# The documents were lost



## markus.123

Hello,

I am trying to translate the "The documents were lost" sentence into Czech and I am somewhat confounded by the two alternatives:

Doklady se ztratily
Doklady se ztratili
I am just not sure which of the two homophones to pick.

As far as I can tell, it should be the first one if my intention is to relay the fact that there were some documents in existence but somehow they are no more, e.g. perhaps someone left them somewhere, they cannot be found, or maybe someone stole them.

The other version, if I am not mistaken, would pertain to some magical pedestrian documents that, say, went out for a picnic but they perhaps cannot find their way back home from a deep forest and, poor souls, they are lost now.

This time around, I am interested in the first meaning (non-magical) and I am just not sure if "Doklady se ztratily" is the way to express it.

Thank you.


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## Enquiring Mind

Welcome to the Forum, markus.123. The issue here is simple. Doklad is a masculine *in*animate noun - it's a thing, not a living being, and therefore the only option here is ztratil*y*. If whatever got lost were male *living beings* (animate nouns) of some sort, it would be ztratil*i*.

_Chlapci se ztratili, psi se ztratili, turisté se ztratili, houbaři se ztratili - _these are all masculine living beings (animate nouns), so _the boys/dogs/walkers/mushroom-gatherers got lost.
Doklady se ztratily, peníze se ztratily, kufry se ztratily, soubory se ztratily_ - these are all masculine *in*animate nouns, they're things that are *not* alive, so _the documents/money/suitcases/files got lost.

Doklady se ztratil_*i *isn't possible*.*

Here's a table which uses mít (not ztratit) as the example verb, but the respective past-tense endings are the same. (source wikiversity)
*Past participle*


Masculine
(animate)Masculine
(inanimate)FeminineNeuterSing._měl_ = he had_měl_ = it had_měl*a*_ = she had_měl*o*_ = it hadPlu._měl*i*__měl*y*__měl*y*__měl*a*_


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## markus.123

Ah, I understand it now - it will be "Doklady se ztratily" in the case of non-magical inanimate documents here 

That was a very clear explanation, thank you.

I will consult my dictionary to check if similar phenomena apply to feminine and neuter nouns.


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## Mori.cze

nope, the discussed phenomenon applies solely to masculines

and no, _Doklady se ztratili_  is not possible even if the documents in question are magical and animate, as there is still inanimate plural used. Hypothetical living documents used with _ztratili _would be _dokladi _or better _dokladové_.

(The phenomenon is named _shoda podmětu s přísudkem_, correspondence between subject and predicate, and is nowadays mostly grammatic, not so much rooted in real (in)animatedness of the subject: one would normally use _doklady se ztratily _even in your fantasy setting)


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## Cautus

The simple way how to distinguish a masculine *inanimate* noun and a masculine *animate* noun is to compare Nominative and Accusative of the singular form. From the singular form you can determine and use *i* or *y* in the plural form.

For example:
Nominative of doklad is *doklad*
Accusative of doklad is *doklad*
the same means *inanimate*

and compare
Nominative of pán is *pán*
Accusative of pán is *pána*
the different means *animate*

source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Czech_declension#Masculine_animate

*And my advice to the end, use this web and see an note below the word.*
prirucka.ujc.cas.cz/?slovo=doklad = *doklad = *rod: m. neživ. = means inanimate noun =* in plural always y = Doklady šly.*
prirucka.ujc.cas.cz/?slovo=p%C3%A1n = *pán/men *= rod: m. živ. = masculine animate noun = *in plural always i = Páni šli.*
prirucka.ujc.cas.cz/?slovo=%C5%BEena = *žena/women *= rod. ž = feminine = *in plural always y = Ženy šly.*
prirucka.ujc.cas.cz/?slovo=d%C3%ADt%C4%9B = *děti/children* = rod: s = neuter =* in plural always y = Děti šly.*
and to the end when all do something, (women, men and children togehter), you have to use *always i. = Ženy, muži a děti šli.

Všichni šli.* (All went) (Even in a case you don't know who in a group is you have to use *i*.)


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