Verbs with Two Objects (Dative + Accusative) | Czech Grammar

A whole family of everyday Czech verbs takes two objects at once: someone you give/send/show something to, and the something itself. English calls these ditransitive verbs, and it has the same family ("give me the book," "send her a letter"). The crucial difference is how the two objects are marked. English uses word order or the preposition to; Czech uses case: the recipient goes in the dative and the thing goes in the accusative. Getting this frame automatic — dative person, accusative thing — unlocks dozens of high-frequency verbs at once.

The core frame: dát někomu (dat) něco (acc)

The model verb is dát / dávat ("to give"). Its dictionary frame is written dát někomu něco — literally "give to-someone something," where někomu is the dative slot and něco the accusative slot. Every verb in this group follows the same template.

Dal jsem mu klíče, ať se dostane dovnitř.

I gave him the keys so he can get inside. (male speaker)

Dej mi to, ať se na to podívám.

Give it to me, let me have a look at it.

In Dal jsem mu klíče, mu ("to him") is the dative recipient and klíče ("keys") is the accusative thing. Notice there is no word for to — the dative case is the "to." This is the heart of the system: where English needs a preposition or a fixed order, Czech encodes the recipient with a case ending. (For the dative as the indirect object, see the dative indirect object.)

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Store every ditransitive verb in the template někomu (dative) něco (accusative) — "to-someone something." If you learn dát, poslat, ukázat, půjčit, koupit, vysvětlit, říct all in this one frame, you never have to wonder which object gets which case.

The high-frequency members

These seven verbs cover almost everything you will want to say with two objects. Each is given with both aspect partners and its frame.

Verb (impf. / pf.)	Meaning	Example
dávat / dát	to give	Dal mi radu. — He gave me advice.
posílat / poslat	to send	Pošlu ti fotku. — I'll send you a photo.
kupovat / koupit	to buy (for)	Koupila dětem dárky. — She bought the kids presents.
ukazovat / ukázat	to show	Ukázal nám cestu. — He showed us the way.
půjčovat / půjčit	to lend	Půjčil kamarádovi auto. — He lent his friend the car.
vysvětlovat / vysvětlit	to explain	Vysvětlil mi pravidla. — He explained the rules to me.
říkat / říct	to tell, to say	Řekl mi pravdu. — He told me the truth.

Two of these deserve a word of warning to English speakers. Koupit ("buy") and vysvětlit ("explain") take a plain dative for the beneficiary — Czech says koupit dětem dárky ("buy the children presents") and vysvětlit někomu něco ("explain something to someone"), with no preposition. English allows "explain something to someone" but blocks "explain me the rules"; Czech has no such restriction, so the dative-only frame is fully natural.

Koupil jsem ti k narozeninám knížku.

I bought you a book for your birthday.

Můžeš mi vysvětlit, jak to funguje?

Can you explain to me how it works?

Půjč mi tu nabíječku, mám skoro vybitý telefon.

Lend me that charger, my phone's almost dead.

The recipient is dative — never accusative, never "to"

This is the single most important takeaway, because English gives you two misleading habits. First, English speakers reach for the accusative pronoun ("give him"), but the recipient in Czech is dative: him = mu, not ho. Second, they want to insert a preposition for to, but the dative already carries that meaning — adding k or pro is wrong here.

Person	Dative (recipient)	vs Accusative (the thing/person acted on)
me	mi / mně	mě
you (sg.)	ti / tobě	tě / tebe
him	mu / jemu	ho / jej
her	jí	ji
us	nám	nás
you (pl.)	vám	vás
them	jim	je

Ukázala jsem jim fotky z dovolené.

I showed them the photos from the holiday. (female speaker)

Pošli mi adresu, ať to najdu.

Send me the address so I can find it.

Here jim and mi are the dative recipients; the accusatives are fotky and adresu. Say ukázala jsem je fotky and you have used the accusative je ("them") where the recipient needs the dative jim — a very common slip.

Word order: dative before accusative — until pronouns intervene

When both objects are full nouns, the default order is dative before accusative — recipient first, thing second, mirroring the dictionary frame někomu něco.

Dal jsem bratrovi peníze na nájem.

I gave my brother money for the rent.

Učitelka rozdala dětem testy.

The teacher handed out the tests to the children.

But the moment a pronoun enters, it becomes a clitic and jumps to second position — the slot right after the first stressed element of the clause. Inside that clitic cluster, the order is fixed by the clitic chain: dative pronoun before accusative pronoun, e.g. mi to ("me it"), ti ho ("you him/it"), mu je ("him them").

Dej mi to, prosím tě.

Give it to me, please.

Půjčil jsem mu je na víkend.

I lent them to him for the weekend.

So the dative-before-accusative rule holds in both worlds — full nouns (bratrovi peníze) and clitic pronouns (mi to). What changes is where the cluster sits: nouns can follow the verb, but clitics are dragged to second position.

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The order inside a pronoun cluster is fixed: auxiliary → se/si → dative → accusative. That gives Dal jsem mu to ("I gave it to him"): auxiliary jsem, dative mu, accusative to. Memorize the little phrases mi to, ti ho, mu je, vám to as units — they recur constantly.

Government is stable across aspect

Reassuringly, the dative + accusative frame survives perfectivization: dávat and dát, posílat and poslat, ukazovat and ukázat all keep exactly the same two-object government. You learn the frame once per verb family, not once per aspect. (This is the general rule covered on aspect and government stability.)

Vždycky mi dává dobré rady a včera mi dal i tu nejlepší.

She always gives me good advice, and yesterday she gave me the best one of all.

Here imperfective dává and perfective dal sit side by side, both with the dative mi and an accusative thing.

Common Mistakes

❌ Dal jsem ho klíče.

Incorrect — the recipient is dative (mu), not accusative (ho).

✅ Dal jsem mu klíče.

I gave him the keys.

The person who receives is in the dative: him = mu. Using the accusative ho makes the person the thing being given.

❌ Pošlu k tobě dopis.

Incorrect — the recipient is a plain dative, no preposition.

✅ Pošlu ti dopis.

I'll send you a letter.

The dative ti already means "to you." Adding k ("to/toward") turns it into a direction of motion ("toward you"), not a recipient.

❌ Můžeš vysvětlit mi to?

Incorrect word order — the clitics mi/to belong in second position.

✅ Můžeš mi to vysvětlit?

Can you explain it to me?

The pronoun clitics mi to must cluster right after the first element (Můžeš), not trail after the infinitive.

❌ Dej to mi.

Incorrect order — dative clitic precedes accusative, and short clitics don't sit last.

✅ Dej mi to.

Give it to me.

Inside the cluster the dative comes first (mi before to), giving Dej mi to. (The stressed long form mně can stand last for emphasis — Dej to mně! "Give it to me!" — but the neutral order is mi to.)

❌ Ukázal nás své fotky.

Incorrect — the viewers are dative (nám), not accusative (nás).

✅ Ukázal nám své fotky.

He showed us his photos.

The people shown something are the recipients, so nám (dative), not nás (accusative).

Key Takeaways

Ditransitive verbs take a dative recipient
- an accusative thing: the frame is někomu (dat) něco (acc).
Core members: dát, poslat, koupit, ukázat, půjčit, vysvětlit, říct — learn each in that frame.
The recipient is dative, never accusative and never with to: "give him" = dej mu, not dej ho or dej k němu.
Default order is dative before accusative; pronoun objects become clitics in second position, still dative-before-accusative (mi to, ti ho).
The two-object government is stable across aspect (dávat / dát both take dat + acc).

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