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
já	mi, mně
ty	ti, tobě
on	mu, jemu
ona	jí
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)
já	mi	mně
ty	ti	tobě
on	mu	jemu
ona	jí	jí
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?