The Dative of Experiencer and Feeling

English makes the person who feels something the subject: I am cold, I feel sad, I want to sleep, I'm doing well. Czech does the opposite for a whole family of states. The feeling is treated as something that happens to you, so the person who experiences it lands in the dative — the "to/for someone" case — and the verb stays impersonal in the third person, with no nominative subject at all. I'm cold is je mi zima (literally "it-is to-me cold"); I want to sleep is chce se mi spát ("it wants itself to me to sleep"). This page is the verb-government angle on that pattern: the cluster of verbs that put their experiencer in the dative, and how to wield them.

This complements the experiencer dative in the Cases section, which drills the je mi + state word expressions (je mi zima, je mi špatně, je mi líto) in depth. Here we widen the lens to the verbs that follow the same logic — chce se, daří se, podařit se, chybět, líbit se — so you can recognise the frame wherever it appears.

The frame: dative experiencer + impersonal verb, no subject

Across this whole family, three things hold:

• The experiencer — the person who feels or undergoes the state — is in the dative (mi, ti, mu, jí, nám, vám, jim, or a full noun like dětem).
• The verb is impersonal: third person singular, defaulting to neuter in the past (bylo, podařilo se) because there is no subject to agree with.
• There is no nominative "I". The whole sentence is built around the state, not around you.

Once you stop hunting for a subject and accept that you are the recipient of the state, these stop feeling broken.

chce se mi: wanting and feeling like it

A signature member of the family: chce se + dative + infinitive expresses an urge or inclination — feeling like doing something — as distinct from a deliberate wish. Chci spát (with a nominative já) is "I want to sleep" as a decision; chce se mi spát is "I'm sleepy / I feel like sleeping," a state that comes over you. The verb is the reflexive chtít se, impersonal, with you in the dative.

daří se mi, podařit se mi: doing well and managing

dařit se + dative means "to fare / get on / thrive," and podařit se + dative is its perfective partner used for "to manage / succeed in (a single attempt)." The person who fares well or manages something is, again, the dative experiencer — not the subject.

Podařilo se mi to "I managed it" is worth memorising as a unit. The neuter podařilo se never changes for person; whoever pulls it off simply slots into the dative — podařilo se ti, podařilo se nám. This is the everyday way to report a success, alongside the more effortful dokázat (see dovést and dokázat).

chybět, scházet: missing and lacking

chybět and its synonym scházet "to be missing / be lacking / be missed" put the person who feels the lack in the dative, while the thing that is missing is the subject. This produces the famous Chybíš mi "I miss you" — literally "you are lacking to me," where you is the subject and me is the dative.

Because the missing thing is the subject, the verb agrees with it: Chybíš mi (you, sg.) but Chybíte mi (you, pl./formal); Chybí mi peníze "I'm short of money" (peníze plural → chybí serves both in present, but the past would be chyběly mi peníze).

hodit se: suiting and being convenient

hodit se "to suit / be convenient (for someone)" rounds out the everyday set. What suits is the subject; the person it suits is the dative.

líbit se belongs here too

The verb líbit se "to appeal to / please" is the most famous member of this family and has its own dedicated page. It follows the exact same logic: the thing liked is the subject, you are the dative experiencer (Líbí se mi to "I like it," literally "it pleases itself to me"). We mention it here only to place it in the family; for the full treatment — including the tricky past-tense agreement and the contrast with mít rád — go to that page.

Why English speakers get this wrong

The error is always the same: forcing the English subject onto Czech. English says I am cold / I want to sleep / I am doing well / I miss you, all with I as subject. The instinct is to translate that I as the nominative já and conjugate the verb in the first person — jsem zima, chybím tě. Both are wrong, because Czech does not let you be the subject of these states. You are the one the state happens to, so you go in the dative and the verb stays impersonal. The cure is to retranslate in your head: not "I am cold" but "to me it is cold"; not "I miss you" but "you are lacking to me."

Common Mistakes

Key Takeaways

• A family of feeling/state verbs puts the experiencer in the dative and keeps the verb impersonal (3rd person, neuter in the past), with no nominative subject.
• chce se mi
  • infinitive = an urge ("I feel like…"), distinct from the deliberate chci ("I want to…").
• daří se mi = "I'm doing well"; podařilo se mi to = "I managed it" (impersonal neuter — never podařil jsem).
• chybět / scházet: the missing thing is the subject, the one who misses it is the dative — hence Chybíš mi "I miss you."
• hodit se ("suit") and líbit se ("appeal to") follow the same frame; líbit se has its own page.
• The fix for English transfer: retranslate "I am cold" as "to me it is cold," "I miss you" as "you are lacking to me."