Czech Language Translation Services

 

An Accent on Accuracy

The highest quality translations, brisk turnaround schedules, competitive rates, and sharing of our knowledge, are all requisites for ALT's success. The complete and accurate translation of your company's communications is vital to your success. That's why ALT is obsessed with providing the best translators for YOUR project. High-quality translations are the product of a highly talented and experienced translation team with expertise in your industry. ALT puts all the pieces together to make it happen.

Why choose us for English to Czech or  Czech to English Translation?

Advanced Language Translation’s Professional Czech translation services utilize only native speakers to ensure quality and precision translations for your target audience. With Czech in particular, a deep understanding of Czech culture is needed for translation to be successful. When doing business in Czech Republic, professional human translation is a must. Do not expect to close a business deal or impress your clients with spotty software translation. Only through human translation, edited and customized to your target audience, can your meaning be honestly conveyed and your audience not be offended.

We are proud of our excellent reputation for reliable and high quality Czech to English and English to Czech translation services. We have assembled teams of translators from around the world, with an array of skills and specialties and can custom fit the knowledge and strengths of our teams to your specific projects. To demonstrate our commitment to quality and our dedication to our clients, we offer free consultations and provide an industry leading 180-day warranty on translation!

We provide quick and easy custom quotes for your Czech translation and localization needs.

Need to get the “gist” of Czech?

Although professional translation is highly recommended for any business, legal or sincere correspondence in Czech, sometimes it’s necessary to use machine translation (via software or the internet) to get the gist of an e-mail or web page. By no means is machine translation an acceptable substitute for professional translation—the technology is not there yet. But it is great for quickly getting the general idea of an article, e-mail, or web site.

Interesting Facts about the Czech Language

The earliest preserved texts in Czech were written in the 13th century. They were mainly hymns written in Bohemia. The first books were printed in the 1470s, also in Bohemia.

The first grammar of the Czech language (Gramatika ceská) dates back to 1533. It was written by Beneš Optát, Petr Gzel and Václav Filomates. The first systematic general grammar was written in 1603 by Vavrinec Benedikti z Nudožer (Grammaticae bohemicae libri duo). .

Czech has very strong linguistic traditions, especially in translation. About 28 % of Czech, as well as Slovak, television time was spent on translated material in late 90s.

In Czech pronunciation the stress always falls on the first syllable of a word.

Czech has 4 genders (neuter, feminine and 2 masculine - animate, inanimate), 7 cases (Nominative, Genitive, Dative, Accusative, Instrumental, Locative, Vocative) and 2 numbers.

History of the Czech Language

The Czech language belongs to the western group of Slavic languages, along with Slovak, Polish, Pomeranian, high and low Sorbian and Polabian (now extinct). It is also related, although more loosely, to the east and south Slavic language groups.

Czech was separated from other Slavic languages between the 10th and 16th century by a number of major sound changes. Closer to 16th century, Czech also lost the dual number and 2 Slavic past tenses, which were present in Slavonic. At the same time the number of declensions and the significance of the verbal aspect increased.

Czech dialects form four major groups - Bohemian, Central Moravian, Eastern Moravian and Silesian. The basis for standard written Czech is the Prague dialect. The colloquial form of Czech is called Common Czech. Common Czech has its roots in the central part of Bohemia, but it is widely spoken in other areas as well. While Bohemian dialects are more or less uniform due to the influence of Common Czech, the group of Silesian dialects is the most diverse and some of them are very close to Polish. The eastern Moravian dialect represents a transition from Czech to Slovak.

Historically and geographically, Czech was influenced by a number of languages. The strongest influence had Old Church Slavonic, Latin and German.

Written Language

Until the end of the 13th century, Czech used the Latin alphabet without modifications. When more complex texts appeared, a more complex writing system became necessary. Digraphs and trigraphs were used to write down the sounds that didn’t have Latin equivalents. However, around the 15th century the religious reformer Jan Hus introduced a diacritical writing system, i.e., diacritical marks were to be placed over some Latin letters to distinguish the palatal and palatalized consonants and long vowels (c, d, n, r, s, t, a, e, I, o, u, y). In the 16th century the long u was also added to the list. The only digraph that survived the reforms is ch.

This is how modern Czech alphabet looks:

Czech Language Statistics

• About 12 million people speak Czech. 
  
• Although, the majority of Czech speakers lives in the Czech Republic, a significant number of them live in the US (1.4 million), Canada, Ukraine and also in Poland,  Austria and Israel.
• The Czech Republic boasts a 99% literacy rate.

 

Translation and Localization Issues with Czech

Advanced Language Translation Inc has extensive experience with commercial and technical translations from English to Czech and from Czech into English. We have also amassed years of experience in typesetting Czech content. Here are some of the common issues with English to Czech translation that we have learned:

• Even though typesetting of Czech doesn’t pose any major technical obstacles  hyphenation may be an issue. Be sure your desktop publishing/word processing software has the ability to support Czech hyphenation dictionaries or consider using left-aligned text without hyphenation. 
• Czech uses a Latin 2 script, which may require the use of special fonts. Some 
  applications, such as the US version of Quark Xpress or FrameMaker, do not support 
  Latin 2 scripts. Thus, in FrameMaker "t" is missing. Since stripping off diacritical marks 
  can change the meaning of the word, it is important that language specialists handle 
  localization and/or formatting (DTP) of your documents and the software that supports 
  Latin-2 scripts is used. 
• In order to view or type Czech on a Windows computer, the appropriate keyboard 
  together with Central European fonts should be installed. For Mac users, Apple CE 
  fonts and CE keyboards should be installed (try http://aatseel.org/fonts/maceelatin.html).
• Typical text expansion ranges from 15 to 20%

 

Czech Language Vital Information

Speaking Population:   12 Million 
Where Spoken: Czech Republic
Writing Systems: Latin 2 
Code Pages: 
Unicode Supported: Yes 
Common Phrases: (phonetic pronunciations in parentheses)
      Czech: cesky (CHEHskee)
      Hello: Dobry' den (DObree den)
      Good-bye: Na shledanou (nas KHLEdanow) 
      Please: Prosím (PROseem)
      Thank you: Dekuji vam (DYEkooyi vam)
      Yes: ano (A no)
      No: Ne (ne)