The helpful word is 'please', in Czech prosim, literally 'I beg'. But please is not the only meaning of prosim.  For example, when you can't hear someone properly, the polite way to ask them to repeat what they've just said is prosim or 'I beg your pardon'. Prosim can also mean 'here you are' if you hand someone something over to somebody. Some Czechs say prosim instead of hello when they answer the phone. Prosim is also the most standard reply to dekuji which means 'thank you'. Very often the word does not stand alone, but goes with a pronoun - with the meaning 'I beg you'.  Now, Czech has two types of addressing people, something you might know from French, for example. To family members and people we know very well, we say prosim te, while it is prosim vas if we address a stranger or someone older.

Czechs use it in a lot of situations where we don't, so if you open a door to let someone through, you say prosim. In English, we would say something like 'after you' or nothing - just open the door and indicate that the person should go through. And whenever Czechs open a door and say 'please', I always want to say 'please what'?  Do you want something?'. Someone should speak to the Czech Airlines, because it's very noticeable there.   When the stewardesses serve the meals then they come through afterwards offering tea and coffee, they say 'Tea, please? Coffee, please?' An English person would say 'Coffee, sir? or Coffee, madam?' This phrase 'Tea, please?  Coffee, please?' is what one says when one wants coffee or tea. So whenever these stewardesses come through  and say to me 'Tea, please? Coffee, please? I'm very tempted to say, 'No, that's what I should be saying, not you.'

Until then na shledanou or goodbye.

                                                                               - Pavla Horakova
                                                                                      Radio Prague

 

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