Hi bpcyclist. Right now (I hope) my nephew-in-law does not have covid. It's my sister-in-law that MIGHT have covid. We are just concerned that if the nephew gets it it could be especially risky, since he has severe heart problems. Not that it couldn't be risky for my sister-in-law, but she is generally quite healthy.

I speak a combination of "wifey pooh Czech", "pet-related Czech (our former parrots), and a whole lot of culinary-related Czech. Of course I know the basic pronouns and verbs (present tense) and their usual conjugations. I also know useful phrases of the sorts like "Where is the toilet room?", "I'm hungry", "Big beer, please.", "It's a beautiful day.", "I love you", etc. Plus, a myriad of other nouns and verbs, most useful ones, others a bit more obscure. The most difficult part of Czech are the many cases and how they affect words. Czech also has noun genders, and to top it off, some verbs are affected by the gender of the speaker and/or the gender of the noun(s). I have a good ear for languages, but grammar has been my weak point. I also have to remember that the accent is always put on the very first syllable of every Czech word. That is clearly different than in English, and many other languages. Though there are a handful of cognates, Czech does have unique words for many things that a lot of languages use the Latin-based terms for. They also use lots of diminutives. They often have totally different words for things that English would use the same words for. For example, in English we use the verb "to eat" for both humans and animals, whereas in Czech, they "jíst" for humans, and "papat" for animals, and then again, the conjugations are often complex.

All of these years, my husband has let me speak "pigeon Czech" without correcting me. Part of the fault is perhaps his sister's. She once told him to just let me speak without being picky about the grammar ("Hana's simplified grammar") but that doesn't fly when you're in Czech Republic. Half the time you'd be looked at in a negative way. Unfortunately, some Czechs (mostly older people) have prejudices against foreigners or they simply don't understand your attempts to speak the language. I can't say it won't be a bit of a struggle sometimes, especially when I'm alone in public.

It's true. Learning a new language, at almost 50 years old, is a major undertaking.