Listening comprehension (Poslech s porozuměním)
The listening paper tests whether you can pull one concrete fact - a price, a time, a place, a reason - out of short, slowly delivered standard Czech: dialogues in a shop or at a doctor's, station and shop announcements, phone messages, and minute-long monologues about work, family and daily routine. The recordings are played twice and the tasks are recognition tasks: tick the picture, choose one of three options, decide true or false, or match a speaker to a situation. You are never asked to write free text.
Numbers, prices and quantities
Prices are where most marks disappear. Learn the spoken shape of numbers: 35 = třicet pět, 250 = dvě stě padesát, 1000 = tisíc. Hundreds take a special form - dvě stě, tři sta, čtyři sta - but pět set. Crowns change ending with the count: tři koruny (2–4) but pět korun (5 and above).
Telling the time
Czech clock time is built towards the next hour, not from the past one. Půl osmé = 7:30, čtvrt na osm = 7:15, tři čtvrtě na osm = 7:45, za deset minut osm = 7:50, and on the hour simply v osm. Days take v/ve: v pondělí, ve středu, v pátek, v sobotu. Dates appear in the genitive: patnáctého května.
Register and negation
Vykání (Vy) versus tykání (ty) tells you who is speaking to whom: a doctor asking 'Jak se cítíte?' is not a friend asking 'Jak se máš?'. Negation is usually carried by one small word that is easy to miss - ne, nikdy, už ne, bohužel ne - and it reverses the entire answer, including answers that look correct from the numbers alone.
Worked example
Script: 'Dobrý den, kolik stojí to cappuccino?' – 'Espresso je třicet pět korun, cappuccino čtyřicet dva.' – 'Tak si dám cappuccino.' Question: Kolik zaplatí zákazník? Options 32 / 35 / 42. The answer is 42. Two prices are spoken, and the decisive information is which item the customer orders, not which number you heard first. The 35 belongs to the espresso and exists only as a distractor.
Traps that cost marks
- Taking the first number, name or time you hear as the answer, and ignoring a change of plan later ('Vlastně ne, přijdu v pět').
- Confusing how long with when: Jak dlouho? asks duration, Kdy? asks the point in time.
- Similar-sounding pairs: čtvrt (quarter) and čtvrtek (Thursday); šest and šest set.
- Answering from general knowledge about shops or trains instead of from the recording.
- Missing a negative inside a long sentence, so 'v neděli neotevíráme' becomes 'open on Sunday'.