2.Ā do you prefer spending your holidays in your country or travel abroad?
A combination of both. Iām from Europe, so everything is tiny and close to each other. Each year I usually go on one bigger holiday abroad. Itās also quite cheap cause I travel by hitch-hiking a lot. And I also travel a lot on the weekends and shorter holidays, I go hiking in the woods and mountains a lot, visit castles and other towns and thatās usually just within the Czech Republic.Ā
9. which of your neighbouring countries would you like to visit most/know best?
I apologise to the other three of our amazing and endlessly interesting neighbours, even my dear, dear Slovakia, but I have to pick Poland. I was there last summer and it was one of the best holidays Iāve ever had. I love so much about the country, the folklore, people, the food. GdaÅsk is the most beautiful city Iāve ever seen (followed closely by ToruÅ). The night I spent by the Baltic coast on Hel was one of the best ones of my entire life. I am such a massive fangirl of Poland. Oh and their folk costumes are to die for. And their language is both incredibly hot and incredibly hilarious.
12. what do you think about English translations of your favourite native prose/poem?
To be honest, Iāve never read any properly. I make a point of trying to read everything Iām able to in the original language. But some that you can find online and arenāt bad are poems from Ivan BlatnĆ½, VĆ”clav HrabÄ, FrantiÅ”ek Gellner, J. H. KrchovskĆ½ and Jan SkĆ”cel (TheĀ Song of Proximate Blame). And of course Franz Kafka but he doesnāt count as his works were originally written in German.
18. do you speak with a dialect of your native language?
Yes I do, sort of. My family comes from Southern Moravia, which can be easily identified by other Czech natives because of specific pronounciation and some words. Also my mum was raised in Brno, which is a big city that has itās own slang, sort of comparable to London cockney, and she uses it a lot and so do I.(When the musical My Fair Lady was translated to Czech, Eliza spoke this way).Ā
So my speech is sort of a mix between rural South-Moravian dialects and this Brno thing which is called Hantec. Itās not that rare though, a lot of people come from similar backgrounds here in Brno, but Iāve been told my accent is pretty strong and I use a lot of the region-specific words. I confuse people from the western part of the country on regular basis.
29. does your region/city have a beef with another place in your country?
Oh yes, yes we do. Brno is the second largest city in the country, so naturally thereās a lot of competition with Prague. You know how this sort of rivalry goes though, thereās no actual hostility, itās just fun. But Prague is the butt of the joke in most regions as itās also the capital, and I think itās more or less the same in most places. The typical japes about Prague include: theyāre all perfumed wusses, they have ridiculous accents, their beer is shit, they canāt drink, they donāt know what snow looks like, they know nothing about wine. Of course all of these are just stupid, envious jokes and not actually true (apart from the beer one, come fight me)
