Czech voice overs: what you need to know

The Czech language is a Czech–Slovak language with more than 10 million native speakers . The language is primarily spoken in the Czech Republic where it is the sole official language of the country.

However, there are Czech speaking communities in other European countries, such as Austria, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Slovakia.

Language History

Czech developed from the common West Slavic language. The earliest written Czech texts are dated to the 12th century.

However, Czech as a standard language emerged only between the 15th and 16th centuries. The development of a uniform literary language was spurred by innovations and reforms in Czech orthography.

Linguists consider that the Modern Czech standard was introduced in 1593 – when the Bible was translated to Czech.

Close Relations

Since Czech and Slovak emerged from the same Czech-Slovak language group, the both languages are highly mutually intelligible. Slovaks and Czechs can clearly communicate, despite the language barrier.

The close relation between the languages is historical – both languages were official in the state of Czechoslovakia until its dissolution in 1993.

Czech is also closely related to Polish. While not mutually comprehensible, the languages share a part of the vocabulary. Czech also borrowed from other languages – words of Greek, Latin, Hebrew, and German are commonly found in the Czech lexis.

Accents and Voice Over Tips

Czech has many various dialects that are categorized into four groups: Central Moravian, East Moravian, Silesian, and Czech dialectal. Most of them are mutually intelligible.

Standard Czech is the official written and spoken variation of the language that’s used in media, education, politics, and science. The language standard is based on the 16th-17th Prague dialect.

When it comes to Czech recordings, keep in mind that Czech, like many Slavic languages, is inflectional. Words can have different endings that alter their meaning.

Czech has plenty of diminutives – they’re usually used in informal language, so be aware of this when recording. If the text is not highly formal, it will most likely contain diminutives. When it comes to word stress, Czech words are usually stressed on the first syllable.

Words per minute

Because of its complex syllables and consonant clusters, Czech is not a fast-spoken language. The common Czech tongue twister “Smrž pln skvrn zvlhl z mlh (Morel full of stains got wet from the fog)” illustrates the long consonant clusters that are present in the language.

When choosing the speed of speech, always make sure you know what your target audience is. Talking too fast when recording an audiobook or talking too slow when recording a commercial could be a deal-breaker!

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