Články dle značky: languages

The Channel Islands are located in the English Channel and what is special about them is that most have retained their original Norman language.

The Centre of African Studies, founded on May 15th, 2019 brings together experts and academics from all over the Czech Republic studying Africa from a wide range of perspectives - from zoology through natural science to political science and linguistics.

Kateřina Chládková is one of the few researchers in the world who study the earliest stages of language acquisition, which means she is often in contact with babies – even in the maternity ward. Her aim is to find out how we learn to speak from the very first moments of life.

As a little girl, Lucie Korecká received a copy of The Hobbit and was enchanted by J.R.R. Tolkien’s world, explored further in fantastic detail in The Lord of the Rings. The work was influenced by Icelandic and Norse mythology and later Korecká pursued her passion for Old Norse at the Faculty of Arts, where she is completing her PhD.

Seventy languages are taught at the Faculty of Arts of Charles University. This is unique not only here, but also in Europe. Students from other disciplines can study Finnish or Hungarian and boost their chances of finding a job using their language skills.

Associate Professor Jan Sýkora from the Institute of Asian Studies has been to Japan countless times and has dedicated more than 30 years to the study of the Japanese language and culture. This year, he received one of Japan’s highest honours.

It’s no secret that learning Czech can be tricky when it comes to grammar or pronunciation. Some would say especially the pronunciation of words sprinkled with Czech diacritics is tough. Recently the Faculty of Arts rolled out a game-changer: a state-of-the-art pronunciation app which is making it easier and more fun to learn the language.

Peter Mackay has been hailed by critics as the best poet of his generation writing in Scottish Gaelic. He currently works at the School of English at the University of St Andrews and also serves as the captain of the Scottish Writers’ Football Team.

Of the many institutes at Charles University, one of the most important for the school as well as for the broader public, is the Institute for Language and Preparatory Studies. It is dedicated to teaching Czech and English to foreigners and preparing int'l students.

“Our main goal is to produce a language model that will compete with existing models and, moreover, will work very well for all European languages,” says Professor Jan Hajič from the Institute of Formal and Applied Linguistics at CU.