# Cases - Pády



## klakra

Originál: mnoho dívek

I´m not sure if you´re learning our language the way we do in school..  Basically, you need to know the paradigms for each gender and the way  they inflect.
I´ll show you the process, it may help you.. Let´s work with your example - "dívka")

1. Define the gender (babička = female gender)
2.  Now you want to know the genitive in order to find out the right  paradigm. Say to yourself: "Dívka BEZ? - Dívky. JAKO? Žena bez ženy."  (other paradigms for female gender are "růže", "píseň", "kost". Here the  genitives are: bez růže, bez písně, bez kosti. As you can see, only  "žena" suits our example.
3. Find the inflection you are looking for:

ŽENA
sg/                                                                       pl
1. (kdo, co?) ženA /                                               ženY                                      
2. (bez koho/čeho?) ženY /                                     žen
3. (k/e komu/čemu?) ženĚ /                                     ženÁM
4. (vidím koho/co?) ženU /                                       ženY
5. (oslovujeme, voláme) ženO! /                                ženY!
6. (o kom/čem?) o ženĚ /                                         ženÁCH
7. (s kým/čím?) ženOU /                                          ženAMI

Jsou tu ženY => Jsou tu dívkY  (pl, nominative)
Je tu ženA => Je tu dívkA (pl, nominative)
Je tu mnoho žen => Je tu mnoho dívek (pl, genitive)

But this way might be too convoluted for foreigners, maybe Enquiring Mind could give you other hints.  I´ve seen a few of his posts and must say that a lot of Czechs would  envy his knowledge of our language. (Bravo, Enquiring Mind, really  )
If you have any other questions, don´t hesitate to ask! And good luck in your studying, it´s not gonna be easy ;-)


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## Enquiring Mind

Thank you klakra, you are too kind . I am still learning, though.  At the risk of being accused of setting up a mutual appreciation society, may I say that your post is absolutely 100% spot-on in terms of fluent idiomatic English. I couldn't find anything to indicate that it wasn't written by a native, so hats off to you too!

The OP (Original Poster) doesn't say in his profile if he has a knowledge of any other language with a case system (such as German or Latin), or any other language at all - that, at least, would be a big help. If he is coming across case inflection for the first time with Czech, it's bound to be bewildering.   I think his best bet is really to borrow or buy a coursebook. There are quite a few these days, unlike in the good old bad old days (za soudruhů) when I started, when probably the only one available was "Čeština pro cizince", though it has to be said that that was pretty good.  There are also quite a few good resources online.  He just has to work at it steadily and in a structured way, and not hope to master everything in one go.  His success rate will depend (as with most things in life) on how much work he puts into it.  

As we can see, there are, of course, lots of helpful people here in Czech WR Forum-land who will be happy to help him with specific queries.


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## klakra

Wow, I feel honored   Thank you.. And I really meant what I wrote. But there is a huge  difference between mastering English and Czech, don´t you think? Don´t  get me wrong, I love English but let´s be honest - it´s not one of the  most difficult languages in the world, is it?  So, allow me to pronounce you the winner of our mutual appreciation society contest 

Anyways,  the greatest thing about languages is that there´s always something new  to learn. Expressions, vocab, idioms, you name it. I am still learning when it comes to Czech language too 

And  yes, I think (or at least I hope) there are nice people here who would  love to help out with linguistic problems. Although it´s not easy for a  Czech to explain sth concerning his/her own native language - I used to  give classes to a French girl back in the CZE and she had so many  questions I didn´t have an answer to! 

Let´s just hope that the OP won´t get discouraged and give up on our beautiful "květnatou češtinu" (at least not soon  ).


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## bibax

Klakra, _don´t_ use the acute accent mark instead of the apostrophe in _don't, it's, let's,_ etc. 

A jak (podle jakého vzoru) bys skloňovala podstatná jména ženského rodu *máti, neť*.


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## klakra

Co znamená slovo *neť*?  Tos mě dostal.. A *máti* bych označila za výjimku 

By the way, sorry about the accent mark, I am aware of the difference, but it is easier for me to use it... I would have to change languages on the keybord, in order to get the apostrophe and that is just too much work


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## InfiniteAero

Hello! When I was studying Latin cases, my professor mentioned the *partitive genitive *and it is used in the same way as the Czech language. I think you should look up some pages about this type of usage. I'm bad at explaining this so I took this excerpt from the wikipedia page.


composition (_see_ Partitive case):
·        substance ("a wheel _of cheese_")
·        *elements ("a group of men")*
·        source ("a portion _of the food_")

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genitive_case


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## Tinu

Hello!
InfiniteAero, you are right. May I try to elaborate on your point? 
This genitive with numerals higher than four and with indefinite numerals such as _mnoho, málo, několik_ etc is typologically in fact _genitivus partitivus_. In Latin, and for that matter in English, the use of partitive genitive (or preposition construction equivalent to genitive) in connection with indefinite expressions of quantity is common - _paucum temp*oris*_, lit. "a little bit *of* time". Your example "a wheel of cheese" shows nicely the relation between general expressing of partition and counting. If I am not mistaken, using it with definite numerals from five upwards is a specific of Slavic languages (I don't know about Baltic, but wouldn't be surprised, if it was the same way there). I even seem to remember that in old grammar books this "counting" genitive was sometimes called _genitivus Slavonicus_. But in Latin, there is a trace of the use of genitive with definite numerals, too - whereas with all numerals up to one thousand we use nominative, the "counted thousands" go with a noun in genitive, e.g._ mille oves_, "a thousand sheep", but _duo millia ovi*um*_, "two thousand sheep".


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## InfiniteAero

Tinu said:


> If I am not mistaken, using it with definite numerals from five upwards is a specific of Slavic languages (I don't know about Baltic, but wouldn't be surprised, if it was the same way there). I even seem to remember that in old grammar books this "counting" genitive was sometimes called _genitivus Slavonicus_. But in Latin, there is a trace of the use of genitive with definite numerals, too - whereas with all numerals up to one thousand we use nominative, the "counted thousands" go with a noun in genitive, e.g._ mille oves_, "a thousand sheep", but _duo millia ovi*um*_, "two thousand sheep".



My professor gave an example similar to your "d_uo millia ovium" = _two thousands _of _sheep. We were told to think of it that way in order to remember that it takes the genitive case. Also, I didn't know about the counting genetive! I'm going to have to look that one up!
And thanks for explaining this type of genitive usage


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## bibax

There is another peculiarity, both in Latin and Czech: pluralia tantum. They are not in the genitive case after numerals, but they need another set of numerals.

Latin: duae litterae = two letters (= characters) vs. binae litterae = two letters (in the sense like in "letters I've written, never meaning to send"); bina castra = two camps; tres rotae vs. trinae rotae = three carriages (rota = wheel); etc.

Czech: jedny, dvoje, troje, čtvery, patery, ... dveře, hodiny, nůžky, kalhoty,....;

Koupil jsem si pět kalhot. 
Koupil jsem si patery kalhoty.


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## bibax

> Co znamená slovo neť?  Tos mě dostal.. A máti bych označila za výjimku.


Máti se tradičně skloňuje: máti, mateře, mateři, máteř, máti!, o mateři, mateří; plur. mateře, mateří, mateřím, ... (podobně v ruštině мать, матери, ...). Kmen je mateř-, odtud přídavné jméno mateř-ský. Jen málo Čechů to umí bezchybně, protože máti se dnes nahrazuje slovem matka. Většina by skloňovala: máti, bez máti (chybně!).
Neť se skloňuje podobně: neť, neteře, neteři, ... (nominativ neteř je novotvar).


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## t.tellur

klakra said:


> Wow, I feel honored   Thank you.. And I really meant what I wrote. But there is a huge  difference between mastering English and Czech, don´t you think? Don´t  get me wrong, I love English but let´s be honest - it´s not one of the  most difficult languages in the world, is it?  So, allow me to pronounce you the winner of our mutual appreciation society contest


One can not say that Czech is one of the world's most difficult languages.
It just depends on each person's native language. For the Slavic speakers, English can be and is so incredibly difficult. Everyday I'm hearing mistakes in our school concerning the VERY basic prepositions and their relations. They say "I'll do it in Monday" instead of "I'll do it on Monday". And this is only the basic stuff! But vice any Slavic language is equally hard to learn as English is for us. And for both Englishman and Czech, Chinese is equally difficult because it belongs to totally different family of languages.

Btw, OP, to answer your question. Genitive is more used in Czech than it is in English. It's not case of possession, ex. Přijdu v pět/šest/sedm... hodin (but přijdu v dvě/tři/čtyři hodiny which is nominative; I'll arrive at 2/3/4 or 5/6/7 o'clock)...Some verbs require genitive case, ex. Mám se ho zeptat na tu otázku? (Should I ask him this question?)
But I'd say cases aren't THAT hard once you learn when to use which one. I'd say that verb aspect system is more hard for Germanic/Romance speakers since no aspect is present in these language groups at all.


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## klakra

*t.tellur*: If you read if carefully, you'd see that I said that "ENGLISH ISN'T" one   of the most difficult languages in the world. Honestly, I consider it   the most easiest language I've ever learned. And the fact that your   schoolmates can't use prepositions correctly shows that they're slackers   and don't bother to learn them properly, not that English is difficult. 
 I  wonder how many other foreign languages you speak. I hope at least 3   (from different language branches) because one needs helluva experience   in order to say such a thing you claim here.

*Babix*: Přiznávám, že i já bych slovo "máti"  skloňovala chybně. Asi proto, že jsem ho nikdy nepoužila, nebo protože  ostatní v jiných pádech říkají stále "máti"... A v životě  jsem žádného Čecha neslyšela vyslovit "neť", tuším je moc zastaralé  na to, aby se objevilo jinde než v literatuře.. Každopádně děkuji za  rozšíření mých znalostí


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## Angelo di fuoco

t.tellur said:


> But I'd say cases aren't THAT hard once you learn when to use which one. I'd say that verb aspect system is more hard for Germanic/Romance speakers since no aspect is present in these language groups at all.



Aspect is present to some degree in the Romance languages, at least in the past and future tenses (classical difference between Imperfect and Preterite: Germans have a hard time learning it and overuse the Imperfect, we Slavs sometimes, too). In English there are some periphrastic forms which permit to express the imperfective tenses. However, on the whole the use is different...


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## punctuate

Hi,


Elektrisk564 said:


> [...] it's hard for me to grasp the concept of the 7 Czech cases.


The concept of case, contrary to the popular opinion, is not hard at all (I think). It's no more hard than the concept of preposition in English: here you use many different prepositions, not always for a clear reason making a choice, there (in Slavic languages) the same thing happens both with prepositions _and_ with noun cases, which have the same function in a sentence as prepositions do. The really hard concept to learn for an English speaker in Slavic languages would be the concept of word, not of case. For us, the word is _not_ a sequence of sounds or a sequence of letters, but an idea, a shapeless entity with a meaning that gets its shape only in a sentence where it acquires a case, but still retains its meaning undebased. When you think of it this way, it should not be hard, it may just take time to change the thinking.


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## Bohemos

Hey Elektrisk564,

Link:
http://prirucka.ujc.cas.cz/?slovo=dívka&Hledej=Hledej (Lexém: dívka x dívky x dívek) 

Uvedu jen několik příkladů:
- *Nominativ* (1. pád) x *Genitiv* (2. pád)
- *Singulár* (číslo jednotné; č. j.) x *Plurál* (číslo množné; č. mn.)
- *dívka* (rod ženský; ("ta") ),
- *chlapec* (rod mužský; ("on") )

a) Je tu jedna (jediná) *DÍVKA*. (=> Nominativ - singular),
a) Je tu mnoho *DÍVEK*. (=> Genitiv - plural),
a) Chlapec je tu bez *DÍVKY*. (=> Genitiv - singular),
a) Jsou tu* DÍVKY*. (=> Nominativ - plural)

x 

bb) Ten chlapec přiš*el* bez *DÍVKY*. (=> Genitiv - singular; chlapec (Nominativ - singular) x dívky (singular) ),
bb) Tito chlapci přiš*li* bez *DÍVEK*. (=> Genitiv - plural; chlapci (Nominativ - plural) x dívek (plural) ),
bb) Ten chlapec přiš*el* bez *DÍVEK*. (=> Genitiv - plural; chlapec (Nominativ - singular) x dívek (plural) ) 
bb) Tito chlapci při*šli* bez *DÍVKY*. (=> Genitiv; chlapci (Nominativ - plural) x dívky (singular) ),


x

dd) Tu j*e* *DÍVKA* bez chlapce. (=> Nominativ - singular; chlapce (Genitiv - singular) x dívka (singular) ),
dd) Tu j*sou* *DÍVKY* bez chlapců. (=> Nominativ - plurál; chlapců (Genitiv - plural) x dívky (plural) ),
dd) Tu j*e* *DÍVKA* bez chlapců. (=> Nominativ - singular; chlapců (Genitiv - plural) x dívka (singular) ),
dd) Tu je chlapec bez *DÍVEK*. (=> Genitiv - plural, chlapec (Nominativ - singular) x dívek (plural) ).


S poděkováním
Bohemos


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## Odriski

Hi, this case is just like "a lot of"


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