Masculine animate plural past participle

Formation: Add -i to the masculine singular form (e.g., pracoval → pracovali). If the singular drops the -l in casual speech (e.g., mohl → moh), the plural always retains it (mohli).

The Priority Rule: As a general rule, if a compound subject contains even one masculine animate noun (e.g., Petr a Jana), the verb takes the masculine animate -i. Conversely, if a mixed compound subject does not contain a masculine animate noun (e.g., feminine + masculine inanimate), the default ending is -y. Exclusively masculine inanimate subjects (e.g., stromy, stroje) also take -y. If the subject is exclusively neuter plural (e.g., auta), the ending is -a. However, if a compound subject consists of neuter nouns where at least one is singular (e.g., kotě a štěně), the default ending is -y. If the verb comes before a compound subject, Czech grammar allows the verb to agree with the closest noun (e.g., Do třídy vešly dívky a chlapci. - The girls and boys entered the classroom.). This rule also applies to the pronouns my (we) and vy (you plural): they take -i if the group includes at least one masculine animate entity, but -y if the group does not contain any masculine animate entities (e.g., exclusively female). Note that if a pronoun is followed by a noun in apposition, the verb agreement is strictly governed by the grammatical gender of that noun, regardless of the natural gender of the people in the group (e.g., My, děti, jsme si hrály - We children played, because děti is feminine plural). Additionally, a singular subject joined by s + instrumental (e.g., Otec se synem) takes -i if a masculine animate noun is involved and the action is treated as plural (e.g., Otec se synem přišli - The father and son arrived). Note that when addressing a single person formally, the past participle remains singular and matches their natural gender (e.g., Vy jste pracoval/a - You worked).

Unspecified Subjects: When the subject is a general or unspecified 'they' (e.g., Říkali to v rádiu - They said it on the radio), the verb always takes the masculine animate -i by default.

Grammatical Animacy: This rule applies to grammatically animate nouns, including animals (psi) and certain objects (sněhuláci). Also, remember that masculine animate nouns ending in -a (e.g., turista, kolega, předseda) look feminine in the singular but are masculine animate, so they take -i in the plural (e.g., Turisté přijeli. - The tourists arrived.). Watch out for nouns like lidé (people), rodiče (parents), and koně (horses), which are grammatically masculine animate despite their unusual endings. Note that koně only takes -i for living animals; inanimate horse-shaped objects (like vaulting horses) take -y. Furthermore, some nouns have dual animacy where the plural suffix itself dictates the animacy and verb agreement (e.g., animate ledoborci pluli vs. inanimate ledoborce pluly, or ukazatelé vs. ukazatele). A similar nuance applies to the word for days: the standard plurals dny and dni take the inanimate -y, while the archaic or poetic form dnové takes the animate -i. Also, be careful with dítě (child), oko (eye), and ucho (ear)—they are neuter in the singular, but become grammatically feminine in the plural (děti, oči, uši) and take -y. Conversely, words representing groups of people (like davy, národy, zástupy) are grammatically masculine inanimate and therefore take -y (e.g., Davy lidí jásaly. - Crowds of people cheered.). Furthermore, when using quantifiers like tisíce (thousands) or miliony (millions) as subjects (e.g., tisíce lidí), the verb must agree with the inanimate quantifier and take -y (e.g., Tisíce lidí přišly - Thousands of people came).

Pronunciation and Register: In Standard Czech, -li and -ly are pronounced exactly the same ([lɪ]), making this a notorious spelling challenge. Because they sound identical, in casual spoken Czech (Common Czech), the distinction between -i, -y, and -a completely disappears in pronunciation, with all plural subjects taking an 'i' sound (e.g., dropping the neuter plural -a in favor of [lɪ]). For more on the overall system, see past-tense plural gender endings.