Ordinal Numbers — Czech Grammar

Ordinal numbers say which one in a sequence. In Czech they are adjectives: they agree with their noun in gender, number and case, and they decline exactly as any other adjective does.

Je to můj druhý den.
It's my second day.
Čtvrtá je nejmladší.
The fourth one is the youngest.

The Forms

, , , , , ,
then regularly: , ,

Moje páté dítě je chlapec.
My fifth child is a boy.
Bydlíme v šestnáctém patře.
We live on the sixteenth floor.

and are soft adjectives and use -í for all three genders; the rest are hard and take the ordinary -ý, -á, -é.

Written as Figures

An ordinal written in figures is followed by a full stop, which is what marks it as an ordinal rather than a cardinal. English uses a suffix instead.

Je pátek třináctého.
It's Friday the thirteenth.

Dates

The day of the month is an ordinal in the genitive, and the month follows it in the genitive too. Nothing is added between them.

Dnes je prvního května.
Today is the first of May.
Narodil jsem se dvanáctého srpna.
I was born on the twelfth of August.

Years

A year is said with and then the number as a plain cardinal. The ordinal is not used for the year itself.

Narodil se v roce dva tisíce dva.
He was born in 2002.

How Many Times

Putting in front of an ordinal makes an adverb meaning for the nth time, written as one word.

Už potřetí ti to musím připomínat.
This is the third time I've had to remind you.

Telling the Time

Czech tells the half hour by looking forward, not back: with the ordinal of the coming hour. Half past six is half of the seventh, and a quarter uses with the accusative.

Teď je půl sedmé.
It's half past six.
Je čtvrt na dvanáct.
It's a quarter past eleven.

Floors and Positions

Ordinals name positions in a series of any kind - floors, chapters, places in a queue - and there they behave as ordinary adjectives in whatever case the sentence needs.

Jste první, kdo si toho všiml.
You're the first to notice.
Můj první dojem je dobrý.
My first impression is good.

Agreement Like Any Adjective

Because they are adjectives, ordinals decline through every case and change with the gender of what they count. Nothing about them is fixed.

Byl prvním člověkem na Měsíci.
He was the first man on the Moon.
Bydlíme v šestnáctém patře.
We live on the sixteenth floor.

Ranking

An ordinal in front of a superlative gives the English second best, and an ordinal with can name a position outright, in which case the noun after it takes the instrumental.

Je to druhý nejlepší hotel.
It's the second best hotel.
Třetím člověkem na Měsíci byl Pete Conrad.
The third man on the Moon was Pete Conrad.

In the course

Sentences from Lingora’s Czech course

16 of the course's 500 sentences use this, the first in lesson 273. A few of them, with the words “Ordinal Numbers” is about in bold:

Můj první dojem je, že je velmi inteligentní.
My first impression is that she is very smart.
Lesson 333
Jste první, kdo si toho všiml!
You are the first person to notice!
Lesson 337

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