Numbers look like the safest part of a new language — until you try to count something in Czech and discover that the noun keeps changing shape under you. This page hands you the everyday templates you actually need (the time, the date, the year, a shopping count) and shows the one rule underneath all of them: in Czech, a number governs the case of the noun it counts. Once you see that the number is steering the grammar, telling the time and saying your birthday stop feeling like memorised magic words and start feeling like a system.
The 1 / 2–4 / 5+ split
Every counting situation in Czech sorts numbers into three boxes, and the noun (and often the verb) reacts differently to each:
- 1 → the noun is nominative singular, and jeden/jedna/jedno agrees in gender.
- 2, 3, 4 → the noun is nominative plural.
- 5 and up → the noun jumps to the genitive plural, and the verb goes to neuter singular.
You can watch all three boxes at once with the word hodina ("hour"), which is exactly why telling the time is the best place to drill the rule.
| Number | Form of "hour" | Box |
|---|---|---|
| jedna | hodina (nom. sg.) | 1 |
| dvě, tři, čtyři | hodiny (nom. pl.) | 2–4 |
| pět, šest … dvanáct | hodin (gen. pl.) | 5+ |
Telling the time
To ask, say Kolik je hodin? — literally "How many is of-hours?" To answer on the whole hour, the verb agrees with the number, not with you: je (singular) for one o'clock and for five o'clock and up, but jsou (plural) for two, three, and four.
| Clock | Czech |
|---|---|
| 1:00 | Je jedna hodina. |
| 2:00 | Jsou dvě hodiny. |
| 3:00 | Jsou tři hodiny. |
| 4:00 | Jsou čtyři hodiny. |
| 5:00 | Je pět hodin. |
| 10:00 | Je deset hodin. |
| 12:00 | Je dvanáct hodin. (or Je poledne / půlnoc) |
Notice that two is dvě, the feminine form, because hodina is feminine — masculine dva would be wrong here. To say at a time, swap to v(e) + the accusative: v jednu hodinu, ve dvě hodiny, v pět hodin.
Promiňte, kolik je hodin? — Jsou tři hodiny.
Excuse me, what time is it? — It's three o'clock.
V kolik hodin začíná ten film? — V osm hodin večer.
What time does the film start? — At eight in the evening.
Sejdeme se v pět hodin před kinem, ano?
Let's meet at five o'clock in front of the cinema, okay?
Half-hours and quarters use a system that genuinely surprises English speakers, so treat it as its own little fact: Czech counts toward the coming hour. Je půl třetí means 2:30 — literally "it is half of the third [hour]." Čtvrt na tři is 2:15 ("a quarter onto three") and tři čtvrtě na tři is 2:45. There is no logical shortcut; just remember that půl třetí points forward to three, so it is half past two, not half past three. (For the full breakdown see telling the time.)
The date: the ordinal in the genitive
Here is the single most common date mistake English speakers make. English says the date with a cardinal-flavoured ordinal in the plain ("today is the fifth"). Czech puts the whole date in the genitive, because underneath it is "[on the] fifth [day] [of] May." Both the ordinal and the month name go genitive:
| Date | Czech (genitive) | Built from |
|---|---|---|
| 1 Jan | prvního ledna | první + leden |
| 15 Mar | patnáctého března | patnáctý + březen |
| 23 May | dvacátého třetího května | dvacátý třetí + květen |
| 24 Dec | dvacátého čtvrtého prosince | dvacátý čtvrtý + prosinec |
To ask for the date, Czech even asks in the genitive: Kolikátého je dnes? — "Of-what-number is it today?" The answer matches: Dnes je… + genitive.
Kolikátého je dnes? — Dnes je patnáctého března.
What's the date today? — Today is the fifteenth of March.
Mám narozeniny dvacátého třetího května.
My birthday is on the twenty-third of May.
Přijedeme prvního ledna, hned po Novém roce.
We'll arrive on the first of January, right after New Year.
Note that in a compound number only the last two ordinals are spoken (and only the final one always declines clearly): dvacátého třetího, not "twentieth-three." The month is always genitive: ledna, února, března, dubna, května, června, července, srpna, září, října, listopadu, prosince.
The year
For years from 2000 on, Czech reads the figure as a plain cardinal — dva tisíce ("two thousand") plus the rest — and parks it after v roce ("in the year," with rok in the locative). The year itself does not become an ordinal and does not decline: just read the digits.
Naše firma vznikla v roce dva tisíce dvacet pět.
Our company was founded in 2025.
Narodila se v roce dva tisíce a teď je jí dvacet pět.
She was born in 2000 and now she's twenty-five.
Counting things: the rule in real life
Now take the same 1 / 2–4 / 5+ split shopping. Watch a masculine, a feminine, and a neuter noun move through the three boxes:
| rohlík (m.) | koruna (f.) | pivo (n.) | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | jeden rohlík | jedna koruna | jedno pivo |
| 2–4 | dva rohlíky | dvě / tři koruny | dvě piva |
| 5+ | pět rohlíků | pět korun | pět piv |
Dám si dva rohlíky a jedno mléko, prosím.
I'll have two rolls and one milk, please.
To máte dvacet pět korun.
That'll be twenty-five crowns.
The most striking version of the 5+ rule is the verb. From five up, the counted phrase behaves like a neuter singular, so the verb stops being plural:
Na oslavu přišlo pět lidí.
Five people came to the party.
Čekají tam čtyři lidé, ale za chvíli jich přijde víc.
Four people are waiting there, but more will come soon.
In the first sentence pět drags the verb to neuter singular přišlo and lidé to the genitive plural lidí; in the second, čtyři keeps the verb plural (čekají) and the noun nominative plural (lidé). That contrast — přišlo pět lidí versus čekají čtyři lidé — is the whole rule in one breath. Compound numbers ending in 2, 3, 4 (like dvacet dva) sit in a grey zone: careful written Czech treats them as 5+ (dvacet dva korun), while speech often keeps the 2–4 pattern (dvacet dvě koruny); see case after numbers.
Common Mistakes
❌ Je pět koruny.
Incorrect — after 5+ the noun is the genitive plural korun, not the plural koruny.
✅ Je pět korun.
It's five crowns.
❌ Přišli pět lidí.
Incorrect — from five up the verb is neuter singular: přišlo.
✅ Přišlo pět lidí.
Five people came.
❌ Dnes je patnáct března.
Incorrect — the date needs the ordinal genitive, not the bare cardinal: patnáctého.
✅ Dnes je patnáctého března.
Today is the fifteenth of March.
❌ Mám narozeniny dvacátý třetí květen.
Incorrect — the whole date is genitive: dvacátého třetího května.
✅ Mám narozeniny dvacátého třetího května.
My birthday is on the twenty-third of May.
❌ Jsou pět hodin.
Incorrect — five o'clock takes the singular je (only 2–4 take jsou).
✅ Je pět hodin.
It's five o'clock.
Key Takeaways
- One rule runs through everything: 1 → nom. sg., 2–4 → nom. pl., 5+ → genitive plural with a neuter-singular verb (přišlo pět lidí).
- Telling the time: Je jedna hodina, Jsou dvě/tři/čtyři hodiny, Je pět hodin — use feminine dvě, and remember půl třetí = 2:30.
- The date is in the genitive, ordinal and month alike: prvního ledna, dvacátého třetího května; even the question is Kolikátého je dnes?
- The year after 2000 is a plain cardinal: v roce dva tisíce dvacet pět.
- Never leave the noun in the plain plural after a number (pět koruny) or use a bare cardinal for a date (patnáct března).
Now practice Czech
Reading grammar gets you part of the way. The exercises are where it sticks — free, no signup needed.
Start learning Czech→Related Topics
- Cardinal Numbers 5 and Up: the Genitive Plural RuleA2 — Why pět, deset, sto and the higher numbers take a genitive-plural noun and a singular neuter verb — the central oddity of Czech numeral syntax.
- DatesA2 — Saying and writing dates with the genitive ordinal: prvního ledna, in years and the day-month genitive.
- Telling the TimeA2 — Hodin/hodiny agreement, half/quarter expressions (půl, čtvrt), and the 24-hour system.
- The Genitive in DatesA2 — Why Czech puts both the day-ordinal and the month name in the genitive to say a calendar date — and the irregular month stems you need to read figures aloud.
- Common Mistakes: Numbers and Noun CaseB1 — Using the wrong noun case after numerals — especially the 5+ genitive plural and the neuter-singular verb.