Agreement (Czech shoda) is the engine that makes a Czech sentence hang together. The verb and any predicate word must echo the subject's grammatical features — and Czech tracks more features than English does. In the present tense the verb agrees in person and number; in the past tense and conditional it additionally agrees in gender, carried by the l-participle. Add the special behavior of polite vy, of numeral subjects, and of quantifier subjects, and you have the complete agreement reference on one page. Master it and your endings stop being guesswork.
Present tense: person and number
In the present, the Czech verb ending alone tells you who the subject is — which is why the pronoun is usually dropped (see pro-drop and ellipsis). The verb agrees in person (1st/2nd/3rd) and number (singular/plural). Gender plays no role here.
| Person | dělat (to do) — present |
|---|---|
| já | dělám |
| ty | děláš |
| on / ona / ono | dělá |
| my | děláme |
| vy | děláte |
| oni | dělají |
Každé ráno běhám v parku.
Every morning I go running in the park. (1st sg., pronoun dropped)
Děti si hrají na zahradě.
The children are playing in the garden. (3rd pl.: hrají)
Past tense: gender enters the picture
The past tense is built from the l-participle (the -l form) plus, in the 1st and 2nd persons, the auxiliary jsem/jsi/jsme/jste. The crucial difference from English: the l-participle changes its ending for gender and number. A man přišel, a woman přišla, a child přišlo. This is invisible to English speakers — we say arrived for everyone — so it is the number-one source of past-tense errors.
| Subject | Gender / number | l-participle (přijít) |
|---|---|---|
| muž | masc. sg. | přišel |
| žena | fem. sg. | přišla |
| dítě | neut. sg. | přišlo |
| muži | masc. anim. pl. | přišli (-i) |
| ženy | fem. pl. | přišly (-y) |
| města | neut. pl. | přišla (-a) |
The three plural endings are the heart of the system, and they are spelled differently even when they sound nearly identical: -i for masculine animate, -y for feminine (and masculine inanimate), and -a for neuter. Hear them as one short vowel; spell them as three distinct cells.
Kluci zpívali celou cestu domů.
The boys sang the whole way home. (masc. anim. pl.: zpívali, -i)
Holky zpívaly u táboráku až do noci.
The girls sang by the campfire until night. (fem. pl.: zpívaly, -y)
Ta města byla po válce úplně zničená.
Those cities were completely destroyed after the war. (neut. pl.: byla, -a)
For the spelling logic behind -i vs -y in these endings, see i vs y in endings; for the participle's full agreement table, see l-participle agreement.
Why the past, but not the present, marks gender
The reason is historical: the l-participle was originally a predicate adjective ("having-arrived"), and adjectives agree in gender. The present-tense verb was never an adjective, so it never picked up gender. Knowing this, you can predict that the conditional — which also uses the l-participle (přišel bych, přišla bych) — marks gender too, for exactly the same reason.
Kdybych měla čas, přišla bych dřív.
If I had time, I'd come earlier. (female speaker → přišla bych)
Predicate adjectives and nouns after být
A predicate that follows the linking verb být ("to be") also agrees. A predicate adjective agrees in gender, number, and case (nominative): Petr je unavený / Jana je unavená. A predicate noun after stát se "to become" goes into the instrumental: Stal se učitelem "He became a teacher," plural Stali se učiteli.
Petr je unavený, ale Jana není unavená.
Petr is tired, but Jana isn't tired. (predicate adjective agrees in gender)
Po studiích se z nich stali učiteli.
After their studies they became teachers. (predicate noun in the instrumental plural: učiteli)
For predicate adjective agreement in detail, see adjective agreement basics.
Mixed-gender and conjoined subjects
When the subject is a list of nouns of different genders, the plural verb and predicate resolve by a hierarchy: a masculine animate referent forces the masculine animate plural (the -i participle and -í adjective). Only when no masculine animate is present do you drop to the feminine/inanimate -y or the all-neuter -a.
Petr a Jana přišli na večeři spolu.
Petr and Jana came to dinner together. (masc. anim. present in the group → přišli, -i)
Židle a stůl byly nové.
The chair and the table were new. (no masc. anim. → byly, -y)
This is the same resolution system used for adjectives; the full treatment, including the rare all-neuter case, is on mixed-gender plural agreement.
Polite vy: plural verb, singular predicate
When you address one person politely with vy ("you," formal), the verb stays plural (vy jste) but the predicate participle/adjective is singular, agreeing with the real-world gender of that one person. So a man is addressed as Vy jste přišel (singular přišel) and a woman as Vy jste přišla — both with the plural auxiliary jste. This split is invisible in English ("you came") and surprises every learner.
Pane Nováku, vy jste přišel pozdě.
Mr. Novák, you came late. (polite vy to one man: jste přišel)
Paní doktorko, vy jste se spletla.
Doctor, you made a mistake. (polite vy to one woman: jste se spletla)
Vy jste moc hodný, děkuji.
You're very kind, thank you. (polite vy to one man: singular hodný)
Numeral subjects: 5+ forces neuter singular
A subject headed by pět or higher takes a neuter singular verb, even though the meaning is plural and the counted noun is genitive plural. The quantity is treated as a single abstract amount. Numerals 2–4, by contrast, take an ordinary agreeing plural verb.
Dva muži přišli a posadili se k baru.
Two men came and sat down at the bar. (2–4 → plural verb přišli)
Pět studentů chybělo na přednášce.
Five students were missing from the lecture. (5+ → neuter sg. chybělo)
Na výlet jelo dvanáct dětí.
Twelve children went on the trip. (5+ → neuter sg. jelo)
The full genitive-plural-after-five rule lives on five-plus and the genitive.
Quantifier and collective subjects
Indefinite quantifiers like mnoho, hodně, málo, and několik behave like 5+ numerals: the subject takes a neuter singular verb. These words are indeclinable and have no gender of their own, so the verb defaults to the neuter singular.
Hodně lidí přišlo až po začátku.
A lot of people came only after the start. (quantifier → neuter sg. přišlo)
Několik aut zůstalo stát na silnici.
Several cars were left standing in the road. (quantifier → neuter sg. zůstalo)
In informal speech you will sometimes hear a plural verb here (hodně lidí přišli), but the standard written form is the neuter singular. Mark the plural version as (informal).
One word that looks like a quantifier behaves differently: většina ("most, the majority") is itself a feminine noun, so the verb agrees with it as a feminine singular, not the neuter default — the verb is matching většina, not counting the people.
Většina studentů odevzdala práci včas.
Most students handed in the work on time. (většina is feminine → fem. sg. odevzdala, agreeing with většina)
Common mistakes
The dominant English-speaker errors are ignoring gender in the past tense, mixing up the -i / -y / -a plural endings, mishandling polite vy, and using a plural verb after a 5+ subject.
❌ Jana přišel pozdě.
Incorrect — a female subject needs the feminine participle: přišla.
✅ Jana přišla pozdě.
Jana arrived late.
❌ Holky zpívali celý večer.
Incorrect — feminine plural takes -y: zpívaly.
✅ Holky zpívaly celý večer.
The girls sang all evening.
❌ Ta auta stály na parkovišti.
Incorrect — neuter plural takes -a: stála.
✅ Ta auta stála na parkovišti.
The cars were parked in the lot.
❌ Pane Nováku, vy jste přišli pozdě.
Incorrect — polite vy to one man takes a singular participle: přišel.
✅ Pane Nováku, vy jste přišel pozdě.
Mr. Novák, you came late.
❌ Pět studentů přišli.
Incorrect — a 5+ subject takes a neuter singular verb: přišlo.
✅ Pět studentů přišlo.
Five students arrived.
Key takeaways
- Present tense: agree in person and number only.
- Past tense and conditional: also agree in gender via the l-participle — muž přišel, žena přišla, dítě přišlo.
- Plural participles split three ways: muži přišli (-i), ženy přišly (-y), města byla (-a).
- Predicate adjectives agree (unavený / unavená); predicate nouns after stát se take the instrumental (stali se učiteli).
- Polite vy to one person: plural auxiliary, singular participle (Vy jste přišel/přišla).
- Subjects with 5+ numerals or quantifiers like mnoho/hodně take a neuter singular verb (pět lidí přišlo).
Now practice Czech
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Start learning Czech→Related Topics
- Gender and Number Agreement of the l-ParticipleA2 — How the Czech past-tense participle changes its ending to match the subject's gender and number — including marking your own gender in the first person.
- i/y in Grammatical EndingsB1 — How case and verb agreement decide i versus y in word endings.
- Plural Agreement: -li, -ly, -laA2 — How the past-tense participle chooses between -li, -ly and -la in the plural — and the rule that one masculine animate noun changes everything.
- 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.
- Subject Dropping and EllipsisA2 — Why Czech omits subject pronouns and other recoverable elements.
- Adjective–Noun AgreementA2 — Every Czech adjective copies its noun's gender, number, and case — so the same adjective wears a different ending in nearly every phrase, and getting the noun right but the adjective wrong is still an error.