ABC of Czech 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.
..padesátník..
The Czech Republic's national currency is the crown - koruna - which has
100 hellers - 100 haléřů. 
As the value of the heller has become
negligible over the years, the smallest coin is the 50-heller aluminium
coin - 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.
