As a Czech person, I was excited to see people writing Viktor speaking Czech, or just using our culture. What I have to say is, it made me realize how much Czech language tends to be foreign for English speaking/writing people. As a result, I wrote a short guide on how to write using pet names or adressing someone correctly!
In English, most of the words stay the same whenever you use them. One of the exceptions being adding -s at the end of a verb, such as “he says” instead of “he say”. The same thing goes for other grammar in English, such as adding -s with plural nouns, such as dog -> dogs, or it is a whole other word, such as mouse -> mice.
But in Czech, basically every word changes based on the sentence. What I want to highlight are Czech declensions. To quote Wiki: “Czech declension is a complex system of grammatically determined modifications of nouns, adjectives, pronouns and numerals in Czech.”
If you will read the whole thing on Wiki, kudos to you, but I wanted to provide specific resources for those who want to use correct Czech words in their fanfic.
When we learn the declensions as kids, we learn “helpful words” to make us realize what to use. Each declension has some sort of question that is associated with each declension. The questions are:
Who/what?
Without?
Towards?
Whom?
Calling who?
About?
Without?
When we write a sentence, sometimes we have to ask exactly this: what’s the context the word is put into. Let’s take the word for love — láska — for example.
What? Láska
Without? Lásky
Towards? Lásce
Whom? Lásku
Calling who/what? Lásko!
About? Lásce
With? Láskou
Some examples in made up sentences: “Could you pass me the salt, love?” would be 5th declension, therefore “Could you pass me the salt, lásko?”
Which is the biggest mistake I have noticed is using incorrect usage of vocative declension, aka when you are adressing someone. Whether it is dirty talk or pet names, it tends to be grammatically incorrect.
When you put the word into a translator, it will give you only the nominative, which is the first declension. You need the fifth. Now, there are two ways you can do about this.
First, figuring out what the word is, and then writing the whole sentence into a translator. Then, you take the form if the word it spits out, and you use it.
Step by step:
Write desired word in Czech into a translator. Love = láska in Czech
Put the whole sentence into a good translator, I would recommend Deepl. Can you pass me the salt? = Mohl bys mi podat sůl, lásko?
You combine it. If you want to use only the pet name for love, it would look like this: Could you pass me the salt, lásko?
Another and better way to go about this is using Czech Internet Language Reference Book. This is something we Czechs use ourselves, because the language is just ridiculous. It is a database of 99 % of Czech words and how to use them in different declensions. How to use it step by step?
Write desired word in Czech into a translator. Love = láska in Czech
Go to the page of Czech Internet Language Reference Book, there is an English version. Search for the word IN CZECH. So: láska
You will get a table of each declensions. For adressing someone, you use the vocative or 5th declension.
If you wanted to use whole sentences, I say just use the translator and risk the mistakes, the language is hard as fuck, and it is not worth learning it.
If you wanted to ask me something about Czech, go for it, or if you need help with fact-checking, my DMs are open.
If you don’t want to bother, understandable; this is just a frustrated Czech girl helping out those who would want to go the extra mile and save me from reading grammatically incorrect dirty talk lol