Czech calques

[James Kirchner]

On Oct 15, 1995, Loren Billings wrote:

>I'd like to quibble with one thing mentioned in the repeated message
>below, which reached me on Sunday.  James writes that "in teaching Czech
>as a foreign language no one seems to point out the existence of such
>calques, and train students to spot them ..."  In fact, Charles Townsend,
>who teaches Czech at Princeton, spends a good while pointing out such
>calques.  He is especially qualified to do so, having majored in German
>(if I'm not mistaken).

I stand corrected on the fact that NO ONE seems to cover these calques.
 However, I would argue that at least the Latinate ones should definitely be
covered in beginning Czech texts for English speakers who do not know enough
Russian or Czech to make sense of Townsend's two excellent books (or who have
not been accepted to Princeton).  Making students aware early on of the fact
that they will encounter such words would, at least for many people, greatly
ease the acquisition of vocabulary dealing with abstracts, and allow them to
decipher a lot of these words on their own as they go along.  It simply seems
counterproductive to me to wait to discuss such lexical items until after the
students have probably already mastered them in some less mnemonic way.

I don't teach Czech, though, so if someone can tell me why the basics of such
things are handled so late (and in German instruction as well), I'd be
interested to know about it.

James Kirchner