Adjectives: Declension — Czech Grammar

A Czech adjective agrees with its noun in gender, number and case. Every time the noun changes its ending, the adjective changes with it, and the two are read as one unit. There are only two patterns to learn, and which one an adjective follows is visible in its dictionary form.

Nový dům.
A new house.
Nová kniha.
A new book.
Nové auto.
A new car.

Hard Adjectives

The large group ends in -ý, -á, -é in the nominative singular, one ending per gender. Nearly every adjective you meet is of this kind.

masculine -ý:
feminine -á:
neuter -é:

Můj starý počítač je pomalý.
My old computer is slow.
Moje stará židle je rozbitá.
My old chair is broken.

Soft Adjectives

The smaller group ends in -í and uses that one ending for all three genders in the nominative singular, and indeed for most of the paradigm. They are much easier, and there are far fewer of them.

Jídlo by mělo být pikantní.
The food should be spicy.

The Plural

In the plural a hard adjective distinguishes masculine animate from everything else. Animate masculines take -í and soften the stem consonant; all other plurals take -é or -á.

masculine animate:
masculine inanimate and feminine: ,
neuter:

Moji kolegové jsou milí.
My colleagues are nice.
Jejich děti jsou hlučné.
Their children are noisy.

Through the Cases

The adjective takes an ending for every case, and the endings are longer than the noun's. Once the pattern is learned it applies to every hard adjective in the language without exception.

Jezdí ve velmi malém autě.
He drives a very small car.
Bydlím v jiné zemi.
I live in another country.
Mluvili jsme o nové práci.
We talked about the new job.

The Endings Repeat Themselves

The hard adjective endings are worth reading as a set, because the same shapes come back across the cases. The masculine and neuter share a form in the genitive, dative, locative and instrumental singular, so learning one covers both.

masculine and neuter genitive:
masculine and neuter dative:
feminine genitive, dative and locative:

Bál se toho velkého psa.
He was afraid of that big dog.
Dal to mladému klukovi.
He gave it to the young boy.

Two Adjectives Together

When several adjectives describe one noun, every one of them takes the ending; none is left in the dictionary form. The noun is the last word and everything in front of it agrees.

Jezdím ve velmi rychlém a velmi drahém autě.
I drive a very fast and very expensive car.
Moje stará kancelářská židle je rozbitá.
My old office chair is broken.

Where It Stands

An adjective normally goes in front of its noun, as in English. Put after the noun it names a fixed type or category rather than describing, which is how Czech builds the names of species, dishes and official terms.

Zelená šála.
A green scarf.
Kočka domácí.
The domestic cat (the species).

Soft Adjectives Through the Cases

The soft group is simpler: -í covers the whole nominative and accusative, and its other endings are shared between the genders far more widely.

Na příští hodině se naučíte nová slova.
Next lesson you'll learn new words.

Standing Without a Noun

After , an adjective still agrees with the subject, and it can also stand alone in place of a noun already mentioned.

To je příliš drahé.
That's too expensive.
Musím si koupit tři nové.
I have to buy three new ones.

In the course

Sentences from Lingora’s Czech course

175 of the course's 500 sentences use this, the first in lesson 10. A few of them, with the words “Adjectives: Declension” is about in bold:

Mám je rád a ony mě mají rády.
I love them and they love me.
Lesson 32
Cítím se skvěle! Nejsem nemocný. Jsem zdravý.
I feel great! I am not sick. I am healthy.
Lesson 64
Ta voda je studená. Ta voda je horká.
This water is cold. That water is hot.
Lesson 68

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