Personal pronouns in Czech: já, ty, on/ona/ono, my, vy, oni/ony/ona — singular and plural forms for all three genders
Can use all Czech personal pronouns correctly and understand when to drop them in pro-drop contexts
Schau dir diese Beispiele an. Kannst du das grammatische Muster erkennen?
Ona je z Prahy, on je z Brna.
Sie ist aus Prag, er ist aus Brünn.
Mluvíme česky.
Wir sprechen Tschechisch.
Oni jsou studenti, ony jsou studentky.
Sie sind Studenten, sie sind Studentinnen.
Achte auf die hervorgehobenen Teile. Was haben sie gemeinsam?
Czech has a pronoun for every person, as English does, but it reaches for them far less often. The verb ending already says who is acting: mluvím can only mean "I speak", mluvíme only "we speak". So a Czech says Mluvím česky and keeps já in reserve.
| Person | Singular | Plural |
|---|---|---|
| 1st | já - I | my - we |
| 2nd | ty - you (a friend, a child) | vy - you (several people, or one person politely) |
| 3rd | on - he, ona - she, ono - it | oni / ony / ona - they |
English cannot drop "I": "speak Czech" is an order, not a statement. That habit makes English speakers start every sentence with já, and Já bydlím v Brně. Já mám rád hokej. sounds to a Czech ear as if you kept stressing "I, personally". Use the pronoun when you contrast two people or answer in one word: Já jsem z Londýna, on je z Brna. - "I'm from London, he's from Brno." Kdo má čas? - Já.
Every Czech noun has a gender, and the pronoun follows that gender, not whether the thing is alive. A key (klíč) is masculine, a tram (tramvaj) feminine, only a neuter noun such as auto or pivo is ono. In practice Czechs rarely say ono at all: they drop the pronoun (Kde je klíč? - Je na stole.) or point with to: To auto? To je staré.
English has one "they"; Czech chooses by gender. oni is for men, or any group with at least one man in it: Petr a Jana - oni jsou doma. ony is for women, and for masculine things and feminine things: ty knihy - ony jsou nové. ona is for neuter plurals: ta auta - ona jsou nová. Yes, ona is also "she": the verb tells you which, ona je against ona jsou. Oni and ony are not only a spelling difference either: ni softens the n ("o-nyi"), ny keeps it hard.
The choice costs little today, because the present-tense verb is the same for all three (jsou, mluví). It starts to matter in the past tense, where byli, byly and byla follow the same split, so it pays to learn it now.
The two words for "you" are a whole social rule of their own: see tykání and vykání.
Wende diese Grammatik in den Übungen des Kurses A1 an
ÜbungsaufgabenOna je z Prahy, on je z Brna.
Sie ist aus Prag, er ist aus Brünn.
On (he) and ona (she) distinguish gender in 3rd person singular, like most European languages.
Mluvíme česky.
Wir sprechen Tschechisch.
The pronoun my (we) is often dropped because the verb ending -íme already shows 1st person plural.
Oni jsou studenti, ony jsou studentky.
Sie sind Studenten, sie sind Studentinnen.
Czech distinguishes plural 'they': oni (masculine animate), ony (feminine/masc. inanimate). Russian/English use one form.
Im Kurs üben
Wende diese Grammatik in den Übungen des Kurses A1 an