Pro mě je kytara zajímavější než televize.

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Questions & Answers about Pro mě je kytara zajímavější než televize.

Why does the sentence start with Pro mě? Could I just say Kytara je zajímavější než televize?

Yes, you can say Kytara je zajímavější než televize. That’s a perfectly correct sentence: “The guitar is more interesting than television.”

Adding Pro mě (For me / To me) makes the sentence explicitly subjective:

  • Kytara je zajímavější než televize.
    = Guitar is more interesting than TV (a general statement).

  • Pro mě je kytara zajímavější než televize.
    = For me personally, the guitar is more interesting than TV.

So Pro mě is not grammatically necessary, but it adds the nuance “in my opinion / speaking for myself.”

Why is it and not mně after pro?

Because of case.

  • pro always takes the accusative case.
  • The pronoun (I) has:
    • mě / mne in the accusative and genitive
    • mně in the dative and locative

So:

  • pro + accusative → pro mě / pro mne
  • pro mně is grammatically wrong (though you will hear it in everyday speech).

You might also see pro mne. That’s a slightly more formal or careful variant of pro mě, but the meaning is the same. In casual speech pro mě is by far the most common.

Can Pro mě go somewhere else in the sentence? How does word order change the emphasis?

Yes, you can move pro mě around. All of these are possible:

  1. Pro mě je kytara zajímavější než televize.
    Emphasis: “For me personally, the guitar is more interesting than TV.”

  2. Kytara je pro mě zajímavější než televize.
    Emphasis: neutral; you’re simply inserting “for me” into the middle.

  3. Kytara je zajímavější pro mě než televize.
    Possible, but sounds a bit clumsy; it suggests “it’s more interesting for me than it is for the TV,” which doesn’t really make sense. Better to keep pro mě near the beginning.

Czech word order is fairly flexible, but the default and most natural versions here are:

  • Pro mě je kytara zajímavější než televize.
  • Kytara je pro mě zajímavější než televize.

Starting with Pro mě strongly highlights that you’re giving your own perspective.

What is the base form of zajímavější and how is this comparative formed?

The base (positive) form is zajímavý = interesting.

The comparative zajímavější = more interesting is formed in a regular way:

  • zajímavýzajímavější

In general, many Czech adjectives form the comparative with -ější / -ější or -ší:

  • hezký (nice) → hezčí (nicer)
  • levný (cheap) → levnější (cheaper)
  • důležitý (important) → důležitější (more important)

The superlative adds nej-:

  • zajímavýzajímavější (more interesting) → nejzajímavější (the most interesting)

In the sentence, zajímavější functions as a predicate adjective (“is more interesting”) and agrees in gender/number with kytara, but in the nominative singular the form zajímavější looks the same for masculine, feminine, and neuter, so you don’t see any visible change.

Why is it než televize and not jako televize?

Because you are expressing a difference, not equality.

  • než = than (used with comparatives like “bigger than,” “more interesting than”)
  • jako = as / like (used for equality: “as big as,” “the same as”)

So:

  • zajímavější než televize = more interesting than television
  • tak zajímavá jako televize = as interesting as television

Examples:

  • Je vyšší než já. – He is taller than me.
  • Je tak vysoký jako já. – He is as tall as me.

In your sentence you clearly have a comparative (zajímavější), so you must use než.

What case is televize in here, and why? Could it be televizi?

In Pro mě je kytara zajímavější než televize, televize is in the nominative case.

The structure is:

  • kytara (subject, nominative)
  • je (is)
  • zajímavější než televize (predicate with comparison)
  • The thing you compare it to (TV) is treated like another “would‑be subject,” so it also appears in nominative: než televize.

You might sometimes hear forms like než televizi, where speakers use the accusative after než, especially with pronouns (e.g. než mě). However:

  • The standard and safest choice with the verb být (to be) is to use the same case as the subject → nominative.
  • So here, než televize is the grammatically preferred form.
Why isn’t there any word for “the” or “a” before kytara and televize?

Czech does not have articles (a / an / the). Nouns appear without them:

  • kytara → “a guitar” or “the guitar,” depending on context.
  • televize → “TV,” “the TV,” or “television” in general.

So:

  • Pro mě je kytara zajímavější než televize.
    can be translated as:
    • “For me, the guitar is more interesting than the TV.”
    • “For me, a guitar is more interesting than TV (in general).”
    • “For me, guitar is more interesting than watching television.”

English must choose an article; Czech leaves that to context.

Is zajímavější more like “I like it more” or “it is objectively more interesting”? Could I use mám raději instead?

zajímavější literally means “more interesting” – it describes a property of the thing:

  • Kytara je zajímavější než televize.
    = The guitar is more interesting than television (at least from my point of view).

If you want to focus more on preference / liking, you can say:

  • Mám raději kytaru než televizi.
    = I prefer guitar to television / I like the guitar more than TV.

Or use líbí se mi:

  • Kytara se mi líbí víc než televize.
    = I like the guitar more than TV.

Your original sentence is about how interesting the guitar is compared to TV, which often overlaps with preference, but grammatically it’s describing a quality (interestingness), not directly your feelings.

What exactly does televize mean here — the physical TV set, or watching TV?

Televize can mean both the device and television as a medium / activity, and context decides:

  • Zapni televizi. – Turn on the TV (device).
  • Nedívám se na televizi. – I don’t watch TV (the medium/activity).

In Pro mě je kytara zajímavější než televize, most listeners will understand it more broadly as:

  • “For me, the guitar is more interesting than TV / watching TV,”

not just “the physical box.” But the sentence itself doesn’t force one meaning; it’s context-dependent.

How do you pronounce Pro mě je kytara zajímavější než televize and where is the stress?

In Czech, stress is almost always on the first syllable of each word. A rough pronunciation guide (slashes just separate words):

  • Pro – [pro] (like “pro” in “problem”)
  • – [mɲɛ] (like “m-nyeh”; the is one syllable)
  • je – [jɛ] (like “yeh”)
  • kytara – [ˈkɪtara] (stress on ky-)
  • zajímavější – [ˈzai̯iːmavjɛʃiː] (stress on za-; long í at the ends)
  • než – [nɛʒ] (like “nezh”; final sound like French “j” in “Jean”)
  • televize – [ˈtɛlevɪzɛ] (stress on te-)

So rhythmically:

  • PRO mě | JE KYtara | ZA‑jí‑MA‑věj‑ší | NEŽ TE‑le‑VI‑ze

Each content word gets stress on its first syllable; function words like je are usually unstressed or weakly stressed in connected speech.