort of thing that makes students or even this befuddled studentka run away screaming into the night.
Being the generous sort, I absolutely insist on inflicting my new-found knowledge on my Czech colleagues, and even the Polish ones if they don't duck fast enough. Luckily so far they've found this hilarious rather than insulting. However, the time has now come for me to stop using the nifty photocopies provided by Mrs. Jana, who has been making stern noises of late. Therefore I have bitten the bullet and acquired a copy of Czech Step-by-Step, billed as "The most beautiful textbook in 2004 in CR". I haven't yet removed the cellophane to unveil the beauty that must surely lie beneath its glossy yellow cover decorated with little footprints, but will be sure to report when I do.
In the meantime, the blurb inspired me to have a look at the covers in the the "Women's Fiction" for inspiration. Cue childish giggles from one corner of "Knihy Dům" in Wenceslas square. But I think this section requires my handy-dandy digital camera to do it justice. Another time perhaps, unless they arrest me for attempted cover art plagiarism or some kind of weird book stalking.
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