Mr. Abishek

"My name is Abishek Stephen and I have completed the Advanced Diploma in Czech course from the Department of Slavonic and Finno-Ugrian Studies, University of Delhi,India.

I was awarded the “Scholarship of the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports in Support of Foreign Nationals' Study at Public Institutions of Higher Education in the Czech Republic" to support the doctoral study programme (field of study Applied Linguistics), with tuition in the English language, pursued at Faculty of Mathematics and Physics, Institute of Formal and Applied Linguistics, Charles University for a period of 5 months.

Currently I am working as a pre-PhD intern at the Institute of Formal and Applied Linguistics. I am working on the Universal Dependency ( https://universaldependencies.org/ ) based syntax for Malayalam. The internship involves creating a Malayalam Treebank along with handling other areas of morphology and dependency syntax for Dravidian languages. The first version of the Treebank has been already released-https://universaldependencies.org/ml/index.html. My current supervisor is Daniel Zeman ( https://ufal.mff.cuni.cz/daniel-zeman ).

The Czech language course at the University of Delhi prepares the students adequately in terms of language and cultural competency to live in the Czech Republic comfortably. I personally did not experience any difficulty on arriving in Prague, Czech Republic. Thanks to the concerned parties involved in the arrangement of the scholarship/ internship in India and in the Czech Republic who coordinated in a coherent manner which enabled me to start my internship on time without any hassle.      

As part of the scholarship/ internship I was provided accommodation in one of the student dormitories of Charles University. I am staying at Kolej Komenského in Prague-6. It is very well connected to the other parts of Prague through tram and roadways. My faculty is at a walking distance from the dormitory which is very convenient. I stay in a well-furnished single room surrounded by a multilingual and multicultural atmosphere.

Prague is definitely one of the most beautiful cities in Europe and even more than that it is student friendly. Students can avail multiple discounts ranging from travel to recreational activities. Overall my experience has been really positive and I would like to stay longer here and continue studies."

Mr. Ranjodh

"I'm Ranjodh Singh. I'm a student of languages. I studied Czech for 3 years in Delhi as a part time course at the Department of Slavonic and Finno-Ugrian Studies of the University of Delhi. Currently I'm pursuing a bachelor's degree called Czech Studies for Foreigners at the Charles University in Prague.

Czech Studies is a philological field that deals with the study of cultural, literary, historical and linguistic questions about the Czech nation. Which is to say we do study the Czech language but we also study about the historical developments, cultural phenomena and literary movements going that took place in Czechia. My subjects this semester include: literary studies, phonetics and phonology, morphological excercises, word formation and spelling among others.

Since we study everything in Czech, the main requirement for admission was having a level B2. My Czech level when I started was somewhere actually closer to B1 in the beginning of the semester due to the lack of exposure, since I had only studied the language in India. In the beginning, it was sometimes difficult to follow the literary study lectures which we shared with native speakers, as the professor would switch between Standard and Common Czech for dramatic effect and to engage better with his younger audience. I would return overwhelmed from the lectures, having understood them partly and go over the slides again to keep up. With time and practice, however, my listening comprehension improved and I understood more and more of what he was saying. Now I love his subject and look forward to have him as a teacher in other subjects in upcoming semesters.

On the other hand, when it came to more linguistic subjects like morphology, word formation and spelling, I felt like I belonged because I was able to answer more and more questions in classes. In fact, some of my classmates were astonished when I was able to instantly tell the imperfective counterparts of perfective verbs and vice versa. And even the native speakers were in left awe when I would ask more advanced questions in Phonetics, given that I'm studying a technical subject in a foreign language. This feels like enough bragging for a day, so let's move on to something else.

I live at one of the dormitories, or as we Indians call them hostels, of Charles University called Kolej 17. Listopadu. I love this hostel because I have an excellent view from my room and we have a direct link from our hostel to the nearest public transport station, Nádraží Holešovice from where you could take a bus, a tramcar or even the metro. This is one of the best parts about living in Prague, the very efficient public transport system. In fact, the first thing I learnt when I talked to my fellow dormmates was that I should get a year-long Lítačka, the public transport card, made, so that I can travel anywhere around Prague without having to pay all the time. And as a student of a European university, I hold a card called ISIC, which gets me a big discount in getting a Lítačka and many other things.

You have to love these student discounts when you're planning to eat outside. Most fastfood chains offer ISIC holders discounts. Oh, and it's not just them, you get a discounted price in the mess halls of your university where non-holders have to pay a higher price. These mess halls always four meal options on all working days, always including a vegetarian one, where usually there's a big source of protein and a source of carbohydrates.

While the mess halls may be a great place to go on a working day for a meal and always offer many Czech meal options, they're not exactly the most ideal places to go to explore Czech cuisine at its best. There's a multitude of excellent Czech restaurants around the city, one of which is Havelská koruna, which according to my friends used to be an unexplored gem hardly visited by tourists, until recently when it started to have rushes of tourists wanting to try authentic Czech food. Thankfully the quality of the food did not deteriorate and it is still a place one could more or less affordably try Czech food and walk out with a full and satisfied tummy.

Another great thing I got to be a part of is Charlie. Charlie is Charles University's LGBTQ student's society that organises weekly student meet-ups and even some hikes. I have been a regular visitor at their meet-ups and I even participated in a hike from Luchkov to Hlubočepy with them. They really keep up the progressive spirit of Czechia and are very welcoming. It is charming in a way how much Czech people love hikes, by the way. So much so, that it is often informally dubbed as the Czech national sport.

I have just started working part-time for the Welcome Centre for Foreigners at the Czech Life Sciences University (ČZU). We help foreign scientists and researchers with their stay in Czechia and also organise events to acquaint them with Czech culture while keeping them entertained. I have recently helped them organise a Christmas party and have also written a small article in English about how Christmas is celebrated in Czechia for them. I am glad to be of use to them and the many researchers they help and support.

My Czech has has improved drastically since I have come. I have started writing poetry in Czech and have also started working on the translation of my own novel in Czech on the side. It's still not perfect, but I like my progress. Soon someday, I'll be translating works of Indian and Czech writers into Czech and Hindi respectively.

As Christmas approaches, the country is turning very festive and joyful. People are buying gifts for their family and friends and they've started working on the preparations for the celebrations. Soon after, the year will end, and we, the students, will have exams. I'm already excited for all of that. As this semester comes to an end I'm really excited about the subjects in the summer semester and the next academic year as well. I'm grateful I got the opportunity to come here and will make the most out of it.

I wish you all a Happy New Year. I also thank you for making this happen. It's been great so far and I'm hopeful for the future."