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Participants in inter cultural contact situations experience communication and interaction "problems." They also derive "gratification" as a result of positive evaluations. This paper presents a survey of ten Japanese students of the Czech language who stayed in Prague and at various other locations in the Czech Republic over the summer vacation. The method used in this paper was the "interaction interview" and concentrated on actual behavior of the students, as opposed to reports based on questionnaires or traditional interviews, on a single day of their stay. The study shows that "problems" as well as "gratifications" actually occur and offers a number of observations on the processes involved. The author's ultimate concern is with policies but the paper also attends to a number of more general theoretical and methodological issues. The present studyEurope is not a closed space. Borders change, people come and go and the process of human contact and exchange engenders profits and losses, knowledge and prejudice, understanding and misunderstanding. There is interaction and communication; sentences are exchanged. This process has always been undergoing changes, reflected in our perceptions. Researchers have moved emphasis from minorities to immigrants and guest workers (Bremer et al. 1996). But there are yet other types of contact personnel: among them tourists, students, and other middle-to short-term sojourners.What is the actual form of this intercultural contact? How is it managed, and in what ways does differential power affect it? More than ever before we must seek rigorous methods to face the contact situation, solve its problems, and reinforce its gratifications.

Standardization of Romani is an inevitable process that is likely to be initiated independently in various societies where the language is spoken. This paper examines the Situation in the case of former Czechoslovakia. On the basis ofthe analysis ofwritten texts it confirms that Variation exists and is evaluated by Romani Speakers. Elaboration of the language is taking place. The paper argues that standardization dijfers in early modern, modern, and postmodern societies and that the old models of standardization should not be used for Romani. In the postmodern context the unification component of standardization recedes into the background. The Standardshould be polycentric and competence in semicommunication should be developed. There is an urgent need for further elaboration of the norm, which may involve bot h purism and mixing. The symbolic function of the Standard should not affect its use in interaction, and the Standard should be developed to become the property of all rather than only ofthe Romani middle class.