Czech grammar: “svůj” or “jeho”
Both of these words - or variations of them, because they change according to grammatical gender, number or case - are very common in Czech. If you look at almost any text, you will see them all the time. The difference can be confusing, so let’s have a look:
“Jeho” means “his”, and is a possessive pronoun. Possessive pronouns are words like “my” or “his”, and they are used to indicate ownership. “My house”, “his car”, etc.
“Svůj” is a reflexive pronoun. Typically, if you look for a translation, it can also end up translated as “his”, just like above. However, it only refers to something that belongs to oneself, so the more correct translation would be “his own”.
Let’s look at this some more.
In English you can say this:
He is driving his car.
This may either mean that he is driving his own car, or a car belonging to another guy. To avoid the ambiguity, you’d have to reword the sentence, or at least insert the word “own” if you mean that.
In Czech, this difference is expressed by a change of pronoun:
Řídí jeho auto - He is driving his (=someone else’s) car. Řídí svoje auto = He is driving his own car.
Also, if you are talking about yourself, it seems logical that you should be able to say both “Řídím moje auto” and “Řídím svoje auto”, because there’s no ambiguity as long as there’s no possible second person involved.
BUT: Watch out! There is a rule that says reflexive pronouns are to be used if it’s possible to use them, so the correct solution is only Řídím svoje auto. However, Czechs still use the other solution with moje as well, but it seems to be a more colloquial form.
