The Dative of Experience — Czech Grammar

A whole family of Czech sentences has no subject. Instead of saying that a person is something or has something, Czech says that a state exists and puts the person concerned in the dative. English has to supply a subject; Czech simply reports the state and names who it reaches.

Je mi zima.
I'm cold.
Je mu horko.
He's hot.

How It Is Built

The verb is in the third person singular, the state is an adverb, and the person is a dative pronoun or noun. Nothing agrees with anything, because there is no subject to agree with.

Je vám dobře?
Are you feeling all right?
Je mi špatně.
I feel unwell.

Age

Age uses the same frame. Czech does not say a person is a number of years; it says the years are to them.

Je mi osmnáct let.
I'm eighteen.
Kolik jí je let?
How old is she?
Mojí dceři je dvacet let.
My daughter is twenty.

Liking and Suiting

Several everyday verbs work the same way round. With and , the thing liked is the subject and the person doing the liking is in the dative - the reverse of the English arrangement.

Líbí se mi tvoje vlasy.
I like your hair.
Jak ti chutnalo jídlo?
How did you like the food?
Sluší ti to.
It suits you.

Pain and the Body

takes the sufferer in the accusative rather than the dative, which is worth noticing, but the shape of the sentence is the same: the body part is the subject and the person is an object.

Bolí mě hlava.
My head hurts.
Bolí vás něco?
Does anything hurt?

Having and Being

Some states are reported with and an ordinary subject instead, and the two patterns sit side by side without any rule deciding between them. Which noun goes with which frame has to be learned.

Mám hlad.
I'm hungry.
Je mi zima.
I'm cold.

The Weather Without a Person

Drop the dative and the same sentence describes the world rather than anybody's feelings. The difference between the two is a single short word.

Je zima.
It's cold.
Je mi zima.
I'm cold.

Doing Something to Your Own Body

When the part of the body belongs to the subject, the reflexive dative replaces the possessive. Saying my would be redundant once the dative has named the owner.

Zlomil jsem si ruku.
I broke my arm.
Čistím si zuby před spaním.
I brush my teeth before bed.

What Is Left

The same dative names whoever is affected by a change, whoever something remains for, and whoever an action was a nuisance to.

Zbývají nám dvě hodiny.
We have two hours left.
To nevadí.
That doesn't matter.

In the course

Sentences from Lingora’s Czech course

22 of the course's 500 sentences use this, the first in lesson 66. A few of them, with the words “The Dative of Experience” is about in bold:

Máš dvě moc krásné děti. Kolik jim je?
You have two very beautiful children. How old are they?
Lesson 264

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