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“Certainly I understand Czech. I've meant to ask you several times why you don't ever write to me in Czech. I'm not suggesting that you don't master German. Most of the time you master it surprisingly well and if once in a while you don't, it bows before you of its own accord, and this is particularly pleasing, for this is something a German doesn't dare to expect from his language, he doesn't dare to write so personally. But I wanted to read you in Czech because it is part of you, because there is the whole Milena (the translation confirms it), whereas here is just the one from Vienna or the one preparing herself for Vienna. So Czech, please. And send the feuilletons you mention, too. Let them be shabby, you have also read your way through the shabbiness of my story, how far I don't know. Perhaps I can do this, too; but if I can't then I'll remain stuck in the best of prejudices.” — Franz Kafka

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Certainly I understand Czech. I've meant to ask you several times why you don't ever write to me in Czech. I'm not suggesting that you don't master German. Most of the time you master it surprisingly well and if once in a while you don't, it bows before you of its own accord, and this is particularly pleasing, for this is something a German doesn't dare to expect from his language, he doesn't dare to write so personally. But I wanted to read you in Czech because it is part of you, because there is the whole Milena (the translation confirms it), whereas here is just the one from Vienna or the one preparing herself for Vienna. So Czech, please. And send the feuilletons you mention, too. Let them be shabby, you have also read your way through the shabbiness of my story, how far I don't know. Perhaps I can do this, too; but if I can't then I'll remain stuck in the best of prejudices.
— Franz Kafka