2.8 – Spolubydlící/Roommates – Nouns that Decline Like Adjectives

There are occasional nouns that take endings like adjectives in Czech. We won’t run into a ton, but one is about to come up – spolubydlící ‘roommate, apartment mate, house mate’. You can probably see the root bydlet ‘to live’ in there. The word spolu means ‘together’, so they are a together-liver, so to speak.

It has forms just like a soft adjective. Below I have given you charts for soft adjectives in the nominative and accusative cases. I have included the adjective mladší in the charts so you can compare and see how the forms are the same. Note that the Masculine Inanimate and Neuter columns have been grayed out, since they *likely* don’t apply to your typical roommate </sarcasm>.

Nominative Singular Adjective Endings and spolubydlící

Since the forms are the same, you’ll sometimes only be able to tell by an adjective or possessive pronoun with it.

        Pavel je můj nový spolubydlící.

        Pavel is my new roommate.

        Martina je dobrá spolubydlící.

        Martina is a good roommate.

If you want to say I have a roommate, then you’ll need the accusative case. Since it has forms like a soft adjective, you’ll need the endings for accusative soft adjectives:

Accusative Singular Adjective Endings and spolubydlící

Mám nového spolubydlícího.

I have a new roommate.

Bára má dobrou spolubydlící.

Bára has a good roommate.

Plural

You’re in luck – in the plural, the forms will all be the same regardless of gender and will be the same for nominative and accusative. Yay!

Nominative and Accusative Plural Adjective Endings for spolubydlící:

Of course, you can also modify spolubydlící in the plural, in which case the adjectives will indicate male (or mixed group) vs. only female:

To jsou moji noví spolubydlící.

Those are my new roommates (male or mixed group).

To jsou moje nové spolubydlící.

Those are my new roommates (female only).

Má