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I'm from Slovakia, 16 and like chemistry a lot. I want to pursue it in the future but there aren't any good universities here where you can get a Ph.D. in chemistry so I want to go abroad, preferably to America or the UK. But there's a problem: I don't even know how to name molecules in English. I want to prepare for the future so I want to learn that before I go to UNI. And there's another problem. I can't find a source that I can learn from. I just want to know the basics: oxides, salts, acids, and hydroxides. If anybody could send me a link to a site that I can learn it from I'd be very thankful.

P.S. I don't know if it's done in English the same way, but we use oxidation numbers to get the chemical formula from the name and in reverse. That's what I want to know but in English.

EDIT: I just want to know the basics RN and I don't want to start off with organic chemistry and stuff like that. I just want to know how to take a simple molecule, for example, AlCl3 and know how to say its name. Is it aluminum (III) chloride or aluminum trichloride? Or something like SO4 and SO3. Is it sulfate and sulfane or what? I just want to know how to name molecules and write down their chemical formula.

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    $\begingroup$ You may want to start here $\endgroup$
    – Poutnik
    Jun 6, 2019 at 16:17
  • $\begingroup$ That of using oxidation numbers is a practice which is still used for some, long-known compounds (eg: perchlorate, chlorate, chloride, hypochlorite), which now is (luckily?) falling in disuse because of the internationally used IUPAC nomenclature. My advice is that of reading some introductory books in english. One example of such books is Chemical Principles, by Atkins, Jones $\endgroup$
    – user32223
    Jun 6, 2019 at 16:18
  • $\begingroup$ I would not worry about substance names in different languages, I don't think it will be a big hurdle. Chemists all over the world read and write scientific publications in English, and substance names are easy to look up. If your background in chemistry is strong, switching languages when necessary is fairly easy. $\endgroup$
    – Karsten
    Jun 7, 2019 at 13:15

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Beside the resources for learning chemistry Poutnik indicated, you may learn some of the chemical names and concepts from wikipedia, too. Frequently, articles are available in more than one language and sometimes a version in an other language offers additional details, too. You find the switch at the left side of the pages:

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Typically, you find some references at the bottom of these pages which may be accessible by you without going to a university library.

As side note: You mention that you did not yet start to study chemistry at a university at all. Hence, it is too early for you to judge if a Slovak (or Czech, given the language) university is good or bad for your aspiration of a PhD in chemistry; because you likely do not know yet which specialty will attract your interest, nor potential co-workers and supervisors. Remain active to obtain a solid chemical education first -- a chemistry department with classes about 30--60 students per year may be more helpful for laying such a foundation, than a larger institution where you become "just a number". Do not exclude smaller departments (and countries) just because they are smaller, or less frequently in the scientific media, than others when thinking about a move to an other institution is an opportunity.

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