Learn Hardcore Czech: V nemocnici čekají dobrý lékař a velmi trpělivá doktorka. - In the hospital a good doctor and a very patient lady doctor are waiting.

V nemocnici čekají dobrý lékař a velmi trpělivá doktorka.

In the hospital a good doctor and a very patient lady doctor are waiting.

Breakdown of V nemocnici čekají dobrý lékař a velmi trpělivá doktorka.

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Questions & Answers about V nemocnici čekají dobrý lékař a velmi trpělivá doktorka.

Why does the verb čekají come before dobrý lékař a velmi trpělivá doktorka? I thought Czech word order was like English: subject–verb–object.

Czech word order is much freer than English. The basic neutral order can be subject–verb–object:

Dobrý lékař a velmi trpělivá doktorka čekají v nemocnici.

But Czech often puts known or less important information earlier and new or emphasized information later.

In V nemocnici čekají dobrý lékař a velmi trpělivá doktorka:

V nemocnici (in the hospital) sets the scene.
čekají comes early to say what is happening.
dobrý lékař a velmi trpělivá doktorka are the “new” or important pieces of information, so they come at the end.

All of these are grammatically correct, just with slightly different emphasis:

V nemocnici čekají dobrý lékař a velmi trpělivá doktorka. (focus on who is waiting in the hospital)
Dobrý lékař a velmi trpělivá doktorka čekají v nemocnici. (focus on where they are waiting)
Dobrý lékař a velmi trpělivá doktorka v nemocnici čekají. (unusual but possible; strong focus on the waiting itself)

Why is it v nemocnici and not v nemocnice? What case is nemocnici?

Nemocnice (hospital) is a feminine noun. Its nominative singular form is nemocnice, but after the preposition v (in) expressing location, Czech uses the locative case.

For this noun, the locative singular is nemocnici:

nominative: nemocnice – Nemocnice je velká. (The hospital is big.)
locative: v nemocnici – Jsem v nemocnici. (I am in the hospital.)

So v + nemocnici = in the hospital (location, static position) → locative case.

Why doesn’t the sentence have an article like “a” or “the”? How do I know if it’s a hospital or the hospital?

Czech has no articles (no a/an or the), so nemocnice by itself can mean:

a hospital
the hospital
just hospital in a general sense

V nemocnici could be translated as:

in a hospital
in the hospital

The context decides which English article is natural. If the specific hospital is already known in the conversation, you would translate it as the hospital; if it’s mentioned for the first time, often as a hospital. The Czech form itself does not change.

Why is the verb plural čekají? The English subject looks like “a good doctor and a very patient doctor”, and sometimes English speakers say “is waiting” with that.

In Czech, when the subject is made of two elements joined by a (and), the verb must be plural:

dobrý lékař a velmi trpělivá doktorka → two people → plural
so the verb is čekají (3rd person plural)

The singular form would be:

čeká (3rd person singular)

But that would be wrong here, because you clearly have two people. So:

✔ V nemocnici čekají dobrý lékař a velmi trpělivá doktorka.
✘ V nemocnici čeká dobrý lékař a velmi trpělivá doktorka. (ungrammatical)

What’s the difference between lékař, doktor, doktorka, and lékařka?

All relate to the word doctor, but there are differences in style and gender:

lékař – male medical doctor (more formal/neutral, especially in official contexts)
lékařka – female medical doctor (formal/neutral)
doktor – male doctor; can be:
- medical doctor (more colloquial), or
- holder of a doctorate (PhD, etc.)
doktorka – female version of doktor; again, can be medical doctor or PhD, more colloquial

In the sentence:

dobrý lékař – a good (male) doctor
velmi trpělivá doktorka – a very patient (female) doctor

It’s a bit stylistically mixed (formal lékař + more colloquial doktorka), but fully understandable. A more uniform version could be:

dobrý lékař a velmi trpělivá lékařka (both formal/neutral), or
dobrý doktor a velmi trpělivá doktorka (both more colloquial).

Why is it dobrý lékař but trpělivá doktorka? Why do the adjectives have different endings: -ý vs -á?

Adjectives in Czech must agree with the noun in:

gender (masculine / feminine / neuter)
number (singular / plural)
case

Here both nouns are in nominative singular, but with different genders:

lékař – masculine animate → dobrý lékař
- masculine adjective ending: -ý (here: dobrý)
doktorka – feminine → velmi trpělivá doktorka
- feminine adjective ending: -á (here: trpělivá)

Other forms of these adjectives:

dobrý (m.), dobrá (f.), dobré (n.) – good
trpělivý (m.), trpělivá (f.), trpělivé (n.) – patient

So the different endings come from the grammatical gender of the nouns they describe.

Why is there no pronoun like oni (they)? In English we’d often say “They are waiting in the hospital”.

In Czech, subject pronouns (já, ty, on, ona, oni etc.) are usually dropped when they are not needed for clarity. The person and number are clear from the verb ending:

čekají → 3rd person plural (“they wait / they are waiting”)

The subject is also explicitly expressed by the nouns dobrý lékař a velmi trpělivá doktorka, so adding oni would be redundant.

You would only add oni for strong emphasis (for example, to contrast with someone else):

V nemocnici čekají oni, ne my.
They are waiting in the hospital, not us.

Can I say Dobrý lékař a velmi trpělivá doktorka čekají v nemocnici instead? Is that more natural?

Yes, that version is perfectly correct and quite natural:

Dobrý lékař a velmi trpělivá doktorka čekají v nemocnici.

It follows the more “English-like” pattern: subject – verb – place. The difference is mainly in information structure and emphasis:

V nemocnici čekají dobrý lékař a velmi trpělivá doktorka.
→ first sets the place, then highlights who is there.
Dobrý lékař a velmi trpělivá doktorka čekají v nemocnici.
→ first names who, then adds where they are waiting.

Both are fine; choose based on what you want to emphasize.

Could one adjective describe both doctors, like “good doctors” instead of repeating it?

Yes, but the grammar changes. If one adjective describes a mixed-gender group, Czech uses masculine plural as the default:

dobří lékaři – good doctors (at least one male in the group)
dobré lékařky – good (all-female) doctors

To say “a good male doctor and a good female doctor are waiting in the hospital”, you could say:

V nemocnici čekají dobří lékaři.
(implies at least one male, could be more than two people)

If you explicitly want to keep the singular nouns:

V nemocnici čeká dobrý lékař a dobrá lékařka. – A good male doctor and a good female doctor are waiting in the hospital.
(but then the verb should be plural: čekají, as discussed above; this sentence as written would be ungrammatical.)

More natural would be:

V nemocnici čekají dobrý lékař a dobrá lékařka.

What does velmi mean exactly, and how is it different from moc or hodně?

Velmi is an adverb meaning very. It modifies adjectives and adverbs:

velmi trpělivá – very patient
velmi rychle – very quickly

Other common “very” words:

moc – very / too (more colloquial, frequent in speech)
- moc trpělivá doktorka – a very/too patient doctor
hodně – literally “a lot”, often used like “very” with adjectives
- hodně trpělivá doktorka – a very patient doctor

velmi – more neutral/formal, common in writing
moc, hodně – more informal, everyday speech

Why is it just čekají and not čekají na something? I learned that čekat na means “to wait for”.

The verb čekat has two common uses:

čekat (without object) – to be in a state of waiting, to wait (in general)
- V nemocnici čekají. – They are waiting in the hospital.
- context doesn’t say what or who they are waiting for.
čekat na + accusative – to wait for someone/something
- V nemocnici čekají na pacienta. – They are waiting for the patient.
- Čekám na autobus. – I’m waiting for the bus.

In your sentence, we’re just describing the fact that they are waiting, without specifying the object, so čekají alone is correct.