Hundreds, Thousands and Millions | Czech Grammar

Once you climb past the everyday numbers, Czech does something English never does: the big round number words start acting like nouns in their own right. Sto changes shape depending on how many hundreds you mean, and tisíc, milion, miliarda drag whatever you are counting into the genitive, every time. This page sorts out the four faces of "hundred" and shows why a thousand crowns is grammatically "a thousand of crowns."

Sto and its four counting forms

The base word sto (100) is a neuter noun, and when you stack hundreds it shifts form in a way you simply learn as a set:

Number	Form of "hundred"	Where it comes from
100	sto	singular
200	dvě stě	old dual form
300, 400	tři sta, čtyři sta	nominative plural
500–900	pět set, … devět set	genitive plural

The logic mirrors the small numbers exactly: dvě takes the dual stě, tři/čtyři take the plural sta, and from pět up you get the genitive plural set — the same way dvě koruny but pět korun. Note dvě stě (not dva), because sto is neuter and "two" agrees with it.

Ten kabát stál skoro dvě stě eur.

That coat cost almost two hundred euros.

Na náměstí se sešlo pět set lidí.

Five hundred people gathered in the square.

Whatever you are counting goes into the genitive plural after any hundreds figure, because sto belongs to the "five-and-up" family that governs the genitive (see five and up). So it is sto korun, dvě stě korun, pět set korun — the noun never budges from the genitive plural, no matter which form of "hundred" precedes it.

Vstupné je sto korun za osobu.

Admission is a hundred crowns per person.

Tisíc — a thousand behaves like a noun

Tisíc (1000) is, grammatically, a masculine noun (it declines like stroj). Two consequences follow, and both trip up learners.

First, whatever you count after tisíc is genitive plural — always, regardless of how many thousands there are. A thousand crowns is literally "a thousand of crowns":

Number	Form of "thousand"	Counted noun
1000	tisíc	tisíc korun (gen. pl.)
2000–4000	dva / tři / čtyři tisíce	dva tisíce korun (gen. pl.)
5000+	pět tisíc	pět tisíc korun (gen. pl.)

Second, tisíc itself follows the numeral rules like any masculine noun being counted: dva tisíce (nom. plural after 2/3/4), but pět tisíc (genitive plural after 5+, here a zero-ending form identical to the singular). Note dva tisíce (masculine), unlike dvě stě.

Auto stálo dva tisíce eur.

The car cost two thousand euros.

Toho dne hlasovalo pět tisíc lidí.

Five thousand people voted that day.

Vyhráli jsme dva tisíce korun v loterii.

We won two thousand crowns in the lottery.

Milion and miliarda — full nouns

Milion (1,000,000, masculine) and miliarda (1,000,000,000, feminine) are unambiguous nouns and behave just like tisíc: they take a genitive counted noun and they themselves inflect for the number in front of them.

Number	Czech	Counted noun
1 000 000	milion	milion korun
2 000 000	dva miliony	dva miliony korun
5 000 000	pět milionů	pět milionů korun
2 000 000 000	dvě miliardy	dvě miliardy korun

Watch the gender agreement on "two": dva miliony (masculine milion) but dvě miliardy (feminine miliarda) — the same dva / dvě split you already know.

Praha má skoro milion a půl obyvatel.

Prague has almost a million and a half inhabitants.

Ten projekt stál tři miliony korun.

That project cost three million crowns.

Stát do toho investoval pět miliard.

The state invested five billion into it.

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Here is the unifying idea: tisíc, milion, miliarda are nouns, so the thing you count after them is always genitive plural — exactly as English says "a million of them," "thousands of people." The genitive never depends on the final digit the way it does after small numbers; it is locked in by the noun. Memorise the chain tisíc korun → milion korun → miliarda korun and you have the pattern.

Reading a big number aloud

Czech reads big numbers in groups of three, largest first, just like English. Take 1 234 567:

milion dvě stě třicet čtyři tisíce pět set šedesát sedm

Break it down:

Group	Read as
1 000 000	milion
234 000	dvě stě třicet čtyři tisíce
567	pět set šedesát sedm

Notice čtyři tisíce (not tisíc): the 234 in front ends in 4, so tisíc takes the nominative-plural tisíce. The same last-digit logic from compound numbers applies to tisíc and milion whenever they are themselves being counted.

Na účtu mu zůstalo přesně tisíc dvě stě korun.

He had exactly one thousand two hundred crowns left in his account.

Město má přibližně tři miliony obyvatel.

The city has roughly three million inhabitants.

Common Mistakes

❌ dva stě korun

Incorrect — sto is neuter, so 'two hundred' is dvě stě, not dva stě.

✅ dvě stě korun

two hundred crowns

❌ pět sto korun

Incorrect — from five up, 'hundred' is the genitive plural set: pět set.

✅ pět set korun

five hundred crowns

❌ tisíc koruny

Incorrect — tisíc is a noun that forces the genitive plural: tisíc korun.

✅ tisíc korun

a thousand crowns

❌ tři miliony lidé

Incorrect — after milion the counted noun is genitive plural: tři miliony lidí.

✅ tři miliony lidí

three million people

❌ dvě miliony korun

Incorrect — milion is masculine, so it is dva miliony, not dvě miliony.

✅ dva miliony korun

two million crowns

Key Takeaways

Sto has four counting forms: sto (100), dvě stě (200), tři/čtyři sta (300/400), pět set (500+); the counted noun stays genitive plural throughout.
Tisíc, milion, miliarda are nouns: they always put the counted item in the genitive plural (tisíc korun, milion korun), and they inflect themselves for the number in front (dva tisíce, pět tisíc; dva miliony, pět milionů).
Mind the gender of "two": dvě stě / dvě miliardy but dva tisíce / dva miliony.
Read big numbers in three-digit groups, largest first: milion dvě stě třicet čtyři tisíce pět set šedesát sedm.

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