Did you know that Upper Silesia extends not only to present-day Poland, but also to the Czech Republic? To mark International Mother Tongue Day on February 21, the Upper Silesian Museum invites you to a special afternoon dedicated to the world of Polish and Czech languages. The focus is on the similarities and surprising connections between the neighboring languages, which will be conveyed with movement, humor and practical exercises.
The course is aimed at anyone interested, no previous knowledge is required. The course language is German.

"We will start with breathing and oral motor exercises to prepare ourselves for the new sounds. We will then get a brief overview of both alphabets. At the beginning, the participants receive a small basic vocabulary as well as short everyday sentences in the language combinations German-Polish and German-Czech. This makes it easy to memorize useful phrases. Then it's time to practise: in small role-plays, we recreate simple everyday situations so that what we have learned can be applied straight away. At the end of this first round, Polish and Czech tongue twisters are on the program - practicing together is expressly encouraged. Anyone who wants to can put their talent to the test in a small tongue twister competition. After the break, the second half of the course follows with group exercises and a brief historical outline of the development of the Polish and Czech languages. We look at who and what shaped these languages - and where Silesia and the Silesian dialect found their place in this network. To round things off, we discover Czech-Polish "false friends", i.e. words that sound similar but mean completely different things, as well as some German-Polish idioms that often make people smile." - says the course instructor Maria Bytomska.

Maria Bytomska works as an interpreter and translator for Czech and Polish. She studied at the University of Wroclaw, where she researched the Lachian dialect. She has many years of experience in language teaching and combines academic precision with a lively teaching style. She was born in Ratibor (Racibórz) and now lives and works in Düsseldorf.

Please register by 19.02. by e-mail to vermittlung@oslm.de.