9.2 – Talking About Age

9.2 – Talking About Age

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9.2 – Talking About Age
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9.2 – Talking About Age

Kolik je ti let? / Kolik ti je let? / Kolik je vám let? / colloquially  Kolik ti je?

We answered this question a long time ago when we talked about ourselves in unit 1. Remember? Let’s review…

To ask someone their age, we ask them:

Kolik je ti let? – informal

Kolik je vám let? – formal

The forms ti and vám are dative forms of ty and vy, so we’re actually asking ‘how many years are to you?’

You answer by using the dative case forms of nouns or pronouns:

Dative of Pronouns

The table below gives the dative forms of personal pronouns next to the nominative forms that we already know:

nominative

form

dative

form

mi, mně

ty

ti, tobě

on

mu, jemu

ona

my

nám

vy

vám

oni (ony, ona)

jim

Remember that these are going to be in 2nd position, with the exception of the question itself, where they are fossilized in place.

Dative of Nouns

The dative forms of nouns look very much like the locative forms we just learned (though there will be some slight differences). Here is a table with the forms:

MA

F

Hard Stem

-ovi

Jan → Janovi

Petr → Petrovi

Honza → Honzovi

*masculine names ending in -a take -ovi despite these names following a feminine pattern for other case forms such as acc., gen.,  instr., voc.

-e / -ě

Aneta → Anetě

Karolína → Karolíně

sound changes: k → c, r → ř (also h → z, ch → š, but those are less common in names so won’t be important here).

Some examples:

Veronika → Veronice

Sára → Sáře

Soft Stem

-ovi

Lukáš → Lukášovi

Tomáš → Tomášovi

-i

Lucie → Lucii

Marie → Marii

When a name is used, it tends to be put first.

Examples: 

 

1 rok

singular verb

2-4 roky

plural verb

5 let

singular verb

present tense

Je mu jeden rok.

Je jí jeden rok.

Jakubovi jsou dva roky.

Jsou mi tři roky.

Jsou jí čtyři roky.

Je mi dvacet let.

Je ti třicet let.

Haně je pět let.

Long forms

nominative

form

dative short

form (always in 2nd position)

dative long form (typically the beginning or end of the sentence)

mi

mně

ty

ti

tobě

on

mu

jemu

ona

my

nám

nám

vy

vám

vám

oni (ony, ona)

jim

jim

There are technically long forms for all of these pronouns, but in some cases they are exactly the same as the short forms. Long forms are used to place added emphasis. You should focus on knowing these passively for now:

Jemu ještě není dvacet jedna let.

Vypadám mladší, ale mně je opravdu osmnáct let.

Tobě je vážně třicet pět let?