# Use of case when expressing age



## stelingo

When talking about age how would you say: She is 23 years old. Would this follow the same rules as 3 (use the nominative plural) Je jí dvacet tři roky or would the genitive plural be correct? Je jí dvacet tři let.


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## marsi.ku

Both are correct. You can say "dvacet tři roky" or "dvacet tři let". But attention, if you use the nominativ plural the subject has to agree with the verb, so you can't say "Je jí dvacet tři roky" but "*Jsou *jí dvacet tři roky". It's like "Jsou jí tři roky". If you use the genitiv plural the verb is in singular of neuter, so you say "Je jí dvacet tři let".
The rule: If the number you use ends with 1-4 there are two possibilities. Or you can use the nominativ plural (and the verb agrees with the the gender of the subject) or you can use the genitiv plural (where the werb is in the neuter of singular).
At last a little note about the usage of these two forms. When you are talking about the age much more natural is to say "Je jí dvacet tři let."
I hope I explained it well.


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## Tchesko

It is also possible (and correct) to say "Je jí dvacet tři roků" (genitive plural of "rok"), although I can confirm that saying "Je jí dvacet tři let" is (much) more common.


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## stelingo

Thank you both. You explained it very well, marsi.ku.


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## Garin

Or you can just simply say: "Je jí dvacet tři" or "Je jí třiadvacet", and everybody knows what you mean


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## BezierCurve

> The rule: If the number you use ends with 1-4 there are two possibilities.


Still, numbers between 11-14 are an exception here... are they?


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## marsi.ku

Yes, you can remember the numbers 11-14 as exceptions. So if you have for example 114 trains, you can say in czech only "sto čtrnáct vlaků", but if you have 104 trains you can say "sto čtyři vlaky" or "sto čtyři vlaků".


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