"zvláštní město"
Translation:strange city
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"Special" in some cases, like "special effects" = "zvláštní efekty".
"Important" not really.
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In Polish, a similar word "zwłaszcza" means "especially, mostly, in particular" etc.
For example "Lubię wszystkie owoce, szczególnie cytrusy, a zwłaszcza pomarańcze" - I like all fruits, especially citrus fruits, and especially/particularly oranges.
It's very interesting (although both helpful and confusing at times) for me to compare my own native Polish to Czech, and try to guess what could be the ancient, common Slavic root for similar words that have evolved differently in our two languages. It's like solving a fascinating linguistic riddle, where every single piece of the puzzle is important, and every similarity is a hint which might be helpful, but can also be also misleading... ;)
In this case something that simply means "especially" in Polish, somehow evolved from being just "special" to a true rarity and oddity, and to being "strange" in Czech - I can see the connection and it makes sense, so it helps me to remember the meaning :)
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Zvlastni = strange/weird, odd/unusual. Can it also mean unfamiliar? In English we can say "I visited a strange city last week" to mean odd, weird OR unfamiliar to me, unknown to me. Can zvlastni have this meaning?
No. Strange in that meaning of "unknown" is "cizí". CIZÍ can also mean foreign.
Is there another word for a smaller 'city'? Most places I see referred to as a 'město' are actually what I would call a town. In the Czech Republic, I would only really call Prague a city.
There is, but firstly, the capitals of the Czech administrative regions are definitely cities, secondly, even around 10000 inh. it is still město. A small town will be městečko.
Is there anyone in Duolingo ... I received no answer to any notice I made ( for the numerous misfunctions )
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Why isn't it zvlaštné like the other adjectives in this section? Just a quirk of this word or is there a rule I'm not picking up on?