Hele, publikum začíná tleskat do rytmu.

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Breakdown of Hele, publikum začíná tleskat do rytmu.

• začínat: to start
• publikum: the audience
• rytmus: the rhythm

Questions & Answers about Hele, publikum začíná tleskat do rytmu.

What does Hele mean here?

Hele is a very common informal Czech attention-getter. In this sentence it works like:

• Hey
• Look
• Listen

It does not literally describe seeing something every time; often it just draws the listener’s attention to what comes next.

A few notes:

• It is colloquial, not very formal.
• You hear it a lot in spoken Czech.
• In more formal speech, you would usually leave it out or use a different structure.

So Hele, publikum začíná tleskat do rytmu. is something like Hey, the audience is starting to clap in rhythm.

Why is it publikum and not something like publikové or another plural form?

Publikum means the audience as a collective noun, just like English audience can refer to many people as one group.

In Czech, publikum is:

• a singular noun
• neuter
• treated grammatically as one unit

That is why the verb is singular:

• publikum začíná = the audience is starting

Even though the audience contains many people, Czech grammar treats publikum here as one collective whole.

What case is publikum in?