[smcl]

I’m familiar with the staccato accent (first time I heard was an angry train station janitor in Bohumín :D) but what’s the hard “y” sound? I’d known of tvrdé y/ý and měkké i/í depending on some consonant but I think you’re talking about something different (and interesting!)

[inglor_cz]

Tvrdé y/ý and měkké i/í exist in written form in standard Czech, but they have been pronounced in the same way, softly, across most of the country since the late Middle Ages or so. That is why many pupils struggle with "where to write y and where to write i", because it does not correspond to their daily experience with spoken Czech.

An interesting exception is the region around Ostrava, where "y" remained a clearly different vowel in pronunciation until today.

[smcl]

I was just curious what the difference is, but that might be hard to convey over text :-D I have a friend from Frydek-Mistek, I’ll ask her for a demonstration :)