See, with Czech cases, you look at the entire sentence as a whole. You take chunks of the sentence and see how they fit together to make the entire sentence. And that is how you determine which case they are in.
It's actually a thousand times easier than I previously thought. You look at the sentence, and you ask yourself these questions:
1. Nominative Case: Who or what is doing the action?
2. Genitive Case: Without whom or what? If you can potentially take something away from someone, it's genitive.
3. Dative Case: To whom or what is the action happening? This is for indirect objects. "To whom do I give this?"
4. Accusative Case: Who or what is the action doing? "What do I see?"
5. Vocative Case: Who am I calling? This case is the easiest (by far) to remember.
6. Locative Case: About whom or what?
7. Instrumental Case: With whom or what?
So here's my attempt to show you with an example in English, using a text I think is really interesting from the Frenštát tourist bureau website:
Exposition VII: The shuttle sings
From the 17th century on (when? Locative), most of the inhabitants of the poor little town of Frenštát (this whole thing is the subject, so nominative) at the foot of the mountains (where? Locative) and from the surrounding area (where? Locative) made their living (what did they make? Accusative) from weaving (how did they make it? With what did they make their living? Instrumental). The establishment of the weaver’s guild (who is doing the action? Nominative), which was one of the first and oldest (still nominative) in the town (where? locative), is documented in the „Memorial Registry of the honest weaver’s guild in the town of Frenštát (where? locative)“ from 1598 with the guild’s insignia of three weaver‘s shuttles (with whom or what? Instrumental). Work (nominative) on the weaver’s loom (where? probably dative here depending on the preposition in Czech) was often the only source of income (what was it? accusative) for a weaver (for whom? Dative) in the town (about whom? Locative).
The exposition (nominative) endeavors to aquaint the visitor (accusative) with the work procedure for domestic production (instrumental) on the various looms (locative), including the products manufactured (instrumental).
Let's see how I did:
Tkalcovství již od 17. století přinášelo obživu většině obyvatel chudého podhorského městečka Frenštátu a jeho okolí. Tkalcovský cech byl jedním z prvních a nejstarších ve městě. Písemným dokladem jsou „Rejstra památní poctivého cechu tkadlcovského v městečku Frankštatu“ z r. 1598 s cechovním znakem ze tří člunků, tvořících rovnostranný trojúhelník. Patron cechu tkalcovského sv. Severin je vyobrazen na cechovním praporu, který se dochoval dodnes.
Důležitou plodinou a surovinou pro výrobu tkanin byl len. Vlákno získané ze lnu bylo předením pomocí vřetena, později pak kolovratu, zpracováno ve vlákno. Později pronikla na trh bavlna a bavlněné výrobky. Zájem o ně byl tak velký, že plátenictví začalo pomalu zanikat. Proto tkalcovští mistři postupně přecházeli na výrobu bavlněné tkaniny „mušelínu“. V 17. a 18 století se tkaly na jednodušších stavech plátenických textilie hladké i vzorované ve všech základních vazbách. Na výrobu proslulého textilu se složitějšími vzory potřebovali frenštátští mistři stavy s jacquardovým strojem „lionky“. Téměř v každé domácnosti stával u okna tkalcovský stav. Přestože tkalci i s rodinami pracovali od rána do noci, mohli si za svůj plat dovolit jen málo.
Ugh. Well, the text was not translated exactly (I'm not sure if that is even possible). Also, AS USUAL, the text in Czech is much richer and more interesting, and it is only abbreviated in English. I HATE NOT BEING ABLE TO READ THIS. It is really frustrating! I want to know about the lions and the equilateral triangle!
Tak, musím se učit česky.
I thought at the beginning of this post that I was going to set off to prove that I know something about Czech cases. Instead, I gave a pretty poor (and probably error ridden) example, but ended up strengthening my already very solid resolve to learn Czech.
