The word dítě ("child") is one of the first irregular nouns you must meet head-on, because it and its plural děti ("children") are among the commonest words in the language — and they do something startling. The singular dítě is a neuter noun, but the plural is not its own plural at all: it is borrowed from a completely different, feminine word, děti. The noun changes gender halfway through its own paradigm. Linguists call this suppletion — the same kind of patching-over you see in English go / went, where the past tense comes from an unrelated root.
For an English speaker this is jarring in a way child / children is not. English children is irregular in shape, but it stays the same kind of noun; you do not have to re-agree the adjectives and verbs around it. In Czech, the switch from neuter dítě to feminine děti drags every agreeing word with it: malé dítě (the adjective in neuter) becomes malé děti, and the demonstrative to dítě becomes ty děti. You have to flip the gender of the whole phrase.
The singular: dítě, a neuter of the kuře type
In the singular, dítě declines as a neuter of the kuře type — the group of neuters that insert -et-/-ět- before the case endings (the same pattern as kuře → kuřete, "chick", and zvíře → zvířete, "animal"). The key forms:
| Case | Singular (neuter) |
|---|---|
| Nominative | dítě |
| Genitive | dítěte |
| Dative | dítěti |
| Accusative | dítě (= nominative) |
| Vocative | dítě |
| Locative | (o) dítěti |
| Instrumental | dítětem |
In the singular, everything agrees in the neuter: to malé dítě ("that little child"), Dítě spalo ("The child was sleeping," with the neuter past ending -o).
To dítě celý den prospalo.
That child slept the whole day. (dítě neuter; prospalo, neuter -o ending)
Máme jen jedno dítě, a to nám stačí.
We've only got one child, and that's enough for us. (dítě, neuter; jedno, neuter)
Dej tu hračku tomu dítěti.
Give that toy to the child. (dítě → dítěti, dative; to → tomu)
The plural: děti, a suppletive feminine
Now the surprise. The plural is děti, and it declines as a feminine noun of the kost type (the i-stem feminines). Crucially, it triggers feminine agreement throughout.
| Case | Plural (feminine) |
|---|---|
| Nominative | děti |
| Genitive | dětí |
| Dative | dětem |
| Accusative | děti |
| Vocative | děti |
| Locative | (o) dětech |
| Instrumental | dětmi |
The instrumental dětmi is the giveaway that this is an i-stem feminine like kost → kostmi: the ending is -mi attached straight to the stem, not the regular -ami. And because the noun is now feminine, every adjective, demonstrative, and past-tense verb around it takes the feminine plural form.
Malé děti rychle rostou.
Small children grow fast. (děti feminine; malé, feminine plural adjective)
Ty děti jsou hrozně hodné.
Those children are terribly well-behaved. (ty, feminine plural; hodné, feminine plural)
Naše děti chodí do stejné školy.
Our children go to the same school. (naše, feminine plural)
Děti si celé odpoledne hrály na zahradě.
The children played in the garden all afternoon. (hrály, feminine plural past in -y)
Celý víkend jsem strávil s dětmi.
I spent the whole weekend with the children. (děti → dětmi, instrumental)
Ve školce bylo dnes málo dětí.
There were few children at the nursery today. (děti → dětí, genitive plural)
Why this happens — and why you can't fix it by analogy
It is tempting to "regularise" dítě by treating it like its paradigm-mate kuře: since kuře makes the plural kuřata (chicks), you might expect dítě to make dítata. It does not. That regular neuter plural simply does not exist for this word; the slot is filled by the unrelated feminine děti. This is exactly what makes it suppletion rather than mere irregularity — there is no sound change you can apply to dítě to derive děti; it is a different word grafted on.
Because děti is genuinely one of the most frequent nouns in Czech — you cannot talk about families, schools, or daily life without it — there is no avoiding it. Master both halves early and the gender switch will stop feeling strange.
Common mistakes
❌ Na hřišti si hrály dítata.
Incorrect — there is no regular neuter plural *dítata; the plural is the suppletive feminine děti.
✅ Na hřišti si hrály děti.
Children were playing on the playground. (děti)
❌ Ta malá děti jsou unavená.
Incorrect — in the plural děti is feminine, so the agreement is feminine, not neuter.
✅ Ty malé děti jsou unavené.
Those little children are tired. (ty, malé, unavené — all feminine plural)
❌ Jel jsem na dovolenou s dětami.
Incorrect — děti is an i-stem feminine; its instrumental is dětmi, not *dětami.
✅ Jel jsem na dovolenou s dětmi.
I went on holiday with the children. (děti → dětmi)
❌ Bez toho dítěho to nezvládneme.
Incorrect — the singular genitive of dítě is dítěte (kuře type), not *dítěho.
✅ Bez toho dítěte to nezvládneme.
We can't manage without that child. (dítě → dítěte)
❌ Naše děti byly moc hodná.
Incorrect — the predicate must agree with the feminine plural děti: hodné, not the neuter hodná.
✅ Naše děti byly moc hodné.
Our children were very well-behaved. (děti, feminine plural agreement)
The single habit to build is this: decide the number first. If it is one child, think neuter from the noun outward (to dítě, malé dítě, dítě spalo). If it is several, think feminine plural (ty děti, malé děti, děti spaly) — and remember the odd instrumental dětmi.
Key takeaways
- dítě (child) is neuter in the singular, declining as a kuře-type noun: dítěte, dítěti, dítětem.
- Its plural is the suppletive feminine děti, declining as an i-stem (kost type): dětí, dětem, dětmi.
- The plural takes feminine agreement throughout: malé děti, ty děti, děti byly.
- Don't invent a regular plural (dítata) and don't carry neuter agreement into the plural — both are classic transfer errors.
- The unusual instrumental dětmi (with -mi) marks it as the same i-stem type as kost; see the feminine kost pattern. For the parallel člověk-style suppletion in the masculine (člověk → lidé), see člověk and lidé.
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- Člověk and Lidé: The Person/People SuppletionA2 — How člověk (person) declines as a regular animate masculine in the singular but switches to the unrelated suppletive plural lidé (people), with both tables and the vocative člověče.
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- The Three Genders of Czech NounsA1 — Every Czech noun is masculine, feminine, or neuter — a grammatical property that drives its declension and forces agreement on everything around it.
- Singular and Plural in CzechA1 — Czech has singular and plural, but there's no single plural marker like English -s — the plural form depends on gender, paradigm, and case.