Czech/Alphabet and Pronunciation

Czech alphabet consists of 42 normal Latin letters, some have an accent:

• All vowels can be either short (aeiouy), or long with acute (čárka) (áéíóúůý). (This can denote a different word.)
• The only difference between Ú and Ů is that Ú is used only at the beginning of a word (or a part of a word like: tri/angle = troj/úhelník).
• There are also "softened" versions of the letters D E N R S T Z, with a hook (háček): ˇ
• The accents lengthen the vowels, but they do not imply stress. Stress is almost always on the first syllable. The same rules also apply in Slovak.

A Á B C Č D Ď E É Ě F G H Ch I Í J K L M N Ň O Ó P Q R Ř S Š T Ť U Ú Ů V W X Y Ý Z Ž

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Most of the letters are spelled similar way as in German. Note:

• Ch is pronounced as "kh" and considered as one letter
• C like in "tse-tse" or German 'z' as in 'Zimmer'
• E and G like in "beggar"
• H like in "head"
• J like in "yeah"
• Ň like in "new" or the Spanish 'señor'
• R somewhat harder than in English, a bit like in Spanish "arriba" initially and rolled in the middle of a word.

The pronunciation rarely changes depending on the position, except for:

1. D, N, T are pronounced as Ď, Ň, Ť before I or Ě

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1. Czech has word-final devoicing of consonants. This means that in speech, voiced consonants are pronounced as their voiceless counterparts: D -> T, Ď->Ť, H->Ch, G->K, V->F, B->P, Z->S, Ž->Š.

Now you know almost everything. You can go to the Czech pronunciation page and hear it.