Do Czech declensions drive you crazy?
- Eliška Boušková
- 5 hours ago
- 2 min read
My little boy is slowly starting to speak. He's 2.
For now, he mostly babbles, mixes sounds, and completely reshapes words.
But that doesn’t stop him from talking. Constantly. 😄
What fascinates me is this:
Even though he makes mistakes, he uses Czech declension endings almost perfectly.
Recently, we went by metro. It was clearly a huge experience for him, because the whole evening he kept repeating:
“Tletlem. Tletlem.” (His version of "metrem" – “by metro.”)
He has no idea that something called the instrumental case exists.
And yet, from context alone, he understood that when you go somewhere BY metro, you say "metrEM", not "metrO".
The same with "tramvají". He says “jajají”, but it's still the instrumental.
Or water.
When he wants water or drinks water, he says "vodu", not "voda".
He barely uses verbs at this stage, mostly just nouns.
But because he chooses the correct ending, we understand the action. Just the difference between "metro" and "metrem" tells us whether it’s:
“This is a metro.”
or
“We went/will go by metro.”
No grammar explanations, no declension table and especially, no stress. 😊
He just wants to communicate, and he's doing a great job!
And this is exactly why I love Czech cases. Because they actually carry meaning and make a lot of sense.
So if Czech declensions irritate you or make you want to give up, maybe you need to dig deeper into the actual meaning instead of drilling grammar tables. If my 2-year-old does it, you can too!
Together with my dear friend Jen from Dream Prague, I created a video series that breaks down all the Czech cases and shows you what they actually do.
When you see the logic behind them, they stop being scary.
You can watch them here:
The Accusative: https://lnkd.in/dxWHprUe
The Genitive: https://lnkd.in/dTVXKGgB
The Locative: https://lnkd.in/dvMDeBDx
The Dative: https://lnkd.in/dyPhQhiW
The Instrumental: https://lnkd.in/dBjy_qMe
And if you do watch them, please leave a comment down here. I’d be really curious what you thought about it and whether it changed your perspective in any way.
Eliška
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⭐ As a Czech language teacher and coach, I help expats in the Czech Republic speak Czech with confidence and joy, making them feel truly at home in their Czech community.
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