Czech by Numbers - Coins
Welcome to Czech by Numbers, Radio Prague's Czech language programme explaining the details of the use of numbers in everyday speech. Today we'll be looking at a topic closely related to numbers and that is money. In this first part we'll focus on coins.
As the value of the heller has become negligible over the years, the smallest coin is the 50-heller aluminium coin - koruna - which has 100 hellers - 100 haléřů. padesátihaléřová mince or padesátihaléř, more commonly known as padesátník, even padík or paďan in colloquial language.
The one-crown coin - koruna - is made of galvanised steel and the slang terms for it are kačka or káble. The two-crown coin is made of the same material and has the same silvery look. It is known as dvoukoruna. The five-crown piece, pětikoruna, is again made of steel and is slightly bigger. You can come across various names for it: pětikačka, pětikáble or bůra.
The brownish ten-crown piece, desetikoruna, is made of steel covered with copper and its slang names are desetikačka or pětka, meaning fiver - that's for historical reasons we have explained earlier in this series.
The golden and heavier 20-crown coin, dvacetikoruna, is made of steel covered with copper-nickel alloy. It is known as dvacka or, more archaic, dvaciáš and it will buy you, for example, a loaf of bread.
The biggest and fanciest Czech coin is the brown-golden fifty-crown piece - padesátikoruna and you can get it for two US dollars in an exchange office.
And those are all the coins currently in circulation in the Czech Republic. Next time we'll take a look at the banknotes. Till then, na shledanou, good-bye.
