Computers and the Internet

Tech vocabulary is where Czech shows off its digestive system. English words pour in — email, click, download, like, google — and instead of leaving them as foreign guests, Czech assigns each noun a gender and declines it, and gives each verb a full set of Czech endings. So email becomes e-mail → e-mailu → e-mailem, and to click becomes kliknout, conjugated kliknu, klikneš, klikne. The single biggest mistake English speakers make is treating loanwords as invariable — writing na internet where Czech demands na internetu. This page shows how the borrowing machine works so you can inflect any new tech word you meet.

The core vocabulary and its genders

Every Czech noun has a gender, and a borrowed noun gets one on arrival — usually inferred from its ending or its Czech near-synonym. Here are the essentials with their gender, since the gender drives every ending that follows:

Notice that most tech loans land in the masculine inanimate class, the default landing zone for imported hardware and abstractions ending in a consonant. Native coinages behave normally: heslo ("password", literally "watchword") is neuter, obrazovka ("screen") is feminine.

Loanword nouns decline — do not leave them bare

This is the heart of the page. A borrowed noun is not frozen: it takes Czech case endings exactly like a native masculine. Watch e-mail move through the cases:

The word internet is the classic tripwire. Because English says "on the internet" with no ending, learners write na internet — but that is the accusative (motion, "onto"). For "on the internet" as a location, Czech needs the locative: na internetu.

The prepositions of digital space are worth fixing as a set. Being online is na + locative: na internetu, na webu, na síti ("on the network"). Putting something into the machine is do + genitive: do počítače ("into the computer"), do mobilu ("into the phone").

Borrowed verbs take full Czech conjugation

Borrowed verbs are naturalised even more thoroughly than nouns: English roots are fitted with Czech infinitive endings (-ovat, -nout) and then conjugate like any native verb, complete with aspect pairs. Some key ones:

The English root sits inside a fully Czech verb. Kliknout ("to click", perfective) conjugates kliknu, klikneš, klikne, klikneme, kliknete, kliknou — the -nout class, same as native sednout ("sit down"). Googlovat conjugates googluju, googluješ, googluje... — the productive -ovat class that swallows almost every new verb.

When a loan stays indeclinable

Not everything inflects. Loans ending in an unassimilable vowel, or acronyms and brand names, often stay indeclinable — they keep one form in every case, and only the surrounding words show the grammar. Wi-Fi ("wi-fi"), SMS ("text message", though colloquially it also declines), and many product names behave this way.

The rule of thumb: consonant-ending loans get pulled into the masculine declension (e-mail, web, soubor, hardware → hardwaru), while vowel-final loans and abbreviations tend to resist. The adaptation principles — including spelling (mejl vs e-mail) — are on foreign-word adaptation.

Register: mejl, appka, and the informal layer

Czech tech talk has a distinctly casual register. Alongside the standard e-mail you will hear the phonetic spelling mejl (and the verb mejlnout, "to email"); alongside aplikace the clipped appka; alongside fotografie the everyday fotka. These informal forms decline normally (appka → appky → do appky) and belong to chat and speech, not to a formal report.

This colloquial online layer — the texting-and-chat register — has its own conventions covered on SMS and internet Czech. In a formal e-mail (formal register), you would write e-mail, aplikace, and full sentences; in a chat with a friend (informal), mejl and appka are entirely natural.

Common Mistakes

Key Takeaways

• Borrowed nouns get a gender (usually masculine inanimate) and decline fully: e-mail → e-mailu → e-mailem. Never leave them bare.
• "On the internet" is the locative na internetu, not na internet — the classic English-speaker error.
• Borrowed verbs take full Czech conjugation, mostly via the -ovat class (googlovat, chatovat) and some -nout perfectives (kliknout).
• Digital location is na + locative (na internetu, na webu); putting something into a device is do + genitive (do mobilu).
• Some loans stay indeclinable (Wi-Fi, SMS, many brand names).
• Watch the register: standard e-mail / aplikace vs informal mejl / appka — both decline, but they belong to different situations.