Czech Centre Bucharest: Jedno malý pivo!

There are more than ten million speakers of Czech. It may not seem like much at first, but if you get to know a little bit more about the country, speaking the language can suddenly become a huge advantage. The Czech Republic is a member of NATO and EU and is one of the most successful stories of post-communist nations in the modern united Europe. The 2008 economy crisis is long gone and the Czech economy has fully recovered – and not only that – the unemployment rate has fallen just below 3% and the wages keep growing steadily. There are more than 300,000 job vacancies, but only 260,000 unemployed. It’s a simple math – the demand is bigger than the offer and therefore the employers have started to look for potential employees abroad. It is not necessarily required to speak Czech to find a job in the country, but a simple “Dobrý den” (Hello) can go a long a way: “Even my less than basic čeština (Czech) helped smooth things out during the interviews, as a dobrý den is more welcome than a hello. On a more advanced note, I was finally able to ask for jedno malý pivo (one small beer) on my last day, completed with a prosím (please).” Those are the words of Mihai Trandafir, just one of many Romanians that have found a steady job in Czechia in the past couple of years. Mihai attended Czech language courses at Czech Center in Bucharest. They offer classes on three levels, according to your skills and needs. The teachers are Czech and they are teaching not only the language, but also the rich culture which comes with it. You might have read a book by Kundera or seen an award-winning movie directed by Svěrák or Forman. If you ever considered changing your field of work or moving abroad, now would be the right time to think about the Czech Republic. The options where to look for a job are vast – from IT to healthcare, Czech marketplace is open for everybody. For example the IT sector is on the rise and many international companies like IBM or Google have a branch in Czechia. And did you know that Avast, one of the well-known antivirus companies, is actually Czech and has its headquarters in Prague? The importance of cyber security, artificial intelligence or Internet of Things, all this contributes to the growing necessity of skilled specialists in the field. Ioana Covaci has been living in Prague for some time now and she remembers how started to look for a job: “With a simple Google search I found out that the unemployment rate in the Czech Republic was the lowest one in the European Union. So if you manage to go through a couple of interviews, it is possible that you will get a job even without having any previous experience in the field.” Ioana also took the Czech courses organized by the Czech Center and she says it was a huge help in the first moments after she moved to a new country: “Thanks to the courses at the Czech Center I got to a basic level of Czech and with that I felt more sure when I moved to Czechia, because I had an idea about how the language works and what it means to be Czech.” And did you know that there´s a special link between Czechia and Romania? Bigăr, Sfânta Elena, Ravensca – maybe you have never heard about these villages, but they are a small piece of Czechia in Romania, because they are Czech villages in Banat. The Czech minority is one of our lesser known neighbors which came here in the first half of the 20th century. And even though that more than 150 years have passed since their arrival, they still keep most of their traditions and they even speak Czech. For those who would like to get to know more about this particularity, there are also Czech courses in Timisoara destined not only to those from the Czech community who want to brush up on their Czech, but also for Romanians who´d like to get to know their neighbors better. So there´s more than enough reasons to learn Czech, don’t you think? Whether you are considering moving there or you have some relatives living in Czechia, it is definitely worth it. Or you can just go visit – there are hundreds of places worth visiting – medieval cities, virgin nature, fairytale-like castles – you will find all this and more in the Czech Republic.