dva / tři / čtyři + Masculine Animate Noun

In Czech, counting masculine animate nouns (mostly people and animals, but also grammatically animate objects like sněhuláci - snowmen, or draci - kites) with 2, 3, 4, or oba (both) requires specific agreement rules.

1. Nominative vs. Accusative:
Unlike numbers 5+, which force the noun into the genitive plural, 2-4 agree with the noun in case. If the phrase is the subject (Nominative), the noun takes the nominative plural (e.g., dva kluci - two boys). If it is the direct object (Accusative), the noun takes the accusative plural (e.g., vidím dva kluky - I see two boys), while the numeral remains dva/tři/čtyři/oba. This contrasts with the number 1, which fully declines like an adjective and takes a specific masculine animate accusative ending (e.g., vidím jednoho kluka - I see one boy).

2. Adjective Mutations and Possessives:
In the nominative plural, adjectives modifying masculine animate nouns take the soft ending -í. For hard adjectives, this triggers mandatory consonant mutations (e.g., dobrý → dobří - good, velký → velcí - big). Possessive adjectives also change (e.g., můj → moji/mí - my). In contrast, in the accusative case, hard adjectives take the standard -é ending without mutations (e.g., vidím dva dobré kluky - I see two good boys), soft adjectives retain the -í ending (e.g., vidím dva cizí kluky - I see two foreign boys), and possessives take their standard non-mutated accusative forms (e.g., vidím tvoje dva kluky - I see your two boys).

3. Verb Agreement:
When a masculine animate phrase with 2-4 is the subject, past-tense verbs must take the masculine animate plural ending -i (e.g., dva psi štěkali - two dogs were barking). This contrasts with Genitive plural after five and higher numerals, where the numeral phrase as a whole acts as the subject and requires a neuter singular verb.

4. Oblique Cases:
In other cases (Genitive, Dative, Locative, Instrumental), the numeral and the noun decline together into the required case. Note that dva and oba use historical dual endings (e.g., dvou/obou, dvěma/oběma) rather than standard plural endings (e.g., Instrumental: se dvěma muži - with two men, Locative: o třech psech - about three dogs). For tři and čtyři, they change in oblique cases: Dative is třem/čtyřem and Locative is třech/čtyřech. For the Genitive case, the forms třech/čtyřech are officially codified as standard and widely used, while tří/čtyř are more formal or bookish. In the Instrumental case, the formal standard forms are třemi/čtyřmi, but spoken Czech heavily uses the colloquial třema/čtyřma. Additionally, when used with paired body parts in the Instrumental case, tři and čtyři strictly take the special dual ending -ma (e.g., pes se třema nohama - a dog with three legs, mezi čtyřma očima - face to face).

5. Compound Numerals:
For multi-word compound numerals ending in 2, 3, or 4 (e.g., 22, 34), the genitive plural pattern is the overwhelming modern standard (e.g., dvacet dva kluků - twenty-two boys). Using the nominative plural agreement (e.g., dvacet dva kluci) is considered bookish and archaic. Crucially, this choice affects verb agreement: the nominative plural pattern requires a masculine animate plural verb (e.g., dvacet dva kluci hráli), while the genitive plural pattern requires a neuter singular verb (e.g., dvacet dva kluků hrálo). Furthermore, one-word compound numerals (e.g., dvaadvacet, čtyřiatřicet) are extremely common in spoken Czech and strictly require the genitive plural and neuter singular verb agreement, never taking the 2-4 nominative plural pattern.