Ahoj everyone, Something that I never understood about Czech: How does one determine the proper form of a name, and, once formed, does it change based on usage? For example, I'm writing with a girl named Jana. So I start my emails with "Ahoj Jana". However, my gut tells me this should be "Ahoj Jani". But since I'm also flirting with her, maybe I should say "Ahoy Janicka". But "Ahoj Janicko" sounds better to my ear...ARGHH!!! And if I decide on one form, do I use that one form every time I address her? In other words, my legal name is Peter. Socially, I'm Pete. And some girls choose to call me Petey. These forms of Peter, once established by the speaker, never change based on usage. Is Czech the same way? Finally, does the written form ever differ from the spoken form? Thanks for any insight you can provide. This has bothered me since childhood...everyone seems to have 20 forms of their name! Pete
Well... Vocatives of Jana are: Jano ("normal" one) or Jani (not sure how to call this form - kinda nonstandard one ) As to Janicka, the correct form is "Janičko" You are Peter (Petr), so in Czech you would be called "Petře", "Peťo" or even "Peťulínku" You can use various forms if you wish - those "Janičko" or "Jani" can be combined according to situation.... And yes, you can imagine many forms of any name...
ok. you're gonna wanna get into a class. czech grammar is extremely difficult. i'll do the declentions for you (remember latin class?) and then you'll have a LOT more research to do on your own. in czech, there are 7 cases: 1. kdo, co (nomintive) 2. bez koho, ceho (genitive) 3. k komu, cemu (dative) 4. vidim koho, co (accusative) 5. volam (vocative) 6. o kom, cem (locative) 7. s kim, cim (instrumental) so jana would decline as follows: 1. jana 2. bez jany 3. k jane 4. vidim janu 5. ahoj jano 6. o jane 7. s janou the case you're using when you address a letter to her or call out to her on the street (or even on the phone) would be the vocative (or 5th) case. so you'd have "ahoj jano" or "janicko" or "janco" or "jancko" or "janino" etc. about the flirting and pet name thing. slavic languages (and czech to the largest extent) use diminutives like they're going out of style. i once heard a russian describe czech as a language for babies. that being said, this can be quite helpful in a male / female situation. czechs are incredibly creative when it comes to diminutives and diminutives of diminutives and would probably never use the same one over and over but rather use different forms for different situations. lastly, czech is a phonetic languague - meaning that (as opposed to english - e.g. the word 'flight') words are pronounced the way they are written - there are no silent vowels or consonants. hope this helped.
Wow, Zadecka, your post is gold to me! You're right. I need a class. I've been speaking Czech since I was born, but it was only at home and it's becoming much less as I get older. I would ask my parents all the time about grammer rules, but they would only correct specific examples instead of giving me rules. I had no idea about the 7 cases or declination. How you explained it makes total sense to me now! Thank you so much, and thanks for your response too, Halef. Pete
I very much agree with petesv's comment, in that zadecka's post is gold. As a student who is learning about Czech declentions, it's wonderful to have a little 'cheat sheet'. In fact, I'm going to print out what he wrote. In general, anytime there is a direct object, the object ends with letter 'u', correct? if one is calling someone, then it ends on 'o'. Thank you for the posting. The problem that I'm having currently is trying to remember what is masculine and what is feminine (as well as what is neutral) to remember what stems change, and to what letter! I think a keen memory helps in the front stages of learning this very complexly-ruled language, and thereafter, it's just being accustomed to seeing words,and getting a 'sense' of it. For someone who knows Spanish, 2 dialects, and Danish, I do find this new challenge perhaps the most extreme one yet! Caucau, Jana
i'm really happy that i could be of some help. when i said czech grammar is extremely difficult, here's what i was referring to. ok, there are seven cases and three genders (masc. fem. & neut.) - among the genders, you have 6 different masculine forms, 4 feminine and 4 neutral, and finally, singular AND plural versions of the 14 forms above. multiply that all together and i think that equals 196 forms - jana would be just one of the feminine ones. it's ok (for the most part) to assume that if the word is feminine and ends with 'a' - it will decline like 'jana' (the actual form is 'zena' = woman). i love czech grammar (as well as my native english grammar). and you can find out a lot more at this fantastic site: http://www.lsa.umich.edu/slavic/dept/We ... sclass.htm
Guys, it looks like you haven't seen our other site http://www.locallingo.com. Take a look, there's a whole section on the declension of nouns at http://locallingo.com/czech/grammar/nouns_declension.html. Also lots of info on some of the other pitfalls of the Czech language.
It might comfort you to know that in Estonian we have 14 cases, and each has separate forms for singular and plural. Among other things there are separate cases for eg. reaching something, becoming something, feeling as something etc The Czech cases make perfect sense, except maybe vocative which seems kind of... useless. Why would you want to change the form of the name when addressing someone?
Well, I think that in all languages there is some things that are extrange. eg. in spanish if you use the double negative means: negative, that is no sense but in a spanish native ear, it sounds correct. I wonder that if in Estonian there is some strange think like the vocative of czech or the double negation in spanish...
I believe there is double negative in Czech too, eg. "nedělám nic", which word for word would mean "I'm not doing nothing", right? There are surely strange phenomena in the Estonian language that beat the vocative or the double negative, but since I'm a native speaker, I'm probably not able to point them out since, as you said, they sound correct to my ear UPDATE: Now that I think of it, Estonian has the same kind of double negative as well. "Ma ei tee mitte midagi" would mean exactly the same thing as the example above - "I'm not doing nothing". At the same time though, it is also correct to say "Ma ei tee midagi", which would translate to "I'm not doing something" but means exactly the same. Go figure
it seems to be usage of double negative (for negative) in more than one language, it would very interesting to know if that is used in languages like russian, german italian... (I am afraid that in french that is not used because a french friend of mine made jokes about this language usage) If you are curious, in spanish double negative phrase is: "No estoy haciendo nada" same as "I am not doing nothing".
Actually, you can have as many negatives in Czech as you want to - e.g. Nikdy nikdo nic neměl. The same can be found in Russian, Slovak, Polish and other Slavic languages.
