Mistrovství registrů

At C2 the question is no longer whether you can say something in Czech but which Czech you say it in. One request can be made in at least five registers, and a native picks one in a fraction of a second from the relationship, the medium and the mood.

Register	"Send it to me"	Where
official	Žádám o zaslání požadovaných dokumentů.	a letter to an office, the datová schránka
neutral written	Mohl byste mi, prosím, dokument poslat?	a work email to a man you call vy
neutral spoken	Pošlete mi to, prosím?	a phone call, a shop, a colleague you call vy
colloquial	Hoď mi to mailem, jo?	a colleague you call ty
familiar	Hoď mi to, prosimtě.	friends, family

The levers

• Address: vykání or tykání, titles (pane inženýre), greetings from Dobrý den to Ahoj and Čau. Dobrý den, is the standard opening of a Czech work email, even to a stranger. With vy and one person the participle stays singular: Byl jste, Byla jste, not Byli jste.
• Morphology: standard dobrý, mléko, s dobrými lidmi against obecná čeština dobrej, mlíko, s dobrejma lidma.
• Syntax: nouns and the passive at the top (zaslání, byl zamítnut), verbs and ellipsis at the bottom.
• Particles: hele, jo, no, teda pull any sentence down a level.
• Vocabulary: obdržet / dostat, zakoupit / koupit, sdělit / říct.

Hovorová versus obecná

Czech linguists separate hovorová čeština, the relaxed but standard Czech of educated speech (můžu, děkuju, píšou), from obecná čeština, the non-standard everyday Czech of Bohemia (dobrej, vokno, bysme). The TV news, a university lecture and a job interview sit in the first; a pub, a family lunch and much Czech film dialogue sit in the second. The line is sharper than between careful and casual English, which is why English speakers often sound either stiff (standard everywhere) or careless (obecná at an interview).

Breaking register on purpose

Mastery includes the deliberate slip. Dovolte, abych vám představil kolegu... no, Pepu znáte. drops from ceremony to pub in one sentence, and Czech comedy from the Cimrman plays to Svěrák's films lives on such drops. The accidental version is the one to avoid: Obdržel jsem tvůj mail, hele sounds like a parody of an office. Before you send anything, check that address, forms and vocabulary all sit on the same rung.