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For many expats, learning Czech is one of the biggest challenges of settling in Prague.
While English can be enough to navigate everyday life, understanding the local language often becomes the key to connecting with the city and its people.
Few people know this journey better than Lorenzo Di Bisceglie, the owner of Language Atelier, a language school in Prague’s Old Town that focuses on personalised courses taught by native speakers.
His connection to Prague, however, began long before he took over the school.
“The reason why I ended up in Prague is that at the university in Italy I took Bohemian Studies as my main subject – Czech language and literature,” he says. “That’s usually where I start when people ask about my story, and people are always surprised. It looks like Bohemian Studies are not so popular.”
Over seventeen years in Prague, he has seen the city and its international community change.
“When I arrived in Prague, the town was still predominantly Czech,” he recalls. “In all these years the expat community grew exponentially.”
Before taking over Language Atelier, Lorenzo spent years teaching languages as a freelancer. Becoming a business owner was never part of the original plan.
“When one of my colleagues told me about the opportunity to take over Language Atelier, at first I was sceptical,” he says. “I didn’t feel ready, nor did I have any background in developing my own business. Then I realised it was time to move on and I accepted the challenge.”
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Having worked at several language schools in Prague, he already had a clear idea of what he wanted to do differently.
“We wanted communication between the school’s management and the teachers to be more direct, honest and based on mutual support,” he explains. “The same applies to our students. We try to find the right solutions based on their needs instead of offering standardized courses.”
He also saw an opportunity to serve a growing audience that many language schools had overlooked. While most schools traditionally catered to Czech clients, Language Atelier developed courses around Prague’s increasingly international population, with lessons taught in English by native-speaking teachers.
Working with expats every day has also given Lorenzo a front-row seat to one of Prague’s oldest debates: do you really need to learn Czech?
While English is enough for many day-to-day situations, Lorenzo believes relying on it alone has its limits.
“Even if you can communicate in English in many situations, there are still places where it’s harder to find English speakers – for example, at the post office, the revenue office, with the police or even in the hospital,” he says.
Beyond making bureaucracy easier, Lorenzo believes speaking Czech can also transform everyday interactions.
“Locals appreciate when they see that foreigners are trying to speak their language and tend to be more polite, even if they’re having a bad day.”
Despite Czech’s reputation as one of Europe’s more difficult languages, Lorenzo believes the biggest obstacle isn’t grammar.
“The main reason is that people don’t feel the pressure to learn Czech because they move within the expat community, and in many situations you can manage perfectly well in English. The difficulty of the language plays a role too, but at our school we see that with time, patience, and consistency everyone can make it,” he says. “In fact, there are more and more expats who are motivated to learn Czech. The number of students is increasing year by year.”
After nearly two decades in Prague, Lorenzo remains convinced that language is one of the most important tools for integration.
“I think that language is the real key to integration because it gives you access to the culture, the mentality and the spirit of a people.”
For those still wondering whether learning Czech is worth the time, Lorenzo has a straightforward answer:
“Understanding and speaking the language of the country where you live will definitely make you feel more at home.”
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