Questions & Answers about Ten strom je mrtvý.
What does ten mean here, and why is it ten instead of ta or to?
Ten is the masculine singular form of the demonstrative this/that.
Czech demonstratives change form to match the noun’s gender, number, and case.
Because strom (tree) is:
- masculine
- singular
- nominative (the subject of the sentence)
the correct form is ten.
Compare:
- ten strom = this/that tree
- ta kniha = this/that book
- to auto = this/that car
So ten agrees with strom.
Why is strom masculine?
In Czech, every noun has a grammatical gender: masculine, feminine, or neuter.
Strom is simply a noun that belongs to the masculine gender class. You usually have to learn a noun’s gender together with the word.
A useful clue is that many masculine nouns in the dictionary form end in a consonant, and strom does:
- strom = tree
So in this sentence:
- ten matches masculine strom
- mrtvý also matches masculine strom
Why is je used here?