Feminine Accusative Singular -u and -i | Czech Grammar

For most beginners, the feminine accusative singular is the first place where a Czech noun visibly changes shape in front of your eyes — and it does so in the most useful sentence pattern there is: "I have / I want / I see X." Say I have coffee and the word for coffee, káva, becomes kávu. That single vowel swap is the gateway to talking about objects, and because so many everyday nouns are feminine (káva, kniha, voda, hudba, Praha), you will reach for this ending constantly from your very first conversations.

The accusative is the case of the direct object — the thing an action is done to. When a verb like mít (to have), chtít (to want), vid ět (to see), or dát si (to order/have) acts on a feminine noun, the noun moves out of its dictionary (nominative) form and into the accusative. This page covers exactly how a feminine singular noun does that, and the cases where, surprisingly, it does not change at all.

The three feminine patterns

There are three kinds of feminine noun, and each behaves differently in the accusative singular. The good news: two of the three follow a clean one-vowel rule, and the third is even easier because nothing happens.

Type	Nominative ends in	Accusative ending	Example (nom → acc)
Hard feminine	-a	-u	žena → ženu
Soft feminine	-e / -ě	-i	růže → růži
Consonant-final feminine	a consonant	(no change)	kost → kost

Let us take them one at a time, with the sentences you will actually say.

Hard feminines in -a take -u

This is the big one. The vast majority of common feminine nouns end in -a in the nominative, and they all swap that -a for -u in the accusative singular: žena → ženu, kniha → knihu, káva → kávu, voda → vodu, Praha → Prahu. There are no exceptions to learn here — if it ends in -a and it is feminine, the accusative is -u.

Dám si kávu, prosím.

I'll have a coffee, please. (káva → kávu)

Chci tu knihu, co je ve výloze.

I want that book that's in the window. (kniha → knihu)

Mám rád Prahu, hlavně na podzim.

I love Prague, especially in autumn. (Praha → Prahu)

Každé ráno piju vodu s citronem.

Every morning I drink water with lemon. (voda → vodu)

Notice that proper place names follow the same rule — Praha is grammatically just a hard feminine, so it becomes Prahu as readily as žena becomes ženu. This is why you hear Mám rád Prahu and never the dictionary form Praha after a verb that acts on it.

💡

The single most common beginner sentence in Czech is some flavour of mám / chci / vidím + a feminine -a noun. Burn the -a → -u swap into reflex now and a huge slice of everyday speech becomes correct automatically: mám sestru, chci kávu, vidím Prahu.

Soft feminines in -e take -i

Feminine nouns ending in -e (or -ě) are "soft," and they swap that -e for -i in the accusative: růže → růži, restaurace → restauraci, ulice → ulici, kuchyně → kuchyni. Many international-looking words ending in -ace (stanice, informace, restaurace) are soft feminines, so this ending is more common than it first appears.

Znáš nějakou dobrou restauraci tady poblíž?

Do you know a good restaurant near here? (restaurace → restauraci)

Dej mi tu růži.

Give me that rose. (růže → růži)

Hledám tuhle ulici na mapě.

I'm looking for this street on the map. (ulice → ulici)

The contrast with the hard type is just the vowel: hard -a nouns go to -u, soft -e nouns go to -i. Keep the two pairs together in your head — (a → u) and (e → i) — and you have covered the great majority of feminine objects.

Consonant-final feminines do not change

The third group is the easiest to produce but the easiest to forget: feminine nouns that end in a consonant in the nominative do not change at all in the accusative singular. Kost (bone) stays kost; věc (thing) stays věc; píseň (song) stays píseň; radost (joy), noc (night), and řeč (speech) all stay put.

Mám radost, že jsi tady.

I'm glad you're here. (literally 'I have joy' — radost stays radost)

Slyšel jsem tu píseň v rádiu.

I heard that song on the radio. (píseň → píseň, unchanged)

Musím ti říct jednu věc.

I have to tell you one thing. (věc → věc, unchanged)

Because these nouns look identical in the nominative and accusative, you tell the case from the verb and word order, not from the ending. Mám radost and Radost je důležitá (Joy is important) use the same form of radost in two different cases.

💡

Feminine nouns ending in a consonant are case-invisible in the accusative singular — they look exactly like their dictionary form. Do not "correct" them by adding -u or -i; mám radost is right, mám radostu is not a word.

How this compares to English

English marks the object only on pronouns (I see her, not I see she) and leaves full nouns untouched: "I have coffee," "I want the book," and "the book is good" all use the bare word book. Czech, by contrast, marks the object on the noun itself, so the same word changes between subject and object: kniha je dobrá (the book is good — subject) versus chci knihu (I want the book — object). The mental shift to make is that in Czech, the -u or -i ending is doing the work that English does with word order alone. Leave it off and a Czech listener does not just hear an accent — they hear a grammatical mistake.

Common Mistakes

❌ Mám káva.

Incorrect — the object of mít must be in the accusative; the -a feminine has to change.

✅ Mám kávu.

I have coffee. (káva → kávu)

❌ Chci ta kniha.

Incorrect — both the demonstrative and the noun must go into the accusative as a phrase.

✅ Chci tu knihu.

I want that book. (ta kniha → tu knihu)

❌ Znám dobrou restaurace.

Incorrect — a soft -e feminine takes -i in the accusative, not the unchanged -e.

✅ Znám dobrou restauraci.

I know a good restaurant. (restaurace → restauraci)

❌ Mám radostu, že jsi tady.

Incorrect — adding -u to a consonant-final feminine; it should stay unchanged.

✅ Mám radost, že jsi tady.

I'm glad you're here. (radost stays radost)

❌ Mám rád Praha.

Incorrect — place names that are -a feminines also take the accusative -u.

✅ Mám rád Prahu.

I love Prague. (Praha → Prahu)

Key Takeaways

Hard feminines (-a) take -u in the accusative singular: žena → ženu, káva → kávu, Praha → Prahu.
Soft feminines (-e/-ě) take -i: růže → růži, restaurace → restauraci.
Consonant-final feminines do not change: kost, věc, píseň, radost stay the same.
This is the everyday "I have / want / see X" ending — the first and most useful place a Czech noun visibly inflects.
Any demonstrative or adjective in the phrase must move into the accusative too: tu knihu, dobrou restauraci.

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