What does “přetlak” mean in casual Czech?

Shánění hostů a zájem o druhou řadu

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B1 Czech listening practice · Standard Czech · Picked for people who know some

💡 Did you know?
přetlak
Czech metaphor, "overpressure"
Engineering 'overpressure' borrowed for casual speech to mean 'too many candidates / overflow'

Přetlak literally means “overpressure” in Czech, the engineering term used for pressure vessels and air systems. But spoken Czech borrowed it as a vivid metaphor for “too many people wanting the same thing”: there’s a přetlak of guests, of applicants, of candidates, of demand. The word makes the situation sound like a vessel about to burst.

In this TV-show clip, a host asks a producer whether they have a přetlak of guests for the second season. The producer confirms there’s a long list of people wanting in. Czech business, casting, and journalism conversations love přetlak because it carries an engineer’s precision into everyday speech, like saying “demand is over capacity” in a single word.

How common are the words?

How common are the words in this B1 Czech listening practice video?

92.8%
of words are in the top 2,000 most common Czech words
Most of the words in this video are common Czech words.

How common in written Czech

87%
Top 1,000
92.8%
Top 2,000
95.7%
Top 5,000

How common in spoken Czech

95.2%
Top 1,000
96.8%
Top 2,000
100%
Top 5,000

Harder words in this video

These words are harder than B1. Here is what they mean.

celebritní
1×
Not in top 5,000
celebrity (adj.)
dorozbalim
1×
Not in top 5,000
unbox more (1st pers. sing.)
dotočíme
1×
Not in top 5,000
finish filming / shoot the rest
volaj
1×
Not in top 5,000
call! (imperative)
přetlak
1×
Not in top 5,000
overpressure; surplus

Source: OpenSubtitles 2024 + FineWeb-2 (MorphoDiTa lemmas) (general) · OpenSubtitles 2018 (HermitDave) (spoken). These numbers are close, not perfect.

★Where you hear this
  • ▸In Czech casting and TV-production conversations
  • ▸In Czech business news (Hospodářské noviny, E15, Forbes ČR)
  • ▸In Czech university admission discussions
  • ▸In Czech real-estate and rental-market reporting
  • ▸In Czech HR and recruitment podcasts

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