Czech is a Slavonic language, closely related to Slovak and Polish. Spoken by over 10 million people as a first language and at least 6 million who use it as a second language (mainly in Slovakia), Czech is one of two official and defacto languages of the Czech Republic and Slovakia.

 

Czech belongs to the "synthetic" language group, which means that unlike English and other "analytical" languages, different grammatical aspects are expressed in one word by changing the structure of that word - adding an ending or prefix, modifying the core of the word, etc. In analytical languages such as English, the same is achieved by using separate auxiliary verbs, pronouns or adjectives while the actual word remains unchanged. In Czech, one word is often sufficient to express what English can only achieve by using multiple words.