Double-Case and Predicate-Case Constructions

Most Czech sentences you meet distribute cases predictably: the subject is nominative, the object is accusative, the recipient is dative. This page is about the constructions that break that neat one-object picture — where two case relations coexist in a single clause. A verb may hand out a case to a second object, or it may assign a case to a predicate that describes the object or the subject. The unifying idea is that the second case is governed by the construction, not chosen freely: Czech does not let you fall back on a nominative or an "as"-phrase where the grammar demands a bare instrumental or a dative. Getting these right is one of the clearest markers of advanced control, because English resolves nearly all of them with word order, "to," or "as," and gives you no case to copy.

The predicate instrumental: naming, calling, becoming

Czech has a productive rule that English lacks entirely: verbs of naming, calling, making, electing, considering, and becoming put the resulting role or state into the instrumental. The logic is that the instrumental here marks a role assumed or assigned, a temporary or acquired identity — as opposed to the predicate nominative with být, which states a permanent essence. When someone becomes a doctor or is elected president, that is a role they take on, so it goes into the instrumental.

Look closely at zvolili ho prezidentem: ho is the accusative object (the person elected) and prezidentem is the instrumental role. Two objects, two cases, both governed. English says "elected him president" with two bare nouns and lets word order do everything; Czech marks each with its own case. This is precisely the spot where learners wrongly reach for a nominative (prezident) or an "as"-phrase.

The predicate instrumental extends to full adjective+noun phrases, and both parts take the instrumental together. See the instrumental as predicate for the stát se / být split in depth, and the profession-instrumental mistake for the classic error.

considered-as: za + accusative, and jako

"Consider X (to be) Y," "take X for Y," "regard X as Y" is a different pattern. Here Czech does not use the bare instrumental; it uses the preposition za + accusative on the predicate. The verbs are považovat ("consider"), pokládat ("regard"), mít ("take/hold"), vydávat se ("pass oneself off as").

Note the two objects again in považuju to za chybu: to is the accusative object and za chybu is the za-accusative predicate. Do not confuse this with the naming pattern — jmenovat takes a bare instrumental (jmenovali ho ředitelem), while považovat takes za + accusative (považují ho za odborníka). The verb decides.

A third option is jako ("as"), which introduces a predicate that then agrees in case with whatever it describes. After a nominative subject jako pulls a nominative; after an accusative object it pulls an accusative. It is the most English-like of the three but is not always interchangeable with them.

The depictive (secondary predicate): "drank the coffee cold"

Czech has a construction where an adjective describes the state of an object (or subject) during the action, not the object as a permanent attribute. English does this too — "drank the coffee cold," "ate the fish raw," "found the door open" — and Czech mirrors it, but with a twist: the depictive adjective agrees in case with the noun it describes, so it lands in the accusative when it describes an accusative object.

Here studenou is feminine accusative, agreeing with the accusative object kávu — the coffee is described as it was when drunk, not as a permanent trait (which would be studenou kávu, "cold coffee," with the adjective before the noun). The word-order difference is meaningful: adjective after the noun and separated tends to read as a depictive state; adjective before the noun reads as an ordinary attribute.

A subject-oriented depictive describes the subject's state during its own action:

Verbs with two objects in different cases

A cluster of verbs governs two objects that sit in different cases. The best-known are the ditransitives — dát ("give"), poslat ("send"), ukázat ("show") — which take a dative recipient + accusative thing; these have their own double-object verbs page. Here we focus on the less obvious pairings that trip up advanced learners because the second case is not the expected accusative.

učit ("teach") takes an accusative person + dative thing — you teach someone (acc.) something (dat.):

ptát se ("ask") takes a genitive person + na + accusative topic — you ask of someone (gen.) about something (na + acc.):

zbavit ("rid, relieve") takes an accusative person + genitive thing — you rid someone (acc.) of something (gen.):

These pairings are lexical facts about each verb, governed by the verb and not deducible from meaning. The full inventory is on verbs by case and verbs governing the instrumental.

Why English speakers get this wrong

English resolves every one of these constructions without a case, so there is nothing to transfer and much to over-transfer. For the predicate instrumental, English uses bare nouns and word order ("elected him president," "became a teacher"), so learners produce a nominative (zvolili ho prezident) where Czech demands the instrumental. For "consider as," English says "as a mistake / as an expert," which tempts learners into jako everywhere, missing that považovat wants za + accusative. For the depictive, English adds a bare adjective ("ate it raw") and learners forget the adjective must agree in case with its noun. And for the two-object verbs, English has no case at all on the second object, so the dative of učit and the genitive of zbavit / ptát se feel arbitrary — because, from the English side, they are. The remedy is to store each of these as a valency pattern attached to the verb, exactly as you store its aspect pair.

Common Mistakes

Key Takeaways

• Naming / becoming / electing verbs (stát se, jmenovat, zvolit, zůstat) assign the role to the instrumental: zvolili ho prezidentem.
• "Consider/regard as" uses za + accusative (považovat za chybu), while jako introduces a predicate that agrees in case — three distinct patterns, one per verb.
• The depictive adjective describes an object's or subject's state during the action and agrees in case with its noun: pil kávu studenou.
• Some verbs take two objects in unexpected cases: učit (acc + dat), ptát se (gen
  • na-acc), zbavit (acc + gen).
• The second case is governed, not free — English gives no case cue, so store each pattern as a valency fact of the verb.